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Chapter Seven "THE ROAD OF HOPE" Asians and Mexicans Find Cracks in the System ~ HE dynamic economic expansion ofthe West and Southwest in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century opened cracks in the system of sojourner pluralism for East Asian and Mexican sojourners , a substantial portion of whom became settlers. Although the circumstances of the two groups were different in several respects-the Asians lived far from home for many years, often in a highly insulated bachelor society surrounded by a totally foreign culture-many in both groups found the boundaries of sojourner pluralism, while restrictive, permeable. As a consequence, there was more mobility for them and especially for their children than for black Americans. Most blacks could not move from town to town or open up a laundry, a restaurant, or any other small business that served whites without threatening an entire social system. Cracks in the System: The Chinese Probably most of the sojourners from China who stayed in the U.S. performed relatively servile or menial work all their lives, but a significant minority became independent businessmen or farmers. A major opportunity to acquire land in Hawaii, an opportunity not available in California , resulted from the tradition of racial and ethnic intermarriage in the islands. Many Chinese married local native Hawaiian women and became rice farmers, an industry they soon dominated. Many others left the plantations for Honolulu, where they became skilled workers and small entrepreneurs . Of the 692 firms listed in the Honolulu Business Directory in 1886, 219 were Chinese-owned.l Conditions generally were more restrictive in California, where Chinese miners were expelled from many towns and were compelled to pay a foreign miners' tax, originally designed to keep Mexican and Chilean miners away, later assessed only on the Chinese.2 Nonetheless, the booming , diversified economy ofthe West created many possibilities for entrepreneurial activity, even for the despised and extremely poor Chinese immigrants. After the building of the Central Pacific Railroad, on which some ten thousand Chinese worked, many sought employment in agri128 ASIANS AND MEXICANS, CRACKS IN THE SYSTEM 129 culture and construction, others became cooks and laundrymen. Soon, Chinese were engaged in all sorts of capitalistic activities. In 1880, 11.8 percent ofthe Chinese in San Francisco either were merchants themselves or were employed by them. Laundrymen were another 10 percent, and independent skilled craftsmen over 7 percent.3 As early as 1890, the Chinese had twice their share of shopkeepers on the mainland relative to the general population, and by 1920 more than three and a half times their share.4 In that year, +8 percent of all Chinese in the U.S. were in small business, 27 percent providing personal services, and II percent in agriculture.5 For six or seven decades, Chinese were active participants in California's agricultural development, as cooks, tenant farmers, or vegetable peddlers, and also as owner-operators of farms and as commission merchants, positions that gave them considerable control over their own lives.6 Their entrepreneurial drive proved remunerative in an economy where production of raw materials was more important than manufacture of finished goods. Individuals with little capital but a great deal of energy and a willingness to take risks could achieve a measure of economic success.7 In acquiring capital to start a business, individual Chinese were often helped by the huiguanJ local associations based on organizations that had existed in China for hundreds ofyears or, in Hawaii, by immigrants from the same district. Led by merchants, the huisJ as they were called, performed social and charitable functions, mediated disputes, and provided protection. Some of them functioned as rotating credit associations to aid members in going into business for themselves. Hui members would put a certain amount of money into a common pool. Then they would compete by some method, often by lot, for the right to use the entire sum to start a small business. Members would meet again the next month, and those who had not yet had their tum would continue the process until every member of the hui had a chance to use the pool.8 Even without assistance from huisJ Chinese laborers often were able to bid up the price of their labor because the supply of workers in the late nineteenth century was still relatively short in times of rapid economic expansion. Once having amassed a small amount of capital, an entrepreneur could quickly establish a business with a limited but sure Chinese clientele, in which...

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