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Western expansion was the massive migration of thousands of Americans across a western border in the United States. The westward expansion brought great hope to Americans of a future of financial prosperity and new opportunities.It prompted the idea of new land for farmers and greater control over the region. These agricultural settlements led to the discovery of new materials, such as gold in the west coast. The idea of gold urged large numbers of more Americans and other countries to settle in the western states. In 1848, the California Gold Rush specifically was the most impactful event in influencing Chinese immigrants to settle in America. An article on Chinese immigration states, “The California gold rush of the mid-19th century led to a tremendous influx of people into California, and many of them were from China. ...and by 1852, an estimated 25,000 Chinese had made it to Gold Mountain, although few of them struck it rich,” (“Chinese Immigration during the Gold Rush".) California was close to certain areas of China, and made it convenient for people to immigrate. As well as California, Hawaii was a popular area for Chinese migration between the 1830s and 1850s. The Chinese brought sugar to the islands and in 1830 sugar mills were operating in Maui and Hawaii. Chinese merchants in Honolulu sold sugar. They also set up a sugar plantation system that recruited more immigrants. A research article on early Chinese immigration states, “Between 1852 and 1900, before the annexation of the islands by the United States, about 50,000 Chinese were living in Hawaii,” (“Early Chinese Immigration to the U.S.”) With these large numbers of Chinese immigrants coming in, many were forced to live in segregated communities. Mainly in San Francisco, California did many immigrants make a diverse culture in the Chinatown district. They developed their own association called the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association which worked to improve the communities. When Chinese miners sent money home to their families, people began to believe the U.S. was prosperous so many women traveled to marry wealthy miners. The large influx of immigrants also caused many miners from the U.S. to be enraged at the competition. An unnamed miner within an article on Chinese immigration during the gold rush said, “Chinamen are getting to be altogether too plentiful in this country,” (“Chinese Immigrants and the Gold Rush”.) In May of 1852, a Foreign Miners Tax was imposed to prevent easy access of mining opportunities to the Chinese. Violence, robbery, and murders of Chinese became common in California areas. Scarcely had the families still in China heard about the violence and discrimination faced by the Chinese locals in America.

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In 1963, Hilton Obenzinger was the assistant director of the Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project taking place at Stanford University. He sent out ads to the public but the Central Pacific Railroad director, Charles Crocker noticed the job ad resulted in only a few hundred responses from white laborers. The demand for labor began to increase and the white workers were reluctant to take jobs that would need so much hard work and strength. Crocker then decided that the Chinese would be great for this job. Historians said that at first when arriving in the United States the Chinese were deemed “too weak for the dangerous, strenuous job of building the railroad east from California” (Kennedy). According to the Chinese Railroad Workers Project, Central Pacific started with a crew of 21 Chinese workers in January 1864. In 1864, the Chinese were hired and paid a low wage of $26 a month, working long hours six days a week. The Chinese were given the toughest parts of labor work including the use of explosives. They would work in extreme heat and freezing temperatures.  Chang even said that “There is also evidence they faced physical abuse at times from some supervisors”. The Chinese were under circumstances that were very unfair. They had to pay for their own food and supplies, while the few white people left got the necessities handed to them. Because of this, in June of 1867, they went on a strike that would last 8 days. This strike ended “without pay parity after the Central Pacific cut off food, transportation and supplies to the Chinese living in camps” (Kennedy). Things eventually changed following the strike.  Although the working conditions were not great, this did not stop Chinese workers from continuing to immigrate and eventually create their own businesses. When they realized there were different industries they could work in, they jumped right to it. This was the rise of Chinese businesses. They “found work in a variety of industries, from making shoes and sewing clothes to rolling cigars” (Struggling for Work).  There were a few jobs that the racial and language barriers stopped them from pursuing, so they began creating their own businesses in the restaurant, laundry, and shopping industries. The Chinese found various ways to leave this in their pasts and become successful on their own.

