CHINESE MIGRATION TO CALIFORNIA, 1851 - 1882: SELECTED INDUSTRIES OF WORK, THE CHINESE INSTITUTIONS AND THE LEGISLATIVE EXCLUSION OF A TEMPORARY LABOR FORCE

This thesis adopts the approach of a system of migrant labor and argues that this Chinese migration was an extra-legal form of temporary migration. It was determined by decisions about the role of Chinese labor made by the State of California and the U.S. government within the twofold context of the unequal relationship between the U.S. and China and of the industries of Chinese work. Chinese laborers entered the gold mines in the midst of the miners' opposition to cheap labor. The State of California allowed the credit-ticket system, which brought Chinese laborers to work to repay their passage debts to Chinese merchants and to return home, and which organized them into district associations. The state retained Chinese in the mines by utilizing the merchants' interest in their work to help enforce their taxation.;Opposition to Chinese labor in light manufacture stemmed from the trades, coalesced around the anti-coolie position by 1867, and was endorsed by employers when, in the 1870s, Chinese labor became superfluous for, and their concentration in sweatshops impeded the transition to, factory production. Chinese employment as seasonal farm labor for commercial fruit cultivation in the 1870s was resisted by small farmers and agricultural workers. This combined opposition revised the economic value of Chinese labor, made it a political liability, and led to its exclusion in 1882.;During this time, the capacity of the district associations to manage the migration and to protect the Chinese at the community level was revealed to be dependent upon the desirability of the labor migration. As it ended, the district associations turned to China for sources of legitimacy.;When opportunities to employ Chinese labor in light manufacture and railroad construction materialized in the 1860s, Chinese migration was reviewed by the state and continued by the national government, with the Burlingame Treaty in 1868. The district associations remained responsible for the migration and protection of the Chinese at the community level, but outside the gold mines, they did not organize the laborers' work.