class, race, gender

The 19th century in America saw the boom of industrialization, and the need for workers to run the factories and make the railroads became more desperate. It was that promise of work in a land away from home that was the similarity between two very different populations of immigrants coming to America, the Chinese, and the European. On the west coast there was a successful effort made to recruit foreigners, particularly the Chinese, for cheap labor. While in the east, southern and eastern European populations jumped on the opportunity for work in a land they thought was without the political turmoil of their homelands, and would be less discriminating of their culture and religion.
In the mid 1800’s the Chinese came to California hearing about the gold rush and the opportunity for work fleeing their homelands political/economic deterioration, and soon many were working on the railroad in poor conditions for less than the Americans. At first the American’s saw the Chinese as a way ...