The history of Chinese Americans or the history of ethnic Chinese in the United States includes three major waves of Chinese immigration to the United States, beginning in the 19th century.
Chinese immigrants in the 19th century worked in the California Gold Rush of the s and the Central Pacific Railroad in the s. They also worked as laborers in Western mines.
They suffered racial discrimination at every level of White society. Many Americans were stirred to anger by the " Yellow Peril " rhetoric. Despite provisions for equal treatment of Chinese immigrants in the Burlingame Treaty between the U. Newspapers condemned employers who were initially pro-Chinese. When clergy ministering to the Chinese immigrants in California supported the Chinese, they were severely criticized by the local press and populace.
Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act prohibiting immigration from China for the following ten years. This law was then extended by the Geary Act in The Chinese Exclusion Act was the only U. Anti-miscegenation laws in many Western states also prohibited the Chinese men from marrying white women.
For example, the tenth U. In , the law barred further entries of Chinese. Those already in the United States had been ineligible for citizenship since the previous year. Also by , all Asian immigrants except people from the Philippines , which had been annexed by the United States in were utterly excluded by law, denied citizenship and naturalization , and prevented from owning land.
