Tag Archives: chinese immigration

Photocredit: University of California at Berkeley

This political cartoon from the late 1800s depicts the seething animosity towards Chinese immigrants in the late 1800s.  White immigrants and white Americans alike joined in accusations of the Chinese for stealing jobs and lowering wages.  They rallied to drive the Chinese out of their neighborhoods and forced them into concentrated slums all over the country and called it “Chinatown”.  This cartoon depicts a Chinese person with sub-human characteristics, as with many cartoons during that era.  It was a systematic attempt to dehumanize the Chinese population as to make whites feel more superior.  My film will highlights the discrimination and struggles of Chinese immigrants during that period.