More
than 20,000 Chinese immigrants passed through the San Francisco Customs House
to the gold fields in the Sierra Nevada foothills. Some additional 10,000 poured into California
between 1867 and 1870. The added
presence of so many immigrant workers among the Chinese influenced what other
Chinese did for a living. Wherever
groups of workers congregated, Chinese merchants opened stores to provision
them and to serve their social and recreational needs. Often, these store owners provided rice,
noodles, and vegetables not available in Euro-American stores and supplemented
the workers’ diet with vegetables grown by local Chinese truck gardeners and
meat from pigs, ducks, and chickens raised by Chinese farmers. While such an association between early store
owners and the Chinese laborers can hardly be called a community, their
relationship filled a vital social and economic niche that was often lacking
for most early non-white immigrants.
Japanese immigration into California followed quite a different pattern. Hawaiian sugar plantation owners in the area needed cheap labor in order to maximize their profits, the owners sent agents abroad to recruit workers. Instead of working in the crowded mines, Japanese immigrants chose to work in sugar plantations on three-year contracts, only to later discover the strains and hazards of working in what historians of Hawaii have labeled “industrial plantations”- an efficient, large-scale system that enabled the yield per acre to increase from just under 6,600 pounds in 1895 to almost 8,700 pounds in 1900. In 1900, the organic Law made Hawaii a formal U.S. territory ending the entry of contract laborers while declaring all contracts null and void in Hawaii(Chan,1991). As a result, labor recruiters from the mainland descended on Hawaii to lure the Japanese workers away with the prospect of higher wages. Upon reaching the mainland, the Japanese immigrants scattered across California and congregated in farming areas such as the San Joaquin Valley, Sacramento Valley, and Livingston. Because California’s climate allowed the Japanese farms to harvest a wide array of crops throughout the year, they were eventually able to purchase their own farmers and climb the so-called agricultural ladder. This in turn would later provide the social and economic conditions for wives, and, in due course, families (Chan,1991).
Japanese immigration into California followed quite a different pattern. Hawaiian sugar plantation owners in the area needed cheap labor in order to maximize their profits, the owners sent agents abroad to recruit workers. Instead of working in the crowded mines, Japanese immigrants chose to work in sugar plantations on three-year contracts, only to later discover the strains and hazards of working in what historians of Hawaii have labeled “industrial plantations”- an efficient, large-scale system that enabled the yield per acre to increase from just under 6,600 pounds in 1895 to almost 8,700 pounds in 1900. In 1900, the organic Law made Hawaii a formal U.S. territory ending the entry of contract laborers while declaring all contracts null and void in Hawaii(Chan,1991). As a result, labor recruiters from the mainland descended on Hawaii to lure the Japanese workers away with the prospect of higher wages. Upon reaching the mainland, the Japanese immigrants scattered across California and congregated in farming areas such as the San Joaquin Valley, Sacramento Valley, and Livingston. Because California’s climate allowed the Japanese farms to harvest a wide array of crops throughout the year, they were eventually able to purchase their own farmers and climb the so-called agricultural ladder. This in turn would later provide the social and economic conditions for wives, and, in due course, families (Chan,1991).