California - A Pacific State with Links to China for 170 Years

California is a state which borders the Pacific and, as such, has historic links to Hawai’i, Japan, Australia, the Philippines and China. The Chinese immigration story is a fascinating one which began with the Gold Rush. It is a tale of dreamers from Asia and their success and heartbreak in California.

Gold Rush California

There are few records of Chinese in California prior to the Gold Rush, but with the news of gold in California, thousands of Chinese immigrated to the new state.  They were no different that others who came from America, Mexico, and Europe looking to get rich and return to their homelands. California was called “Gold Mountain”  (Gum Shan) by the Chinese. By 1852 they were 10% of the non-Indian population, about 25,000.

They often met hostility from the other miners in gold country because of their foreign appearance, language, clothing and religion. A foreign miner’s tax was enacted to try to discourage them which at one point amounted to on week’s earning each year and brought in one-quarter of the state’s entire revenue in the 1850s. (see the foreign miner’s license in the Gold Rush case).  Hard workers, they were accused of taking jobs from Americans because they were willing to work for lower wages.

The Transcontinental Railroad

It was in the building of the transcontinental railroad where they made their most memorable impact. Charles Crocker was desperate for workers on the railroad since many of the men he hired would work one or two weeks, get paid and move on to the mines or agricultural work which was not as demanding.  He turned to Chinese workers in early 1865; in the 1860 census there were already 35,000 Chinese in California.

When told that the Chinese were too small and unlikely to be strong enough for the task of railroad building, Crocker cited the Great Wall as an example of what Chinese could accomplish. He used contractors to recruit them in state and in China.  China at the time was suffering famines and political upheavals and recruitment was successful, primarily from southern China’s Quangdon Province. Estimates of Chinese Central Pacific railroad construction employees ranged as high as 12,000 men .

Called by some “Crocker’s pets”, these men were dedicated workers. They braved bitterly cold winters, landslides, tunnel-living and dangerous explosives. There were a number of treacherous sections in the Sierras. They worked side by side with Irish workers at first and were an estimated 75% of the workers initially, rising to 90% by the time the tracks were completed. The Chinese laborers were paid less than the Irish and had to pay for their own board and food (unlike the Irish). The one strike they attempted was so civilized that it was easily squelched by Crocker.

The transcontinental railroad was finished in 1869, exactly 100 years after the Spanish first invaded Alta California bringing the first missions and presidios.  A colorful event at Promontory Utah on May 10, 1869, officially joined the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific and is remembered as the Golden Spike Celebration. Few Chinese were visible during this celebration, but they were responsible for laying the final track that day.

After the Golden Spike

Californians during the nineteenth century were not welcoming to the Chinese, despite their hard work, industriousness and contributions to the economy. “Everything from food and clothing to language and spiritual beliefs” puzzled or confused the pioneers of that time. (p. 83, Blodgett, Land of Golden Dreams).

The Qing dynasty was restored in the 1860s and one badge of loyalty it required was the shaving of foreheads and wearing the queue.  (Fairbank, p. 209)  If Chinese wanted to return to their home, they needed to keep the queue. Ironically, one thing their opponents did was cut off the queue in efforts to harass the Chinese.   

Chinese worked in the coal mines of Black Diamond, at the powder plants in west county and on other railroads throughout the west. They farmed, did domestic work, built levees in the Delta, ran laundries and fished. Further afield the Bing cherry was named for Ah Bing who worked in Oregon.  In Monterey the Chinese began the fishing industry in the 1850s. A number of employers appreciated their diligence and hard work and recruited in China for laborers, particularly in southern California. But there continued to be vitriolic prejudice against the Chinese throughout the state.

