The Chinese were discriminated against for a very unfair reason. They came to help their families and not to stay and find as much gold as possible to keep and spend on treasures. They weren't trying to get rich. They were just trying to help their families back in China and because jobs were hard to get in China (The History of Chinese Immigration to the United States). All the Americans thought that that was rubbish and that sending gold back to China was to not a benefit to the Americans and America, which caused a lot of conflict (Blumberg 98).
The Chinese came to America for many reasons. One reason was that their families were suffering and really poor and they really wanted to help them. Another reason was that there was the Opium war in China and they wanted to escape from it. The last reason was that some just wanted to be rich, get gold, build a mansion, show off to their friends, and caught Gold Fever (Chinese Immigration). When they got to America, it caused a lot of conflict.
When they came to mine, they angered the selfish American miners, who would force them off of good mining spots, with their mining skills and mining contraptions, which caused conflict. The Americans eventually turned against them because they weren't getting much gold and the Chinese were discovering gold everywhere because of their waterwheel and other inventions they created. The Chinese protected themselves from torture by working in small mining groups and working together so no American could have many easy lone targets. They also went to jewelers to have their gold stitched into clothing like belts with gold buckles so they wouldn't have to pay so much tax on the amount of gold they found in the mining fields. American agents came to their camp, to inspect how much gold they had found, and, they were inspected for how much gold they had with them when they were about to return back home to China to their families (Ketchum 89).
The Chinese miners had better ways to find and obtain gold and money than any other single miner or group of miners by using technology. One good example is the water wheel, which consisted of many buckets interlinked with pulleys to extract water from the Sacramento River (the river containing the gold), which left rich, dry, gold-filled mining land below (Ketchum 89). This proved that they were a lot smarter than the other miners, who spent all day working in mines with their pickaxes and shovels on land that may have run out of gold a long time ago. They traded some of the goods that they had left for other goods or gold dust from other foreigners (Ketchum 87). They also sold prefabricated houses that were shipped in pieces (Ketchum 87) and imported food like dried fruit and fresh ginger (Blumberg 98). Some never even went to the mining fields. They just found Gold Mountain right there in San Francisco. When they saw all the work they could have without having to go to the mining fields, they started working at restaurants and on the railroad (Ketchum 86) and became laundrymen or became cigar makers. Many employers hired them because they agreed to work for very low pay and were very compliant and easy to teach. Because they were very easy to teach, they could learn English very easily and there were teachers in San Francisco who helped them learn English. They saved their money, unlike the other American miners who wasted their money on treasures and weaponry that might never be used, so the Chinese got richer than anybody else and any other group very quickly (Ketchum 88).
The Chinese quickly became allies when World War I and World War II started because they hoped the Americans would repeal the Chinese Exclusion Act and compromise after the Americans realized they were helping in the wars. They hoped Americans would see how they wanted to show that they respected their new homeland (Chinese Exclusion Repeal Act). After World War II, the Americans began to put the repeal of the Act into thought. In 1943, the Americans finally repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Geary Act (Repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act, 1943) and compromised. After the Acts were repealed, the Chinese immigrants and Chinese citizens were allowed to become citizens of the United States and California (The Chinese Exclusion Repeal Act). The Americans and Chinese finally compromised.
The Chinese people have faced conflict when they were blamed for almost everything that went wrong with mining and were tortured before they got to America, and some never got there because of discrimination. The Chinese and the United States compromised when the Chinese became our war allies and when the United States repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Geary Act. Chinese people that worked in mines were discriminated against even though they had done nothing wrong and showed no harm to their assailants, but they have also been able to protect themselves by working together before the Chinese Exclusion Repeal Act was passed. The U.S. repealed the Act when they saw what the Chinese did for them. The Chinese were and still are America's war allies even when they were being tortured and being treated as objects and slaves. This is an example of conflict and compromise in history.
