After migrating to the "Gold Mountain," or San Francisco in the 1850s in search of fortunes and easily attained riches, Chinese immigrants found themselves working in grueling, low paying jobs in the gold mines and railroads. The work needed to complete the Transcontinental Railroad was put on the shoulders of these new Chinese immigrants, as they were generally smaller and thinner than indigenous people, and could fit into smaller areas to dynamite mountains. The work was incredibly dangerous and many times outright unjust, but the injustice did not stop at the physical labor, as the Supreme Court showed no mercy on these newly settled minorities.
In the lesser known trial known as People v. Hall, the local San Francisco court had convicted a man of murder. This was an ordinary occurrence on face, but what stood out about this case in particular, was that the victim was a Chinese miner, and the perpetrator was a white man. The initial decision resulted in the conviction and death sentence of the white man, named George Hall, but he attempted to appeal the decision and eventually took the case to Supreme Court. Consequently, the appeal was won, and Hall was freed from his conviction and sentence, but the reason for decision was purely based on the fact that the three witnesses testifying in court were, in fact, Chinese. The case and decision were described as "containing some of the most offensive racial rhetoric to be found in the annals of California appellate jurisprudence," and demonstrated the casual racism that still existed in the United States. It was a blatant statement that while the Chinese workers worked hard at building one of the nation's landmark achievements, fighting to survive in their "promised land," they were inferior and were less than whites on every level.
This decision eventually led to the creation of a KKK-like environment in the Chinese community, in which whites freely attacked Chinese workers, knowing that they would not suffer the consequences for their actions as long as only Chinese witnesses were around. The violence included but was not limited to beatings, lynchings, murders, and other abuses, leaving the Chinese powerless and speechless, unable to fight for their rights.
Works Cited:
http://meloukhia.net/2011/12/laying_some_history_on_you_people_v_hall/
https://www.cschs.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/2017-Newsletter-Spring-People-v.-Hall.pdf
http://www.cetel.org/1854_hall.html
Interesting post, Andrew! It's sad how a lot of Chinese immigrants suffered through that when they first came over to the "land of the free". While San Francisco was a popular choice for many Chinese immigrants, Los Angeles also received a small number of Chinese immigrants- the population was 172 in 1871. During the 1850s and 1860s, white opinion on them seemed to be neutral and attacks were few and in between. However, in 1870, popular Los Angeles news sources began running condemning editorials on Chinese immigrants. Hate against these immigrants would grow and grow until it culminated in the Chinese massacre of 1871, where 18 Chinese people were killed over a misunderstanding. This issue would still be forgotten, and many of the aggressors were left unpunished. Clearly, it wasn't only San Francisco that had a problem with their Chinese immigrants.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.lapl.org/collections-resources/blogs/lapl/chinese-massacre-1871
This is such a terrible occurrence in history. San Francisco was a place that a lot of Chinese immigrants migrated to after a defeat by Britain in the first Opium War, a series of natural catastrophes, famine, peasant uprisings, and rebellions in China. They were met with ambiguous feelings by Californians. The Mayor of San Francisco at the time, John W. Geary, invited the "China Boys" to a ceremony to acknowledge their work ethic. But as the American economy weakened, the Chinese labor force became a threat to mainstream society. So, cases such as People v. Hall perpetuated racial discrimination and repressive legislation that eventually drove the Chinese from the gold mines to a neighborhood in San Francisco that we now know as Chinatown.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.pbs.org/kqed/chinatown/resourceguide/story.html