In Contra Costa County there were Chinatowns in Antioch and in Martinez with periodic opposition to Chinese labor in the coal, canning and fishing industry because of the Chinese willingness to work for less.  “The trend of the times is eloquently set forth in the brief record of the vote on Chinese immigration, at the election of September 7, 1879.  For Chinese immigration 16 votes; against Chinese immigration 2039 votes; majority against Chinese immigration, 3023 votes. Such was the laconic but decisive verdict.”  (History of Contra Costa, 1917)

In 1882 there was an ugly race riot in Martinez. The Martinez Packing Company planned to hire Chinese at lower wages to pack salmon. They housed 50 to 70 of them in a house on Main Street in the middle of town. Irate residents, including Italian, Portuguese and Greek fisherman living on scows at the border of town, attacked Chinese at the house, breaking windows and forcing them upstairs where many jumped or thrown out and were badly hurt, some killed. They were attacked with boards as well. There was a trial against some of the identified rioters, but the verdicts were “not guilty.”

In 1882 the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed which prohibited Chinese immigration for 10 years and sent children to segregated schools. Later it was renewed with exclusion made permanent in 1902.  Not until 1943 was this act repealed. Other civil rights were not provided until the 1950s.

1886 saw the organization of an anti -coolie group in Walnut Creek. 100 people were there and pledges were signed not to employ Chinese and withhold patronage from those who did employ them. James Foster of Alamo was among them. 

In Martinez the Strentzel/Muir family employed Chinese throughout their large ranch as domestics, cooks and farm workers.  In Pleasant Hill the large Hook Ranch had a Chinese cook, Jin Chin.

Chinese in the San Ramon Valley

After the transcontinental was completed in 1869, the workers scattered in search of other jobs in California and other coastal states, sometimes on railroad projects. Locally their names appear in census records and their presence is noted in the Contra Costa Gazette and other writings.

In our valley we know the Humburgs hired Chinese to build an enormous cistern on their property on the east side of Alamo to provide reliable water for their ranch. It is still in place today and measures about 50-feet across. Jeff Wiedemann said that his grandparents employed Chinese to put up stone walls at the borders of the Wiedemann Ranch and ranches further south. These walls are still there.

In Alamo, Benjamin Hall (1864-1939) wrote that his community was tiny as he grew up.  He recalled one man: “ George Washington (Sam) an americanized Chinaman who had cut off his que and discarded Chinese clothes long before. I think he started a small store in Alamo after the (1868) earthquake had destroyed the Englemyer building, he was very nice and obliging and liked by all the small children who liked to look at his small stock and buy the prizebox candy, where each five and ten cent box of indifferent candy had some piece of flashy though worthless jewelry, also the boys with money could also purchase cigaretts, although I found on trial when about eleven, that although the family (Hall family) had good credit at the store, it did not extend to giving me personal credit for cigaretts, although my intentions were perfectly honest of making prompt payments.

“Sam was also a barber and gave all the regular shaves and hair cuts in fairly good style, at least he gave a better haircut to boys than the usual home made kind.

“Sam was not a very successful business man and the auction at which his stock was disposed of a few years later was a notable occurrence and intensely interesting to us unfinanced small boys.  With loss of business Sam was reduced to taking places a cook, but was even less of a success as a cook than as a storekeeper.” (From B. F. Hall, memories)

Ina Boone Root (1873-1963) was interviewed in the Valley Pioneer on Sept. 4, 1958, and talked about Danville.  She said  “On the same side as the San Ramon Valley bank was a Chinese laundry where the Danville Firehouse (Norm’s Place in 2018) is now, opening on the back alley.” The 1880 census listed Kee Lum as a laundryman in Danville.

1. O. and Mary Baldwin employed a Chinese cook for many years. He would return to China periodically and bring back small tea dishes for the children and regular dishes for the adults. There were Chinese cooks at the Harlan and Boone Ranches in the 20^th century

Sources

Ambrose, Stephen E., Nothing Like It in the World, The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad 1863-1869, 2000.

Blodgett, Peter J. Land of Golden Dreams, California in the Gold Rush Decade, 1848-1858.

Brands, H. W., The Age of Gold, The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream.

Fairbank, John King, China, A New History, Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press, 1992.

Hall, Benjamin, Memories of Alamo, in museum’s Bio-H file

Kraus, George, Chinese Laborers and the Construction of the Central Pacific, Utah Historical Quarterly, 1969

Valley Pioneer weekly newspaper, Sept. 4, 1958  (Root interview) in museum’s Bio-R file

Wiedemann, Henry, Memoir of San Ramon, in museum’s Bio-W file