How Did The Chinese Exclusion Act Influence The Racial Makeup And Race Relations In New York City's Five Points District In The Second Half Of The 19th Century?

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How did the Chinese Exclusion Act influence the racial makeup and race relations in New York City's Five Points district in the second half of the 19th century?

How did the Chinese Exclusion Act influence the racial makeup and race relations in New York City's Five Points district in the second half of the 19th century?

Between the years of 1860 and 1960, there was a massive income of immigrants to the United States. These immigrants we a huge chunk of the labor population and there fore were the backbones of our labor supply. We surely owe them many thanks because they helped to build the U.S. we are in today. Immigrants come to America to get every kind of freedom and have a job so they can make more money to pursue a better life. But after the depression of 1873, unemployment mounted on the West coast and native-born workers found it necessary to limit the number of immigrants to create available job positions at wages that allow them continue to feed their family.

Life was tough in China during the mid 19th century. People did not have enough food or money, and cities were overpopulated. Young Chinese men heard about opportunities for work in the United States such as farming, gold mining and railroad work. They believed it would be a great place to start over again. Young Chinese men came to this country with great hopes of making money, and sending it back to their families, and eventually returning to their homeland.

Things proved to be different when they arrived and started working in the United States. I can imagine how horrible life was for Chinese immigrant workers at the time. As a group, they made up a large proportion of the Railroad workers. They were forced to work on the most difficult parts of the railroad. Their work day was extremely long. Their living conditions were inadequate; no protection was provided against bad weather or frequent avalanches.

As more Chinese stayed in this country, laws such as Foreign Miner's Tax and Exclusion Act were made to make life more difficult for these workers so that they could not bring their families to America. I believe they decided to stay in the United States because they still had families waiting for their help back in China. Thus, they wanted to show the United States that they could do something to make it better. Their experiences help me understand that Chinese immigrants are some of the strongest, most resilient and proudest people in the world.

The Burlingame Treaty of 1868 stated that Chinese People had the right to come to migrate to America for any particular reason. Most of the Chinese decided to come to America because they were hoping to share all the opportunities that America had to offer. It was all well and accepted by Americans for Chinese People to immigrate to America because they were willing to take the hardest and the least attractive jobs. But due to the depression in 1873, ...
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