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Keeping You Informed Of Chinese Culture In Colorado Springs

Newsletter April 2025| Issue 2025-04

The First Chinese Immigrants to the U.S.A

--What Did They Do?

Approximately 370,000 Chinese from the Qing dynasty migrated to America during the California Gold Rush. They primarily worked in mining, often independently or in groups, and later transitioned to other labor roles in the West. They also established businesses, particularly in areas like San Francisco and Sacramento, contributing to the growth of "Chinatowns" and establishing some of the first Chinese-owned businesses in the USA, including laundries, stores, merchants, restaurants, and medicine.

According to the Chinatown Resource Guide, one of the first Chinatowns appeared in Portsmouth Square, California, around 1850. Hundreds of Chinese strategically chose to locate their laundries, restaurants, and shops close to the center of the city, Portsmouth Square, to cater to mining-related needs. The area, called "Little Canton," had thirty-three retail stores, fifteen pharmacies/Chinese herbalists, and five restaurants. In 1853, the neighborhood was given the name "Chinatown" by the press. The first Chinese hand laundry was born in Portsmouth Square in 1851. By 1870, some 2,000 Chinese laundries were in the trade, growing to 7,500 in 1880.

In Search of Gold Mountain: Chinese Immigration and the California Gold Rush

The discovery of gold in California in 1848 drew thousands of people from across the United States, Latin America, and China. The Gold Rush permanently changed the nation's landscape, demographics, and economy, and provoked cultural tensions among the settlers. In the following virtual conversation created by the Yale University Art Gallery, many details about the first Chinese immigrants were shared, such as the mining locations, technologies used, population and community, spiritual heritage, and what has been shaped by the Chinese and what is left today.