Chinese Labor
Most of the workers who built the western portion of the transcontinental railroad were immigrants from China. Letters from California reported that working on the railroad was hard and dangerous. But immigrants continued to come, lured by the promise of earning higher wages than they ever had dreamed of back home.
Once the railroad was completed in 1869, thousands of workers were laid off. A depression hit California in the 1870s and white Californians blamed the Chinese for the hard times. Anti-Chinese sentiment led to acts of violence and the enactment of discriminatory laws in cities throughout the state. The Workingmen's Party swept to power in San Francisco, demanding that "the Chinese must go." Californians in 1879 adopted a new state constitution that contained strongly worded anti-Chinese provisions. Three years later the United States Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, prohibiting further Chinese immigration.