Long regarded as a violent outburst significant mainly for California history, the 1871 Los Angeles anti-Chinese massacre raises themes central to America’s Civil War Reconstruction era between 1865 and 1877, namely, the resort to threats and violence to preserve traditionally conceived social and political authority and power. Although the Los Angeles events occurred far from the American South, the Los Angeles anti-Chinese massacre paralleled the anti-black violence that rose in the South during Reconstruction. Although the immediate causes of the violence in the post–Civil War South and California were far different, they shared one key characteristic: they employed racial disciplining to preserve traditional social orders that old elites saw as threatened by changing times and circumstances.
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Chinese were one of the few immigrant groups who brought with them a deep-rooted medical tradition. Chinese herbal doctors and stores came and appeared in California as soon as the Gold Rush began. Traditional Chinese medicine had a long history and was an important part of Chinese culture. Herbal medical knowledge and therapy was popular among Chinese immigrants. Chinese herbal doctors treated American patients as well. Established herbal doctors had more white patients than Chinese patients especially after Chinese population declined due to Chinese Exclusion laws. Chinese herbal medicine attracted American patients in the late 19th and early 20th century because Western medicine could not cure many diseases and symptoms during that period. Thriving Chinese herbal medical business made some doctors of Western medicine upset. California State Board of Medical Examiners did not allow Chinese herbal doctors to practice as medical doctors and had them arrested as practitioners without doctor license. Many of Chinese herbal doctors managed to operate their medical business as merchants selling herbs. Chinese herbal doctors often defended their career in court and newspaper articles. Their profession eventually discontinued when People’s Republic of China was established in 1949 and the United States passed the Trading with Enemy Economy Act in December 1950 that cut herbal medical imports from China.
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Kelly N. Fong
The Sacramento Delta is an agricultural region in northern California with deep historic significance for Asian Americans. Asian American laborers were instrumental to the development of Sacramento Delta, transforming the swampy peat bog into one of the richest agricultural areas in California. Beginning in the mid-19th century, Chinese laborers constructed levees, dikes, and ditches along the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers before breaking the fertile soil to grow fruit and vegetables including pears and asparagus. Asian Americans continued a permanent and transient presence in the Sacramento Delta on farms as migrant farm laborers, permanent farmworkers, and overseers, and in the small delta towns such as Isleton that emerged as merchants, restaurant operators, boardinghouse operators, and other business owners catering to the local community.