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In 1882, Chester Aurthur, The President of the United States at the time, and the United States Congress passed and signed the Chinese Exclusion Act. This act created a 10 year ban on workers from China coming to the U.S. This act was the first act in U.S. history that had banned an ethnic group from coming to the states (“Chinese Exclusion Act”). Under this new ban, any unskilled and skilled workers were allowed to come to the United States. Since most workers were not entering the state, very few of the Immigrants from China were entering the United States. Before this, Chinese immigration had a very big part in the size of the United States workforce. This act also created limitations for the Chinese immigrants that had already been in America. One being that if they left the U.S., they would have to reobtain their certifications to enter America again. In 1892, with help of the Geary Act, the chinese exclusion act was extended another ten years and in 1902, the exclusion of chinese immigration was made permanent. (“Chinese Exclusion Act”). Soon after, World War 1 put America on their toes. To keep themselves out of risk, they chose to extend the act to more ethnic groups. The Immigration Act of 1924 limited America’s population of each nationality to be 2% or less (“Chinese Exclusion Act”). This severely hurt the Chinese and many were losing opportunities to get away from horrible situations and were turned away to move to America. The Library of congress notices that, “Chinese immigrants were forced to live a life apart, and to build a society in which they could survive on their own.” (Exclusion  :  Chinese). This degrading act lasted all the way up until 1965 when congress finally passed the Immigration act of 1965. It is noted by the National Archives that, “a limit of 170,000 immigrants from outside the Western Hemisphere could enter the United States, with a maximum of 20,000 from any one country. Skill and the need for political asylum determined admission.” (“Chinese Exclusion Act”). Although there were still limits on how many immigrants, it was a much higher number that it had been for almost eight decades. The Chinese had been hurt by these acts for so long. They had been excluded from work, living opportunities, and brought down by politics for years. This broke the trust between the United States and the immigrants they were supposed to accept and welcome them to their new phase in life. Instead, they shut them out and didn't even allow them the chance to start over their life.

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Shortly after 1882 when the U.S signed a 10 year ban on Chinese labor immigration, a new immigration system was introduced known as Angel island. Located in the San Francisco bay the island was put in place in 1910 to control and enforce immigration laws. Many of the immigrants were from china and japan, upon arrival via steamboat the passengers were separated by nationality. First class immigrants like Europeans were admitted upon arrival to the facility whereas Asians, specifically the Chinese were thought to carry diseases and were required to quarantine. The station was meant to be secluded and escape proof, many of the immigrants thought of it as a prison. After the seclusion they were heavily interrogated both verbally and physically, if you did not pass you were then deported. In the book Angel Island: The Ellis Island of the West by Mary Bamford she writes “Usually deportation means that the Chinese women are taken to Hong Kong, where they fall almost immediately into the hands of slave dealers, who take them back to the old dreadful life” (Mary Bamford). This however wasn’t always the case and instead many people were held in detainment waiting for access to the U.S according to a poem written by a Chinese immigrant carved into the walls of the barracks “Bored and filled with a hundred feelings, I am imprisoned in the building. Seeing the surroundings stirs one who is sad. How can one stop the tears?” (Chinese Poetry). The conditions inside the detention facility were detrimental, they lacked basic necessities like sanitation and were placed in confined areas. The Chinese prisoners had utterly resented their mistreatment as they watched men and women from many different countries become citizens while they were stuck. According to a historical essay “Within the station, impatient and hot-headed young immigrants often took matters into their own hands and staged disturbances in the dining hall (located in the administration building) to protest the poor food and mistreatment.” (H.M Lai). Rarely did these riots ever leak out to the public.

A few years later an even bigger riot broke out and troops were forced to become involved, around a year later authorities in Washington DC decided to improve the conditions of Angel Island.

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Although there were many political battles, the influx of Chinese immigrants surged between the 1910s and the 1940s. Angel Island was brought with more than 150,000 immigrants coming straight from China. With this, came an even more bigger Chinese population in America due to the children they were having. With these children, they automatically became U.S. citizens and they were born in the United States (“Growth and Inclusion”). This helped merge the immigrants with the American lifestyle because now as they had children that were citizens, they could buy land and start businesses under their name. The immigrants struggled with discrimination, but this new found success had helped them, and the United States as a whole. Now they had been thriving in the nation and were able to move out to the suburbs and help build civilization out of the cities. When World War II started stirring up in the U.S., The citizens were pushed to join the United States military. They were a great aid for the military and enlistments numbers had skyrocketed. Not only were these immigrants such a big help with the war efforts, but they were a great help with everything San Francisco and the United States workforce. During World War II, Chinese Immigration grew again trying to escape the attacks from Japan and the communist government in China (Horoski). Coming with this, soon after World War II, the exclusion acts were lifted and the immigration limits were brought up tremendously. Now, there was even more of an opportunity for the immigrants trying to escape the country they used to call home. Due to the extreme help from the Chinese people, the nation had started seeing them as truly people. When they first started arriving, they were seen as pests and struggled to be seen as normal people, but after showing their support and their nationalism for the country that had given them hope, they immediately earned trust and respect (Horoski). World War II was a great turning point for equality and respect for the Chinese Americans that lived in the nation that had help the country so much.