Keeping You Informed Of Chinese Culture In Colorado Springs

The First Chinese Immigrants to the U.S.A

It is known that the first English colonists to North America in the 1600s were motivated by political, religious, and economic reasons. But what motivated the Chinese people to move to a young nation called the United States of America in the middle of the 1800s? A common explanation is that the Chinese immigrants sought economic opportunities through the California Gold Rush while escaping the political chaos of the Taiping Rebellion and the two Opium Wars under the Qing dynasty.

Unlike the King of England, who granted the early settlers a charter to colonize North America, the Qing dynasty forbade the Chinese from emigrating to other countries. The Manchurian rulers feared that their political dissidents, mostly the han ethnic Chinese, would become uncontrollable by living in other countries. A new and interesting narrative of early Chinese immigration argues that most of the first Chinese immigrants were Cantonese, who were known as rebels attempting to overthrow the Qing dynasty. They were motivated by four key elements: economic opportunity, overthrowing the Qing, modernizing China, and studying the political system of democracy, which led them to come to California and become the first Chinese Americans (Source: Chinese American History in 10 Easy Steps).