In many respects, the motivations for the Chinese to come to the United States are similar to those of most immigrants. Some came to "The Gold Mountain," and others came to the United States to seek better economic opportunity. Yet there were others that were compelled to leave China either as contract laborers or refugees. The Chinese brought with them their language, culture, social institutions, and customs. Over time they made lasting contributions to their adopted country and tried to become an integral part of the United States population.
Chinese immigration can be divided into three periods: 1849-1882, 1882-1965, and 1965 to the present. The first period began shortly after the California Gold Rush and ended abruptly with the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. During this period thousands of Chinese, mostly young male peasants, left their villages in the rural countries to become laborers in the American West. They were recruited to extract metals and minerals, construct a vast railroad network, reclaim swamplands, build irrigation systems, work as migrant agricultural laborers, develop the fishing industry, and operate highly-competitive manufacturing industries. At the end of the first period, the Chinese population in the United States was about 110,000.
Throughout most of the second period (1882-1965), only diplomats, merchants, and students and their dependents were allowed to travel to the United States. Otherwise, throughout this period, Chinese Americans were confined to segregated ghettos, called Chinatowns, in major cities and isolated regions in rural areas across the country. Because the Chinese were deprived of their democratic rights, they made extensive use of the courts and diplomatic channels to defend themselves. The Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, particularly the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 brought in a new period in Chinese American immigration. Now Chinese Americans were liberated from a structure of racial oppression. The former legislation restored many of the basic rights that were earlier denied to Chinese Americans. Under these new laws, thousands of Chinese people came to the United States each year to reunite with their families and young Chinese Americans mobilized to demand racial equality and social justice. Equally significant are two types of Chinese immigrants that have been entering the United States since the 1970s. The first type consists of highly select and well-educated Chinese. The second type is made up of thousands of Chinese immigrants who have entered the United States to escape either political instability or repression throughout East and Southeast Asia. Others are ethnic Chinese from Vietnam and Cambodia who became poverty-stricken refugees. They have run away from such threats as "ethnic cleansing.
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