Chinese in American - Angel Island

In the early days, the Chinese came to America with one purpose, striking it rich (in the Golden Mountain) and go back to their motherland. In the beginning, they were welcome and were treated with great respect as they were thought of as mysterious. However, the hospitality toward the Chinese didn't last long for they were good laborers who took on unwanted jobs for very low wages. They originally came for mining, but later they entered other industries such as laundry, rail road, construction, farming, and fisheries. In only a small amount of time, discrimination towards the Chinese began and they became segregated both socially and politically. The U.S. Congress even passed laws to limit Chinese Immigration. Those who had recently arrived were detained. For the first thirty years for the twentieth century, almost 200,000 Chinese Immigrants were detained, processed and housed at Angel Island, small island in San Francisco Bay, California.