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Period: to
The time span of immigration
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California Gold Rush
Although the California Gold Rush started earlier than 1865, I still had hope that I would find gold. I came to America for the first time from China and right then started my search for gold in the west. I needed to get away from China because of the Civil War and there were lots of floods and dorughts. I felt like the California Gold Rush could help my family finacially and help me go after my dreams. I looked day after day searching for gold and food. This was the first time I was homeless. -
Changing jobs
After so many years of dedication to the gold rush, I never had any luck. I decided to find a job that could provide me with all that I needed. I finally found a job at the railroad company that took me in. I found that there were many other Chinese people working there that soon became my close friends. After I experienced my first few days I soon learned why many people didn't want this job. This was a very dangerous job. I accidently hammered my hand and was severely injured because of that. -
Chinese Exclusion Act
One day, I was just working on the railroads as always and got word that there was going to be a Chinese Exclusion Act. Chinese people were no longer able to come to America. My co-woker told me that his was happening becuase apparently, we were overpopulating America. Americans thought that we were competition because we were supposedly stealing their jobs. After the Act was passed My best friend and many other people got shot and died as a message to get out of the U.S. It was a cruel day. -
No more racism
After the Chinese Exclusion Act, so many people started being racist toward us. I went with many other Chinese immigrants to file lawsuits and tried to challenge the judges that many laws and practices opressed us. Finally we got an amendment that violated our rights. It was the 14th amendment that said that we should all be treated equally. We brought this case to court and Americans finally stopped discriminating against us. -
Say goodbye to the records
In 1906 there was a huge fire and earthquake in San Francisco. This was very important because this fire burned all of the records of immigrants that came to America. Although this affected me a lot by burning my apartment down, this was a fortunate thing for us. I helped many people come to America. Since the records were gone I declared myself as a citizen of the United States. No one could argue against me now because they had no proof that I wasn't a citizen. All I needed was an apartment. -
Angel Island
Angel Island opened and my family finally decided to come to America and they were legally able to. My 5 siblings and parents all worked on the railroads and we were able to move into a big house. We didn't just buy a house anywhere. We bought houses where we were able have a Chinese neighborhood. We called our neighborhood "Chinatown". We lived here and did the same job for the rest of our life until retirement
