Asian American Studies: The Anti-Chinese Movement

This is a work in progress. I might be doing a reading/study group to learn about the anti-Chinese Movement of the 1800s.

I’m interested in this topic because it shows signs of a “horseshoe theory” where left and right merge; however, as noted in online debates, the horseshoe theory is false, because it ignores the position of workers of color, who end up scapegoated and oppressed, and their labor used to prop up some of the white workers.

At this time, I’m reading the following:

Sandemeyer, Elmer, The Anti-Chinese Movement (also Archive)

Yu, Connie Yung, Review of The Indispensable Enemy by Saxton

Carlsson, Chris, The Workingmen’s Party & The Denis Kearney Agitation

Lew-Williams, Beth, The Chinese Must Go (Audiobook)

Ngai, Mae, The Chinese Question (Audiobook)

Baldwin, S.L., Must the Chinese Go?

Planning to read:

Saxton, The Indispensible Enemy

Some Reasons for Chinese Exclusion: Meat Vs. Rice, American Manhood Against Asiatic Coolieism

Images and Video

PBS Learning Media, The Chinese Exclusion Act (Video)

YearChinaChinese in the US
and other US History
Other Asians in the USAsians Elsewhere
1822British start growing tea in Assam, India
1833Slavery abolished in England, coolie labor trade starts with workers from India and China
1842First Opium War
Hong Kong ceded to British Empire
Britain farms opium in India to export to HK
Start of The Century of Humiliation
1848Mexican-American War Ends, California Annexed
Gold discovered in California
Chinese migration to California starts
British attempts to steal Chinese tea varieties to grow in India begin
1849California becomes a StatePunjab annexed by British Empire
1850Foreign Miners Tax
1851Sam Yap Company benevolent association founded in SF
1852Bigler’s anti-Chinese Speech to the Assembly
1853Bulk of Chinese migration to Caribbean from 1853 to 1866, via British Empire
1854Perry forces open trade with Japan with “gunboat diplomacy”
1856Second Opium War
1860US Civil War starts
1862Leland Stanford Governor
1863Transcontinental Railroad started
Emancipation Proclimation ends slavery in US
1865US Civil War ends, Reconstruction begins
1868Burlingame TreatyTokugawa Shogunate overthrown, Meiji Restoration begin period of westernization in Japan
1869Transcontinental Railroad completed (many now out of work)
1871Los Angeles Chinatown Massacre
1873Long Depression (until 1879 or 1899)
1875Page Act
1876Japan forces open trade with Korea with “gunboat diplomacy”
1877Workingmans Party of California formed
18801880s Plantation Life in Hawaii early Japanese migrants to Hawaii
1882Chinese Exclusion Act
1885Rock Springs Massacre
1892First Sino-Japanese WarGeary Act (2nd Chinese Exclusion Act)
1894Sun Yat Sen founds the Revive China Society in Honolulu
1895Chinese American Citizens Alliance founded
1898Wong Kim Ark caseAnnexation of Hawaii by US
Limited migration from Philippines starts
Spanish-American War
Philippine-American War starts
1899Boxer RebellionFirst Sikhs from Punjab arrive in California
1902First Korean laborers go to Hawaii
1905Japanese and Korean Exclusion League formedRusso-Japanese War ends
19071907 Gentleman’s Agreement
1909NAACP founded
1910Japan Annexes Korea, migration to US stops
19111911 Xinhai Revolution, Qing Dynasty overthrown
1913Ghadar Party formedAfter fall of Qing, Tibet asserts independence
1912Taisho Democracy in Japan
1919May Fourth MovementKorean March First Movement for independence