America’s Chinatowns: Immigrant Segregation in the 19th Century

Although the history of segregation in the United States has traditionally focused on African Americans, there is mounting evidence that Chinese migrants were the most highly segregated group in nineteenth-century America. Due to limited scholarly attention there is much that remains unclear about the history of Chinese segregation in the U.S. West. How should historians measure and document the degree of Chinese residential segregation? What caused the segregation and its increase over time? What were the effects on the Chinese community? How does the immigrant nature of this community complicate this history? All of these remain open questions.

This talk will discuss a new measurement of Chinese residential segregation, offer possible explanations for segregated Chinatowns in the nineteenth century, and consider the economic consequences for Chinese migrants. Though state legislatures and city councils sometimes approved laws to forcibly segregate the Chinese, none stood up to judicial scrutiny. As a result, communities spatially, socially, and economically isolated their Chinese populations through informal or extra-legal methods, including public health regulation, intimidation, and violence. Though segregation certainly limited Chinese employment and business opportunities, it also allowed co-ethnic systems of banking, contracting, and governance to flourish. In addition, Chinese migrants often managed to maintain transpacific social and business networks despite their local isolation. Therefore, Chinese residential segregation in the United States must be understood within a transnational framework.