1.4 Hope for Gold Mountain

Hope was one of the driving forces behind the desire for immigration. Chinese citizens were hoping for a life filled with less strife then what they were facing in their homeland. The Chinese dreamed of, “…a land called Gum Shan or ‘Gold Mountain” (Chang 17). We know that land more commonly as California. In comparison to their sparse crops and weakening government, America stood as a symbol of wealth and prosperity. Unlike their homeland where “the poor literally died in the streets at the doorsteps of the rich,” America was plentiful (Chang 11). Chinese citizens imagined traveling to a new land where there poor status no longer mattered, where working hard outweighed their social class. Though it was often a struggle to raise the funds necessary for the voyage, determined citizens resorted to whatever means necessary to obtain their fare. Often, emigrants “worked through a broker who brought them to the United States” (Yale). In return, the broker expected the emigrant to work as an indentured servant until all the necessary fees were paid in full. Communities worried that many of these men would not return to their homeland. To insure that they would at least send a stipend of money the men were “usually married off to a local woman and even encouraged him to father a child in the months or even weeks before he left” (Chang 19). The possibility of a new life was irresistible to those willing to make the journey, “a person could walk away from his or her past and begin again, reinvent himself or herself and give that new self a better life” (Chang 20). Chinese citizens bound for America did not know what lay ahead of them, but all hoped that it would be better then the country they were leaving behind.