The Girls of Good Fortune

The first Chinese miners came to the San Francisco area in 1849 to take part in the gold rush, and many stayed to continue working in other mines and at other jobs after the rush was over. Immigration increased as more jobs became available, and over 12,000 Chinese laborers were employed to build the transcontinental railroad. When the railroad was completed in 1869, the men who had worked to build it began looking for other employment in the region. The Chinese railroad workers gained a reputation for being reliable and tough; they were also willing to accept less pay than their white counterparts because the wages were still several times what they might earn in China, where many immigrants’ families depended upon their earnings. The laborers who emigrated from China typically lived together in residential areas that came to be called Chinatown.

Resentment built among white workers who believed that the Chinese workers were outcompeting them for jobs and keeping the standard of pay low. Demonstrations began in San Francisco in 1870. In October 1871, in response to a fight that reportedly began between Chinese gangs, white men murdered 23 Chinese people. No charges were brought for the killings, and disputes like these were not limited to California; such violence was reported in many areas throughout the American West, including in Arizona and Nevada.