# data[].attributes.headline
"A Picture for Employers. Why They Can Live on 40 Cents a Day, and They Can't"

# data[].attributes.subject
"A Picture for Employers. Why They Can Live on 40 Cents a Day, and They Can't"

# data[].attributes.body
This stereotypical poster, “Why they can live on 40 cents a day…and they can’t,” expresses how white men can't compete with Chinese people as they had their wife and children to support. Towards the left, the Chinese immigrants were depicted as cramped, skinny, and extremely poor with multiple people sharing a small space. In the poster to the left, Chinese people were drawn as eating rats for food and seem sick by how they prop themselves on the small space. This shows how the artist drew them with prejudice and their stereotypical racist mindset. Towards the right, white men were seen as fairly well off with a nice shelter and even pets to accommodate. They were also drawn with great posture and straight back while compared to the left, the Chinese were drawn with a hunched back and weak figure. This shows the difference in living conditions that Chinese immigrants faced compared to other Americans.

# data[].attributes.body
Chinese immigrants initially immigrated to the United states in the 1850s in order to escape the economic crisis in China and find fortune from the California gold rush. However much of the American Dream was false and when the gold rush period ended, the Chinese immigrants resorted to cheap labor to survive. In 1862, the Anti Coolie Act was passed which made Chinese immigrants sign contracts and they were taken advantage of because they were immigrants. They were treated as slaves and often times couldn't go back to their homeland. By the 1870s, that was when economic depression hit and thousands of Americans lost their jobs. This is when hostility grew towards Chinese immigrants as people saw them as inferior which led to the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882.

# data[].attributes.body
Back in 1871, Los Angeles was quite the violent city. Despite having higher murder rates than other cities like New York and Chicago, they only had 6 police officers to watch 6000 people. Prior to 1869, public opinion on the Chinese were quite neutral. In the year 1869, the Los Angeles News and Los Angeles Star started publishing editorials that painted the Chinese in bad light. in 1871, there was a dispute between 2 Chinese organizations that led to the death of Robert Thompson. The city became enraged and 10% of the city's population started rioting. There was gunfire and public lynching. They hung 7 of them outside of a wagon shop and hung 3 more on the side of a freight wagon. the next morning 17-20 Chinese men had been killed but everyone who took part in the riots got away with it. This disaster was quickly forgotten and did not bring any change to the Chinese community.

# data[].attributes.body
White laborers were expecting slavery to be abolished pretty soon and needed a new source of labor. They set their eyes on the Chinese desperate to get into the US for the California gold rush. These Chinese workers would sign contracts giving them a right of passage and in return, they would have to be workers to pay off that debt. Eventually, these workers would be confused for coolies who were practically slaves but of Asian descent. These two groups of people were mixed into one because there was no way to identify who was a coolie and who was not. Because of these coolies and workers being mixed together, there was a lot of competition about salary. White laborers would then complain bringing fourth the anti coolie act in 1862 which taxed anyone of Mongolian descent an extra 2 dollars and 50 cents a month which is about 63 dollars today. On top of that their labor was extremely cheap already so this was a huge hit for them.

# data[].attributes.body
In the late 1800s, Chinese immigrants were either brought forcefully or came willingly to the United states to work on the railroads. They were additionally used as agricultural labor on the West Coast. After the railroad was finished, white Americans feared that Chinese laborers would compete with them for work and threaten their job availability. Thus it caused a flood of hostility towards the Chinese. This poster, called the, "Yellow Peril" generalized Chinese men as savage heroin addicts whose presence hurt many around them such as the women depicted on the bottom. These various posters encouraged people to discriminate and assault the Chinese as they were seen as inferior and harmful. Their hatred for the Chinese grew so strong that the anti-Asian movement led to the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 which severely limited the immigration of the Chinese.

# data[].attributes.body
This is “The Massacre”; an image from the Chinese American Museum, posted by the California State Library. The massacre is a drawing that shows the Los Angeles Massacre, where Chinese people were murdered, robbed and raped by non - Asian men in the part of California called the Calle de los Negros . In this incident, almost every Chinese person in that part of California was either robbed or assaulted or murdered. During this event, there was even lynching stands, where 15 Chinese people were lynched. After this gruesome event in history, 24 out of the 500 people involved were charged, and almost all of them were let free. This was part of the anti-chinese sentiment that was a part of the late 19th century in the Western United States. The main anti Chinese sentiment was caused by the thought that Chinese immigrants lowered the cultural and moral standards and integrity of American racial composition in the United States. Therefore, this artifact is important due to the need to understand the great horrors Chinese immigrants went through while living in the Western United States in the 19th century. It is important to understand the horrors that were committed against Chinese immigrants in the 19th century in order to understand the way that Chinese immigrants were forced to live under on a daily basis and the struggles that they went through.

# data[].attributes.body
Written and approved May 6 of 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was created, putting an end to Chinese Immigration until 1943 when it was finally repealed. The document consists of 15 different sections, each one talking about a new aspect of Chinese immigration. In order to prevent new Chinese laborers from entering the United States, certificates were issued to all Chinese people in the US at the time. These certificates had the person's name, age occupation, place of residence and any other identifying features and they allowed for the holder to freely travel in and out of the US. Any Chinese people found without one of these certificates would be sent away as soon as possible and any found on a ship would cause the ship master to be fined 500 dollars per person. These changes in immigration made it harder for Chinese workers to see their family and loved ones as it created a legal barrier between the two existing countries.

# data[].attributes.body
This is a timeline of major events in Chinese immigration of the western United States in the 19th century. In 1847 we can see that the California Gold Rush begins, and Chinese immigrants are coming into the United States in order to have a more prosperous future for them and their families. In 1850 we can see how the Chinese  American population reached 4000. Thereafter, we can see in  1858, where the California government prohibited Chinese and Mongolian immigration in order to prevent Chinese immigrants from coming into the United States. The year 1860 showed the Chinese American population in the United States booming up to 34933 people. In 1862 the Anti Coolie Act was passed, where any one of Mongolian descent was taxed an extra $2.50 a month equaling to $63 today in order to prevent immigrant labor. Furthermore, we can see how in 1869 the first Transcontinental Railroad was finished with mostly Chinese immigrant labor, showing how vital Chinese immigrant labor was needed in the United States. In the year 1870, we can see a boom of Chinese American population in the United States where the number of Chinese Americans is 63199 people. Also in 1870, the Naturalization Act was passed in order to prevent Chinese immigrants from obtaining United States citizenship. In addition to this, we can see that in 1871, we see large amounts of anti-Chinese violence beginning, adding to the hardship of the life of Chinese immigrants in the Western United States during the 19th Century. Lastly, we can see in 1882 how Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 in order to prevent the immigration all Chinese individuals and to track Chinese people already living in the United States.

# data[].attributes.body
The above image depicts a young Chinese miner who moved to America in hopes of finding gold and making his fortune. Most of the  Chinese people who immigrated to the US were young, unskilled men. These men often came from poor backgrounds full of conflict and starvation. Because most of these people came from poorer backgrounds, it was easier to make prejudice assumptions about them and this caused a lot of racism and stereotypes about the Chinese. Sharing these similar hardships with each other, many Chinese miners would group up and work in the unpopular mining areas in order to avoid trouble. Although this allowed them to work in peace, as gold became more sparse, treatment towards Chinese miners became more harsh and as they were kicked out of their mining grounds, many of them began to move on in an attempt to create small businesses such as restaurants.