Mrs. Spring Fragrance | Historical Context

Mrs. Spring Fragrance Historical Context

The "Chinese Problem"

Far wrote about the experience of Chinese immigrants in a politically sensitive environment. In the mid-nineteenth century, the United States encouraged mass immigration of young Chinese men to Hawaii to work on sugar plantations and to California to build the first transcontinental railroad. Any immigrant who did not plan to labor in these projects was often charged an exorbitant entry tax. Thus, the early Chinese immigrants were mostly bachelors or young men who left their wives and families overseas. Once in the United States, the laborers were legally forbidden to live in white communities or marry outside of their race. After the completion of the railroad, strict hiring regulations, as well as employers's personal discrimination against minorities, left only menial jobs like food service or laundering available to Chinese Americans. In Asian Americans: An Interpretive History, Sucheng Chan quotes an interview with a Chinese laundry owner: "White customers were prepared...
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