Chapter 20: Urbanization

Global Labor Circulation

In the late 1800s, capitalism and empire created massive flows of workers across continents. People moved:

• From rural areas to mines, plantations, railroads, and cities
• From colonized regions to imperial centers and frontier zones
• From areas of political upheaval to places with labor demand

This was a global system. Chinese workers went to Peru, Cuba, Southeast Asia, Australia, and North America. Indian workers went to East Africa, the Caribbean, and Fiji. This movement was structured by capitalism (need for cheap labor) and empire (ability to move subjects across borders).

China's Century of Revolution (1850-1949)

This period saw massive upheaval in China:

• Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864): Devastating civil war, ~20-30 million dead
• Opium Wars: British and European imperialism forced open Chinese ports
• Economic disruption: Traditional agriculture and trade collapsed in many regions
• Qing Dynasty decline: Weakening central government couldn't maintain order
• Republican Revolution (1911): Overthrow of imperial system

These crises pushed millions of Chinese to emigrate, seeking economic survival and safety.

Burlingame Treaty (1868)

A diplomatic agreement between the United States and China that:

• Encouraged free migration: Recognized the right of Chinese to emigrate to the U.S.
• Protected mutual trade: Opened economic relations
• Promised equal treatment: Chinese in the U.S. would get "most favored nation" status

Context: The U.S. wanted Chinese labor for railroad construction and Western development. China wanted to protect its emigrants and maintain trade.

Irony: Just 14 years later, the U.S. passed the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), directly violating the spirit of this treaty.

"Coolie Labor" — A Racialized Category

The term "coolie" originally referred to low-wage Asian laborers, but it quickly became a racist slur implying:

• Unfreedom: Coolies were portrayed as semi-enslaved, bound by exploitative contracts
• Degradation: Working alongside "coolies" was seen as lowering white workers to an inferior status
• Racial otherness: Coolies weren't just poor workers—they were racially unfit for American society

Reality vs. Stereotype: While some Chinese workers did come under exploitative labor contracts, most were free migrants seeking economic opportunity, just like European immigrants. But the "coolie" label stuck, making ALL Chinese workers seem like a threat to "free labor."

Key Scholar: Moon-Ho Jung in Coolies and Cane shows how "coolie labor" was invented as a racial category to justify exclusion.

Page Law (1875)

The first federal immigration law to restrict entry based on race and gender.

Official Purpose: Ban the importation of "immoral" women (prostitutes)

Actual Effect: Created bureaucratic barriers that prevented virtually ALL Chinese women from immigrating

How It Worked:

• Required women to undergo invasive interrogations in China and San Francisco
• Assumed ALL Chinese women were prostitutes unless proven otherwise
• Placed burden of proof on women to demonstrate "moral character"
• Created long delays and denials

Impact:

Between 1875-1882, Chinese female immigration dropped by 70%. Even wives of legal residents were denied entry.

Historical Significance: This was the FIRST federal law restricting immigration—7 years BEFORE the more famous Chinese Exclusion Act. It targeted women specifically to prevent Chinese families from forming in the U.S.

Page Law (1875)

See earlier slide for full details. This was the first federal immigration restriction, targeting Chinese women by presuming them to be prostitutes.

Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)

The first federal law to ban immigration based explicitly on race/nationality.

• Banned: Chinese laborers from entering the U.S. for 10 years
• Allowed: Only merchants, diplomats, students, and travelers (with strict documentation)
• Barred: Chinese from naturalization (becoming citizens)
• Extended: Renewed multiple times, made permanent in 1902, not repealed until 1943

Significance: This fundamentally changed American immigration policy from open to restrictive, from economic to racial. It established the principle that the U.S. could exclude people based on race.

Asiatic Barred Zone (1917)

Part of the Immigration Act of 1917, this law expanded exclusion from just Chinese to most of Asia.

The "Zone": Banned immigration from a geographic region including:

• India and South Asia
• Southeast Asia (Burma, Siam, Malay Peninsula)
• Parts of the Middle East (Arabia, Afghanistan)
• Pacific Islands

Japan and the Philippines were excluded from the zone (Japan due to diplomatic pressure, Philippines because it was a U.S. colony).

Impact: Effectively banned almost all Asian immigration except from Japan and the Philippines.

National Origins Act (1924)

Also called the Johnson-Reed Act, this created a comprehensive system of racial quotas.

• Quota system: Limited immigration from each country to 2% of that nationality present in the 1890 census
• Why 1890? To favor Northern/Western Europeans and restrict Southern/Eastern Europeans
• Asian exclusion: Banned ALL Asians (including Japanese) by creating category of "aliens ineligible for citizenship"
• No quotas for Americas: Latin American and Canadian immigration remained unrestricted (but still subject to bureaucratic barriers)

Effect: This remained the foundation of U.S. immigration law until 1965. It enshrined racial preferences: Northern Europeans favored, Southern/Eastern Europeans restricted, Asians banned, Africans nearly banned.

"Yellow Peril" Discourse

Definition: A body of ideas, images, and narratives that portrayed Asians (especially Chinese and later Japanese) as a racial threat to Western civilization.

Core Themes:

• Inscrutability: "You can never know what they're thinking" — portrayed as mysterious, devious, unreadable
• Unassimilability: "They will never become American" — culturally and racially incapable of adopting Western values
• Danger: Economic threat (job competition), moral threat (vice and disease), military threat (invasion)
• Mass: "The yellow horde" — overwhelming numbers that could swamp white civilization

Origins:

The term "Yellow Peril" (German: Gelbe Gefahr) gained prominence in the 1890s, popularized by Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany who feared rising Asian (especially Japanese) power. It reflected anxieties about:

• Japan's military modernization (defeated China 1895, Russia 1905)
• China's population size
• Competition for empire and markets in Asia
• Racial theories about "civilization" and "barbarism"

Ethnic Enclaves

Concentrated communities where immigrants lived, worked, and built institutions.

Chinatowns emerged in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, and other cities as spaces where:

• Chinese could find housing (often denied elsewhere)
• Chinese businesses could operate
• Cultural practices could be maintained
• Mutual support networks functioned

Not by choice: Enclaves were often responses to segregation and exclusion, not voluntary isolation. Chinese wanted to live in Chinatowns because they were unwelcome elsewhere.

"Paper Sons"

A strategy Chinese immigrants used to circumvent exclusion laws.

How It Worked:

The 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed birth records. Chinese men in the U.S. (especially those with citizenship) could claim that children were born to them in China. They would sell these "slots" to young Chinese men who wanted to immigrate.

The young men would memorize detailed information about their "paper father's" village, family, and life story. When they arrived at Angel Island (the West Coast immigration station), they were interrogated extensively. If their stories matched their "father's," they were admitted as citizens' sons—even though they weren't actually related.

Significance:

• Showed Chinese determination to reunite families despite exclusion
• Demonstrated sophisticated resistance to unjust laws
• Created complex "paper families" that lasted generations