"The Chinese Exclusion Act? What does this have to do with a black-eatout-eat-black police chief? The corners of Welbe's mouth curled slightly, revealing a sneer of disdain.

"Sir, do you know the details of Marenny?" Clay asked, somewhat surprised.

"I did a little research before, after all, you personally made a suggestion to me." Verbet lowered his head and continued to sort through the papers in his hand.

The truth is not as light as the words say, and a little investigation in Verbey's mouth actually directly uses the power of the national level, and the newly made Republican allies are very hard, and some of the classified information comes directly from the FBI.

"Speaking of the Chinese Exclusion Act in the United States," Welbe picked up his glass from the cup holder.

"I'd like to hear your personal opinion."

"Is this another expedition? Mr. Clay glanced at the back seat in the rearview mirror.

"Yes, if you think so—" Verbet drank the water from his glass, and then put it back on the cup holder.

When California officially joined the Union in 1850, Los Angeles recorded two residents of China in the first census, employees of a merchant family, and the first Chinese immigrants to be recorded in California government documents.

With the gold rush and the subsequent Pacific Railroad project, a large number of Chinese entered the United States as labor immigrants.

The identity of the Chinese who entered the United States also showed a polarized trend, in addition to the majority of the poor low-level laborers, there were also some rich and powerful businessmen and gentry.

China's maritime traders generally lack a sense of security, because the Manchu government is really ugly, so you say that they are "cunning rabbits", "do not put their eggs in one basket", anyway, they began to lay out overseas very early, transfer the huge assets accumulated in the maritime trade, and spread out in the local area, continuing the blood of the family. This has proven to be very effective and will not seem outdated until the 21st century.

In the early days of the coolie trade, the California government did not exclude Chinese laborers, who were in great need of cheap labor and capital from outside, and any immigrant could apply to become a U.S. citizen as long as they met the constitutional standards.

Chinese coolies are cheap, hard-working, and have a strong ability to learn, only need to go through simple vocational training, and can quickly take over some less complicated technical jobs, which is incomparable to other ethnic laborers, so soon the Chinese occupy almost ninety percent of the labor market in North America, especially in California.

Because of differences in language and living customs, Chinese laborers prefer to live in a community, where they retain their own customs and etiquette in their home country, and even give Chinese names to the streets and alleys in the community.

Habitually poor and thrifty, they were never willing to spend a penny extra outside, but chose to store the money they earned and then hand it over to the clan to transfer back home.

At that time, almost all the coolies had a whip in the back of their heads, not because of how loyal they were to our Qing Dynasty, but just so that when they returned to their hometowns in the future, they would not be dragged out by the government as a rebel party and cut off their heads.

During the construction of the Pacific Railroad, Chinese laborers accounted for 95 percent of the total number of workers, and their monthly wages were only a meagre $26 at first, but although they rose to $35 a month, they were still not as high as the wages of white laborers at 50 dollars a month. Moreover, the white workers had to eat and live, and the Chinese workers also had to pay extra for their own meals, just because the Chinese workers had their own eating habits and were not used to eating the meals cooked by American cooks.

The road construction work is very dangerous and arduous, and thousands of Chinese laborers died due to various accidents during the project, so later generations say that under every sleeper of the Pacific Railway, there is the body of a Chinese coolie buried.

But it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for these coolies to make a fortune, because at the exchange rate at the time, they toiled in their hometown's fields for a year and earned only a dozen dollars. (During the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the exchange rate between silver and the U.S. dollar reached a maximum of 1:107, which was calculated according to the exchange of one dollar for one tael of customs silver, and one tael of customs silver could be exchanged for a consistent, that is, a thousand copper coins.) In fact, at that time, many peasant households in Guangdong, even if they planted their own land, after deducting all kinds of harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes, the balance of monthly income was seven or eight hundred yuan, which was considered very good. ）

After deducting food and other daily necessities, paying off the credit and membership fees of the association, if he still keeps himself clean and does not prostitute or gamble, he can save about half of his salary every month, which is more than the family's previous income for a year.

If he was lucky, after the two-year agreement, he would probably be able to accumulate 300 to 400 US dollars in his pocket, which was already a huge amount of money in the eyes of ordinary people at that time, enough for him to return to his hometown, buy a house and land, glorify his ancestors, and live a nourishing life as a small landlord. This is the reason why the people of Guangdong still flock to Jinshan knowing that it is risky to go to Jinshan to work, and countless people have died.

Most of the coolies had no intention of becoming permanent immigrants at all, they just saw the United States as a place to make a fortune, and after completing the agreement with the coolie traders, they returned to their hometowns with the money they earned, and only a few chose to stay and develop.

