Chinese began to settle in Oakland in the year of its founding in 1852, that is, a scant two or three years after major Chinese immigration into the United States began. Between 1852 and the mid-1870s, Chinese in Oakland as throughout the United States, were first enthusiastically welcomed, then grudgingly accepted (so long as they kept in their place). Doing their best to ignore criticism and to work around the mountains of limitations gradually placed upon them, Chinese continued to settle in America in ever increasing numbers so long as economic opportunities were available. They settled primarily in California, but by 1870 had also begin living in other western states. 1

At first, Chinese were spread out, living in the countryside and small towns as well as in the larger cities. They were not, as has sometimes been stated, inclined to confine their contacts or their business life exclusively to other Chinese. 2 Within the cities and towns, Chinese worked in factories or on construction jobs, became peddlers or opened laundries.3 In the countryside, they could be found throughout the western states, working as contract mine laborers or laborers on local railroad lines. Others were commercial fishermen who lived in the Chinese fishing villages found all along the Pacific coast. Even others worked as farm laborers on California's huge commercial farms, operated truck farms, or worked on land reclamation and levee building projects in California's Sacramento-San Joaquin delta.4