ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that standard interpretations of the Chinese experience in America are in great need of revision. A very important corollary of the sojourner theme is the notion that the nineteenth century Chinese community had utterly no interest in American political institutions or desires to adapt itself to them. The chapter focuses on the period 1850-1870 and on the events that eventually led Congress to enact section 16 of the Civil Rights Act of 1870. Beneath all the surface rationalizations, this was to be the gravamen of the complaint against the Chinese through the many phases of the anti-Chinese movement in California. At first, there was no notable opposition in the Chinese community to either the 1852 license legislation or the commutation tax. The drastic increase in the miners' tax also provoked considerable disquiet after the public realized its full effects. The Chinese reacted quickly and vocally to the Hall decision.