Initially, the U.S. government's attitude toward Chinese labor was fairly fair, but local officials inevitably harbored racist superiority thinking. Prior to 1873, the political status of the Chinese in the United States was essentially the same as that of the Indians, and neither the Chinese, nor the Indians, nor the blacks, were allowed to testify in any case against the whites.

The same is true for highly educated lawyers, and it is entirely conceivable how the rural people in the western United States will view the Chinese.

From the perspective of American racists at the time, it was impossible for these yellow-skinned little men to integrate into American society or become a member of the American family, they would only steal the jobs of white Americans with low wages, and bring the wealth that belonged to white Americans back to the country where they didn't know where they were at all.

In fact, the attack on the Chinese began in 1860, when the California Gold Rush had ended, and a large number of white people from all over the country who came to California to pan for gold were stranded in the local area, and many of them invested all their wealth in the gold rush, and even owed a butt of loan sharks, so to speak, gambling their lives.

The depletion of gold mines left a large number of gold prospectors unemployed, and California's economy came to a standstill, and at that time, California's industrial and commercial construction was weak and could not provide enough jobs, so the white laborers began to point the finger at the Chinese who had jobs.

When there is no conflict of interests between the two ethnic groups, it is completely possible to live in peace, but once there is a conflict of interests, then the weaker party will definitely rebel. When it comes to employment, white laborers are on the weak side, because no capitalist is stupid enough to hire them unless they are willing to receive the same wages as the Chinese.

As a result, an anti-China storm began to slowly brew in the white society. In order to pander and win over white voters, California politicians have also begun to take further political action.

Initially, California enacted the Foreign Miners Income Tax Act, which imposed additional taxes on all foreign miners who opened mines, resulting in the majority of Chinese miners being unable to continue working and having to open laundries and restaurants in San Francisco's Chinatown to earn a living.

In 1877, the first anti-Chinese riots broke out in San Francisco, and 400 California railroad workers, who were angry at the railroad company's wage cut, tried to burn down the entire Chinatown, because they felt that it was the low wages of the Chinese workers that caused this to happen.

Finally, 30 San Francisco Mounted Police in Chinatown and the "Pique Kimchi Brigade" spontaneously formed by 5,000 San Francisco citizens at that time stepped forward to protect the Chinese community.

But this was only the beginning of a series of disasters, and in 1880 the U.S. federal and California governments issued a series of orders against the Chinese. The Fisheries Act prohibited Chinese from engaging in any fishing activities, and the subsequent Beijing Treaty limited the number of Chinese in the United States each year and the number of years they lived in the United States.

California repealed the law in 1948, but the rest of the U.S. states continued to enforce it until 1967, when it was finally terminated by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional. Therefore, some Chinese in the Republic of China married white wives or fell in love with white women in the United States, which was completely daydreaming.

In 1882, the infamous Chinese Exclusion Act was enacted under the joint impetus of Democrats and Republican politicians.

It is notorious because it is a racially discriminatory bill against a single ethnic group. The content of the bill is not complicated, it boils down to one sentence, to prevent Chinese from immigrating to the United States again.

The bill prohibits Chinese laborers from entering U.S. territory by any means across any border, and ships that deliver coolies to the U.S. after the bill is signed will be heavily fined from the shipowner to the captain, and even Chinese crew members on foreign merchant ships will not be allowed to disembark in U.S. ports.

In addition, after the law comes into effect, any Chinese living in the United States will not be allowed to naturalize, and once they leave the United States, they will also be prohibited from re-entering the United States.

In addition, Chinese nationals, including students, teachers, businessmen, and government officials, who have obtained legal identification documents issued by the Manchu government, can be allowed to enter the United States, but must carry the documents with them so that the American police can conduct random inspections anytime and anywhere.

Chinese who previously lived in the United States must be sponsored by two U.S. citizens in order to obtain legal residence ID, otherwise they will be considered illegal and deported. Initially issued only to Chinese, this ID gradually expanded to all foreign immigrants, eventually developing into the famous green card.

The non-naturalization of Chinese means that all Chinese who came to the United States after 1882 are not allowed to become U.S. citizens, except for children of immigrants who were naturalized at an early age and born in the United States.

Moreover, according to the laws of the United States at that time, the property ownership of foreign immigrants in the United States was not protected, and the Chinese were forbidden to work in government departments and companies, let alone purchase land and start businesses in the United States.

Therefore, in those Republic of China, a Chinese student or businessman who opened a factory in the United States, bought land, dug oil wells, and made a fortune in stocks was completely wishful thinking, because in the era when the Chinese Exclusion Act came into effect, the Chinese had no chance to stand out in the United States.

PS: Thank you all for your support.