Chinese Immigration and Exclusion
The 1848 event in California that drew thousands of Chinese immigrants seeking opportunity.
What is the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill (the California Gold Rush)?
A trade and economic event beginning in 1873 that led to a multi‑year depression and worsened employment for many Americans.
What is the Panic of 1873 (the subsequent economic depression)?
The general term for the unreasoned fear of foreigners that spread in the U.S. after World War I.
What is xenophobia?
The 1919 strike in this New England city by police seeking higher pay and union recognition; it was forcefully broken by Governor Calvin Coolidge.
What is the Boston police strike?
The 1868 agreement that guaranteed Chinese the right to immigrate to the U.S. and protected Chinese citizens.
What is the Burlingame Treaty?
Clue: In 1871 in Los Angeles and again in 1877 in San Francisco, groups of whites carried out these violent acts against Chinese residents and property.
What are anti‑Chinese riots/mobs (lynchings and riots)?
The 1921 law that set yearly limits on immigrants from each country, creating a national quota system.
What is the Emergency Quota Act of 1921?
The union leader and president of the United Mine Workers who led actions that closed coal mines and won higher wages.
Who is John L. Lewis?
The 1882 federal law that severely restricted Chinese immigration and caused a sharp drop in lawfully admitted Chinese newcomers.
What is the Chinese Exclusion Act?
The 1876 congressional testimony by California's former attorney general claimed Chinese could "never become citizens" and were a "perpetual... alien element." Name the speaker.
Who is Frank Pixley?
This 1924 policy further limited immigration from eastern and southern Europe and banned immigrants from this Asian country.
What is the 1924 immigration law (Immigration Act of 1924) that limited immigration from eastern and southern Europe and banned Japanese immigrants?
One major 1919 strike targeted this industry at U.S. Steel; public outrage later helped secure an eight‑hour day but not union recognition.
What is the steelworkers' strike / the steel industry strike?
The 1878 California political/legal change that barred Chinese from certain jobs and banned marriage between Chinese and whites.
What are the California constitution/employment prohibitions and the anti-miscegenation law (California state measures restricting Chinese employment and forbidding marriage between Chinese and whites)?
A labor union flyer from 1878 argued Chinese laundry workers depressed wages and took jobs from this group in the laundry industry.
Who are American women (female laundry workers)?
The fear of this political system, which supported government control of property and spurred the "Red Scare," intensified after the Bolshevik Revolution.
What is communism?
Name two social currents—one pulling the U.S. away from world affairs and one expressing distrust of immigrants—that grew after WWI.
What are isolationism and nativism?
The mid‑19th century Chinese conflict and humanitarian disaster (lasting until 1863) that displaced millions and contributed to migration pressures.
What is the Taiping Civil War?
Who wrote an 1879 letter defended Chinese immigration and countered claims about taxes, hygiene, and religion; name the Chinese American merchant
Who is Wong Ar Chong?
Two Italian immigrant anarchists accused during the Red Scare whose weak-case conviction and execution in 1927 fueled protests.
Who are Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti?
List two of the three reasons union membership declined in the 1920s (from about 5 million to 3.5 million) according to the passage.
What are (1) immigrants willing to work in poor conditions, (2) language barriers that hindered organizing, and (3) migrant farmers used to self-reliance?