Irish and

Chinese
Immigration
LAS 141, Tuesday October 6, 2016

19th Century Immigration

After 1830 immigrants began to come to the US from
Europe and Asia. The bulk came for economic
opportunity and performed manual labor..
Major waves of 19th century immigration included:
830-1849:
Irish and Scandinavian immigrants came to urban centers as craftsmen
or to work as laborers on canal and railroad construction projects.
German immigrants came and settled as farmers.
Catholic Irish Immigration accelerated due to the Great Potato Famine
(1845-1852)

850-1930:
Immigrants from across Europe came and worked as craftsmen and
laborers in cities; some Germans came as farmers who settled in the
Midwest and Texas. These waves included immigrants from the
Russian empire, eastern Europe, southern Europe, and the Middle East.
Immigrants from China and later Japan came and performed manual
labor on the west coast and the mountain west.

19th Century Nativism

As immigration increased in the 19 th century, various
immigrant groups were discriminated against.
At the roots of this nativism were fears that the new
immigrants would draw jobs from native-born workers.
Nativism depended upon a belief in four European races:
the Nordic, the Alpine, the Mediterranean, and the Jew.
Popular images painted immigrants as ignorant,
animalistic, lascivious, drunk, and violent.
Nativism was also connected to anti-Catholic prejudice.

The Great Fear of the Period:

Uncle Sam May Be Swallowed by Foreigners

Anti-Irish Images
The Irish faced discrimination rooted in
British colonization and anti-Catholicism.

Chinese Immigration
1849: Gold Rush
immigrants begin the widespread process of migration across the Pacific

Chinese

Workers settle in West-coast cities

to ethnic enclaves, Chinatowns develop.

Relegated

Chinese Immigrants Work in Numerous Sectors of the Economy:

Agriculture
Fishing
Industry
Mining
Railroads

Chinese Tradesmen Come to Succeed in a Number of Sectors, Including

making

Laundries
Cigar-

Nativist Responses
Seen as a threat to the white working classes, Chinese immigrants are treated as
an unassimilable other.
Asians were depicted as:

Ridden

Cultural Inferior
Dirty
Greedy
Disease- and DrugLascivious

Fears of Chinese Immigration eventually led to the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)
Banned all
immigration by Chinese people who performed skilled or unskilled labor or
worked in mining.
Exceptions were
made for merchants, government agents, or Chinese people seeking education.
Immigrants were
interned on Angel Island and their status investigated. Angel Island operated
like a prison.

A Statue for Our

Harbor (1881) from
The Wasp

That Pigtail Has Got to Go

(1898)

The First Blow (1877)

Be Just ---Even to John Chinaman (1893)

Judge (to Miss Columbia)---- You allowed that boy to come into your school, it would be
inhuman to throw him out now---it will be sufficient in the future to keep his brothers out!

Source: Puck

Caption: "The Anti-Chinese Wall

Second Caption: "The American Wall Goes Up as the Chinese
Original Comes Down."

Source: Puck
Date: February 8, 1879
Artist: Thomas Nast
Caption:
"Every Dog (No Distinction in
Color) Has His Day.
Second Caption:
"RED GENTLEMAN TO YELLOW
GENTLEMAN: Pale face 'fraid you
crowd him out, as he did me." The
African-American man seated in
the background waits for his turn
underneath a sign saying, "My
time is coming."

Chinese
Responses to
The Chinese
Exclusion Act

Poetry Written on the Walls of Angel Island

In pairs, please look at one of the poems and
discuss the dominant emotions or feelings
expressed in it.