Long before Trump, politicians on the country’s West Coast mobilized a white working-class base through violent hate of Chinese and Japanese immigrants.
Wong Chin Foo preached the gospel of assimilation to his fellow Chinese Americans. But he didn't shy away from confronting America over its failures to follow through on its ideals.
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Gum Shan. Gold Mountain. That was what the people in Guangdong Province called the faraway land where the native population had red hair and blue eyes, and it was rumored that gold nuggets could be plucked from the ground. According to an account in the San Francisco
Chronicle, a merchant visiting from Canton, the provincial capital likely soon after the discovery of gold at Sutter Creek, in 1848 wrote to a friend back home about the riches that he had found in the mountains of California. The friend told others and set off across the Pacific Ocean himself. Whether from the merchant’s letter, or from ships arriving in Hong Kong, news of California’s gold rush swept through southern China. Men began scraping together funds, often using their family’s land as collateral for loans, and crowding aboard vessels that took as long as three months to reach America. They eventually arrived in the thousands. Some came in search of gold; others were attracted
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