17.5 - Impact of Expansion: Chinese Migrants & Hispanic Citizens

What was the primary "pull factor" that made the trickle of Chinese immigrants to the United States in the antebellum period transform into a stream?

• To escape political persecution

• To work in the textile industry

• To participate in the California Gold Rush

• To join family members already in the U.S.

Please categorize the TRUE and FALSE statements about domestic reaction to the increasing number of Chinese immigrants in the post-bellum period.

Groups:

(a) True Reactions

,

(b) False Reactions

• Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882: The law banned immigration of Chinese laborers.

• Anti-Chinese Clubs: white citizens lobbied for anti-Chinese laws and organized boycotts.

• Chinese Reorganization Act of 1876: The law assigned Chinese migrants to specific states.

• Back to China Movement: raised money to return Chinese migrants to their home country.

A law from 1790 prevented any Chinese immigrant from applying to become a naturalized citizen of the United States during the early to late 1800s.

• True

• False

Answer explanation

Nationality Act of 1790
----

This was the first law to define eligibility for citizenship by naturalization and establish standards and procedures by which immigrants became US citizens. In this early version, Congress limited this important right to “free white persons.”

In practice, only white, male property owners could naturalize and acquire the status of citizens, whereas women, nonwhite persons, and indentured servants could not.

While they had dreams of finding gold, many Chinese immigrants instead found employment building the first ​ (a)   .

Several thousand of these immigrants booked their passage to the United States using a ​ (b)   in which their passage was paid in advance by ​ (c)   businessmen to whom the immigrants were then indebted for a period of work.

• Chinese
• “credit-ticket”
• American
• transcontinental railroad
• national canal system
• major public works in California
• "boarding pass"

Most Chinese immigrants were men. They made up roughly ______ of the Chinese immigrant population.

• 60%

• 75%

• 85%

• 95%

The Treaty of ​ (a)   , which ended the ​ (b)   in 1848, promised ​ (c)   to the nearly seventy-five thousand Hispanics now living in the American Southwest; approximately 90 percent accepted the offer and chose to stay in the United States despite their immediate relegation to second-class status.

• Spanish-American War
• Rio Grande
• Guadalupe Hidalgo
• Mexican-American War
• U.S. citizenship
• tracts of land

Judges and lawyers in the newly won territory of the Mexican Cession sought to protect the land rights of the nuevomexicanos who decided to remain in the United States territories after the Mexican-American War.

• True

• False

Answer explanation

Despite promises made in the treaty, these Californios—as they came to be known—quickly lost their land to white settlers who simply displaced the rightful landowners, by force if necessary.

Repeated efforts at legal redress mostly fell upon deaf ears.

In some instances, judges and lawyers would permit the legal cases to proceed through an expensive legal process only to the point where Hispanic landowners who insisted on holding their ground were rendered penniless for their efforts.

How did both Mexican-American and Chinese-American groups seek to adapt to the racism, prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination they experienced in the antebellum and postbellum time periods?

• Integrating into white communities.

• Organizing campaigns for achieving naturalized citizenship.

• Retreating into homogenous enclave communities.

• Participating in mass emigration during the Civil War.

All of the following are true about the Las Gorras Blancas movement of the late 1880s and early 1890s EXCEPT:

• Burned down white settlers' homes.

• When violence failed, organized political campaigns.

• Won positions in federal level elections.

• Sought to intimidate white settlers into moving away.

Answer explanation

Las Gorras Blancas, Juan José, Pablo, and Nicanor Herrera (from left to right). This photo is believed to have been taken during the period when they were union organizers in New Mexico.

Please place the events in chronological order, from left to right.

• Land Disputes Between Hispanics and whites

• Influx of White Settlers into the Mexican Cession Territory

• Discriminatory Laws Passed Against Hispanic Americans

• The Mexican-American War Concludes

• Hispanic Citizenship Granted in the Mexican Cession

Answer explanation

San Francisco Street in Santa Fe, NM. 1890. Palace of the Governors Photo Archives.

ca. late 1800s