Book Notes - 8 - Summary A Different Mirror: a History of Multicultural America PDF

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Book notes from chapter 8 and contains important people and events and other concepts that are important and relevant to that specific chapter. ...

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Book Notes Chapter 8

1. Who are the main characters and why are they significant?  Chinese workers/immigrants arrived to the United States in the 19th century. They worked as laborers, particularly on the transcontinental railroad, such as the Central Pacific Railroad. They also worked as laborers in the mining industry, and suffered racial discrimination at every level of society.  President Chester A. Arthur was the one who signed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 which prohibited immigration of the Chinese into the United States.  Solomon Heydenfeldt was an American attorney who was an Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court from 1852 to 1857. He was the second Jewish justice of the court, and was the first elected by direct vote of the people  George W. Hall was an American businessman and politician who served as mayor of Seattle in the 1890s. Also, was freed after being sentenced to death for committing a murder of Ling Sing, a Chinese miner. During the time the California Supreme Court established that Chinese Americans and Chinese immigrants had no rights to testify against white citizens.

2. What are the significant events (cite dates, periods, locations)?  In 1852, the California legislature enacted a second foreign miner’s tax. Aimed mainly at the Chinese, this tax required a monthly payment of three dollars from every foreign minor who did not desire to become a citizen.  By 1870, California had collected five million dollars from the Chinese, a sum representing between 25 to 50 percent of all state revenue.  In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by President Chester A. Arthur, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers. First law implemented to prevent a specific ethnic group from immigrating to the United States  The Magnuson Act, also known as the Chinese Exclusion Repeal Act of 1943, was an immigration legislation proposed by U.S. Representative. It allowed Chinese immigration for the first time since the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and permitted some Chinese immigrants already residing in the country to become naturalized citizens. However, the Magnuson Act provided for the continuation of the ban against the ownership of property and businesses by the Chinese  In 1880, about 100 Chinese were living in New Orleans, where they worked as laundrymen, cigar makers, shoemakers, cooks, and woodcarvers. By then the southern planters had overthrown Reconstruction; with their political power over blacks restored, they quickly lost interest in Chinese labor.  People v. Hall was an appealed murder case in the 1850s in which the California Supreme Court established that Chinese Americans and Chinese immigrants had

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no rights to testify against white citizens. The opinion was delivered in 1854 by Chief Justice Hugh Murray with the concurrence of Justice Solomon Heydenfeldt. The ruling effectively freed Hall, a white man, who had been convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Ling Sing, a Chinese miner in Nevada County. Three Chinese witnesses had testified to the killing. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877, in Martinsburg, West Virginia, United States after the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad cut wages for the third time in a year. In 1855, Yong Chan applied for citizenship in San Francisco’s federal district court. The court denied him citizenship, however, ruling that the 1790 law restricted citizenship to “whites” and the Chinese were not “white”. the Civil Rights Act of 1870, was a United States federal law written to empower the President with the legal authority to enforce the first section of the Fifteenth Amendment throughout the United States. It prohibited discrimination by state officials in voter registration based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude. It established penalties for interfering with a person's right to vote and gave federal courts the power to enforce the act. The act also authorized the President to employ the use of the army to uphold the act and the use of federal marshals to bring charges against offenders for election fraud, the bribery or intimidation of voters, and conspiracies to prevent citizens from exercising their constitutional rights. Federal immigration policies had been enacted to bar Chinese women. In 1875, to prohibit the entry of prostitutes, the Page Law was enforced so strictly and broadly that it excluded not only Chinese prostitutes but also Chinese wives. The 1882 prohibition of “Chinese Laborers” included women.

3. What important themes does Takaki focus on in this chapter?  One theme Takaki discusses talks about in this chapter were about the Chinese immigrating to the US and working for cheaper labor. At first Takaki seems to say’s that “Planters soon saw that the Chinese could be employed as models for black workers.” The Chinese had at this point already had been immigrating for some time. “Half of the labor force in the city’s four key industries- boot and shoe, woolens, cigar and tobacco, and sewing- was Chinese.” The immigrants had proved themselves to be hard workers. Whites already had a purpose for them, “hardworking and frugal, the Chinese would be the “educators” of former slaves”. The Chinese were everywhere and employers preferred them over other whites because they could be paid less and work even harder. But “the use of Chinese labor and its success raised two crucial questions” in the minds of white folk. “How they rank, socially civilly, and politically, among” whites and “what would happen to white workers as America’s industrial development depended more and more on Chinese labor.” The minds of the white locals all rang in unison, “from the gold fields of the Sierras came the nativist cry: “California for Americans.” Native whites did not want permanent “Chinese men” on their lands. They in affect tried to create a “permanently degraded caste labor force”. “The employers of Chinese labor argued that

they did not intend to allow the migrants to remain and become “thick” in American society.” And laws were created to enforce this. The Chinese Exclusion Act was an act created to stop Chinese immigration into the U.S. The Act excluded the Chinese from entering the country for ten years under penalty of imprisonment and deportation. The Act also affected Chinese who were already in the United States. Any Chinese who left the United States had to obtain certifications for re-entry, and no Chinese could become U.S. citizens.

4. Identify the power takers in this chapter. By what means did these individuals or groups gain power?  The power takers in this chapter were the Americans. For instance, the President, the Supreme Court, and Congress and etc. What these individuals/groups gain was power over the Chinese. The Chinese could not really do anything about it. Laws were passed against the Chinese because they were in low social standings in the eyes of the American society. The power takers passed the Chinese Exclusion act in 1882 that prevented Chinese immigration to the united states. They were the first ethnic group that were not permitted into the united states. Stereotyped propaganda about the Chinese men portrayed them ascorrupt heroin addicts whose presence encouraged prostitution, gambling, and other immoral activities. The Americans did this because they can they had power and control over the Chinese and couldn’t do anything about it.

5. Identify the characters whose power was appropriated. What were the circumstances that lead to their oppression? How did these characters demonstrate resistance to their oppression? 

The characters who had their powers appropriated were the Chinese American. Chinese kept migrating to the United States in the 19th century, when they came, they would work for cheap hard labor, and some Chinese were basically kidnapped and brought forcibly to the United States. They took jobs from lower status white men because these Chinese would work for cheap labor. These white men grew into anger. They also feared that these Chinese men would compete with these white men for work. In response to this anti-Chinese sentiment swept through the united states. They were excluded from everything. laws were passed against the Chinese. For instance, the main law was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. But some capitalists and entrepreneurs resisted their exclusion because they were willing to work for cheaper labor. Willing to work for cheap labor is the way they fought against their oppression because some capitalists and entrepreneurs were on their side....