Discrimination against Chinese immigrants Chinese immigration started from the
California Gold Rush in the 1840s when many Chinese immigrants hailed from South China to California to try their luck. Most Chinese immigrants were young males with poor financial backgrounds working on mining and railroad constructions. Chinese immigrants were seen as a threat to the white-dominated labor market due to their strong motivations to work. Protest, violence, and harassment toward Chinese immigrants intensified in 1850, and Chinese workers were subsequently excluded from white-dominated unions. The conflicts between Chinese and whites were at their peak in the 1870s, when Chinese workers were seen as the primary reasons behind massive layoffs and poor economic conditions in California. Hundreds of anti-Chinese riots and protests broke out in the 1870s, and such sentiments of hatred led to legal discrimination against Chinese immigrants extending throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century. Starting from 1870, state and local law placed a myriad of social and economic restrictions on Chinese immigrants. The
Page Act of 1875 was the first restrictive federal immigration law that effectively prohibited Chinese women from entering the United States. In May 1882, the United States Congress passed the
Chinese Exclusion Act, banning all immigration from China and barring all Chinese immigrants from naturalization. In 1891, California explicitly enacted the state law: "The coming of Chinese person into the States, whether subjects of the Chinese Empire or otherwise, is prohibited." During the progressive era, the politicians of both the Democratic and Republican parties supported the Chinese Exclusion Act. In 1943, Congress repealed the exclusion laws and permitted 105 Chinese to enter each year. It was not until 1965 when all restrictions of entry were lifted.
State legislation The legislation in the State of California prompted tremendous changes in the education policies toward minority students from 1850 to 1880.
Prior to 1855 The earliest law establishing public education ("Common Schools") in California was passed in 1851 and divided state funding "by the whole number of children in the State, between the ages of five and eighteen years" without specifying race (Article II, §1). It was repealed and replaced by an 1852 law which also lacked racial restrictions.
From 1855 to 1866 Growing
anti-Chinese sentiments accelerates the changes of racial restrictions in law. The superseding 1855 Act to establish Common Schools counted only "the number of white children in each county between the ages of four and eighteen years" (§3, 12, 18) and allowed the establishment of a school upon "the petition of fifty heads of white families" (§22). In 1860, California amended the 1855 law to bar "Negroes, Mongolians, and Indians" from public schools, and granted the
California State Superintendent of Public Instruction, then Andrew J. Moulder, the authority to withhold state funds from districts violating the amended code. The legislation allowed the establishment of segregated schools (§8). The establishment of segregated schools was reiterated in the 1863 law (§68), when the term "Common Schools" was replaced by "Public Schools" and reinforced in 1864, when a requirement was added that a petition by the guardians of "ten or more colored children" was needed to establish a segregated school (§13).
From 1866 to 1880 In 1866, the law was rewritten specifically to restrict enrollment in public schools to "all white children, between five and twenty-one years of age" (§53), and required that "children of African or Mongolian descent, and Indian children not living under the care of white persons" be educated in segregated schools (§57), with an exception made for the enrollment of "half-breed Indian children, and Indian children who live in white families or under guardianship of white persons" into public schools upon a majority vote of the local school board (§56). As a last resort, the education of "children, other than white children" was permitted in public schools "
provided, that a majority of the parents of the children attending such school make no objection, in writing" if there was no other means of educating them (§58). The law now required
separate but equal schools (§59). When the law was rewritten in 1870, the restriction of students to white children was retained (§53), and segregated schools were only provided for "children of African descent, and Indian children" (§56), dropping the requirement to educate Chinese children entirely. The potential exceptions for the enrollment of Indian children living with white families or with the written consent of a majority of other parents also disappeared. The separate but equal clause survived (§57). In 1880, the
Political Code was modified to lift the restriction of enrollment to white students (§1662) and the sections requiring separate but equal (§1671) segregated schools (§1669) were repealed.
Chinese school Targeted by the restrictive education law, Chinese immigrants found
private schools to educate their children. Some Chinese immigrants started the Chinese Language School, which enabled immigrants to teach Chinese to the next generation. Other children of immigrants were educated in religious schools and, as a result, were Christianized. Many parents wrote a letter to the education board, expressing the need to establish a Chinese School for all Chinese immigrants in San Francisco. The opening of the new
Chinese school in Chinatown was not until September 1859, as the education board of San Francisco attributed the delay to lack of funding. The Chinese school operates as a day school for only nine months due to the low attendance rate. One reason for the low attendance rate is the Chinese lost control over the school administration. ==Incident==