The Chinese arriving in San Francisco, primarily from the Taishan and Zhongshan regions as well as Guangdong province of mainland China, did so at the height of the California Gold Rush, and many worked in the mines scattered throughout the northern part of the state. Chinatown was the one geographical region deeded by the city government and private property owners, which allowed Chinese people to inherit and inhabit dwellings. The majority of these Chinese shopkeepers, restaurant owners and hired workers in San Francisco's Chinatown were predominantly Hoisanese and male . Many Chinese found jobs working for large companies, most famously as part of the
Central Pacific on the
Transcontinental Railroad. Other early immigrants worked as mine workers or independent prospectors hoping to strike it rich during the
California gold rush. Though many of the earlier waves of Chinese immigration were predominantly men searching for jobs, Chinese women also began making the journey to the United States. The first known Chinese woman to immigrate was Marie Seise, who arrived in 1848 and worked in the household of Charles V. Gillespie. Within a matter of months of her arrival to the West Coast, the rush for gold in California commenced and brought a flood of prospective miners from around the globe. Among this group were Chinese, primarily from Guangdong Province, most of whom were seafarers with previous Western contacts. "Few women accompanied these early sojourners, many of whom expected to return from after they made their fortune." The sea voyage to the United States offered new and exciting opportunities, but danger also loomed for women while traveling. Many were discouraged from making the trip due to the harsh living conditions. Oceanic voyages with Chinese immigrants boarded the
Pacific Mail Steamship Company and
Canadian Pacific Steamship Company. Chinese immigrants had to ride in the steerage where food was stored, and many received rice bowls to eat during the voyage. In 1892, a federal law passed to ensure that immigrants who were on board had a certificate. Due to tight arrangements, unhygienic situations and scarcity in food, this led to health degradation. Many immigrants were unable to board these voyages due to the
Geary Act of 1892, which blocked the reunion of immigrants in America with their families not with them. Many diseases found through these voyages were hookworm
Yersinia pestis, which contributed greatly to
bubonic plague. Once they arrived in San Francisco, their immigration paperwork was processed at an immigration station at the
Oriental Warehouse, and after 1910 at the
Angel Island Immigration Station. "During the Gold Rush era, when Chinese men were a common sight in California, Chinese women were an oddity," and were rarely seen in public in urban spaces. Unlike rural areas, Chinatown afforded few opportunities for women to come into contact with the larger society.” With national unemployment in the wake of the
Panic of 1873, racial tensions in the city boiled over into full-blown race riots, during which Chinese residents and their businesses were targeted by mobs. Growing anti-Chinese sentiment led to the rise of the
Workingmen's Party, which gained increased political power in San Francisco by championing anti-Chinese legislation. During the 1870s and 80s, there was a rise in criminal activity among Chinese gangs known as
tongs, raising the incidence of smuggling, gambling and prostitution within the city. By the early 1880s, the population adopted the term "tong war" to describe periods of violence in Chinatown. In response, the
San Francisco Police Department set up the Chinatown Squad, a unit for patrolling the city. In response to the violence, the Consolidated Chinese Benevolent Association, or the
Chinese Six Companies, which evolved out of labor recruiting organizations for areas of Guangdong Province, was created to offer a unified voice for the community. The heads of these companies were the leaders of the Chinese merchants, who represented the Chinese community in front of the business community as a whole and the city government. Numerous white citizens defended the Chinese community, among them the Rev.
Franklin Rhoda, whose numerous letters appeared in the local press. Anti-immigrant sentiment became law with the passage of the
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the first immigration restriction law aimed at a single ethnic group. After it expired, it was followed up by the
Geary Act, which extended the initial exclusion act for another decade and more restrictions. These laws greatly reduced the number of Chinese allowed into the country and the city, and in theory limited Chinese immigration to single men only. Exceptions were granted to the families of wealthy merchants, but the law was effective enough to reduce the population of the neighborhood to an all-time low in the 1920s. Chinatown suffered massive damage in the
1906 earthquake, though most casualties among Chinese went unrecorded. The earthquake resulted in the loss of birth records and other documentation, allowing many Chinese immigrants to falsely claim American citizenship. Following the earthquake, city leaders made plans to relocate Chinatown and free what they saw as valuable San Francisco real estate. From 1910-40, Chinese immigrants arrived in San Francisco through the
Angel Island immigration station. Though laws such as the Chinese Exclusion Act heavily restricted Chinese immigration, tens of thousands still entered the city as "
paper sons" or "paper daughters". To prevent illegal entry, potential immigrants were often subjected to prolonged interrogation on Angel Island, with some detained for months. The Exclusion Act was repealed during
World War II under the
Chinese Exclusion Repeal Act in recognition of China's important role as an ally in the war, though tight quotas remained. The Chinatown Squad was finally disbanded in August 1955 by police chief George Healey at the request of the influential daily
Chinese World, which called the unit an "affront to Americans of Chinese descent". In the 1960s, many working-class
Hong Kong Chinese immigrants began arriving in Chinatown in large numbers, and despite their status and professions in Hong Kong, they had to find low-paying employment at restaurants and garment factories in Chinatown because of limited English fluency. More
Cantonese-speaking immigrants from
Hong Kong and Guangdong gradually led to the replacement of the
Taishanese (Hoisanese) dialect with the standard Cantonese dialect. The
Golden Dragon massacre occurred in 1977. In the
Sunset District in western San Francisco, a demographic shift began in the late 1960s and accelerated from the 1980s as Asian
immigration to San Francisco surged. Much of the original and largely
Irish American population of Sunset
moved to other neighborhoods and outlying suburban areas, though a significant Irish American and
Irish minority remain in the neighborhood. Informal Chinatowns emerged on Irving Street between 19th and 26th avenues as well as on the commercial sections of Taraval Street and Noriega Street west of 19th Ave. About half of Sunset's residents are
Asian American, mostly of
Chinese birth and descent. The immigrants in Sunset were both
Mandarin- and
Cantonese-speaking. With the rise of the tech industry in
Silicon Valley, many immigrants from
Mainland China and
Taiwan moved to the
San Francisco Area. Many of them (particularly the
Mandarin-speaking group) reside in the South Area cities of
Cupertino,
Sunnyvale,
Santa Clara,
Palo Alto,
San Jose and
Fremont. ==Geography==