Chinese American Citizens Alliance

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Like other immigrant organizations, the Chinese American Citizens Alliance has its roots in the historical context of the migration of Chinese Sojourners in the mid to late nineteenth century, as well as in the anti-Chinese sentiments that arose in the American west in response. Chinese immigrants fulfilled the need for inexpensive labour during the Gold Rush (1848-1858) and the construction of the transcontinental railway (1863-1869) in the United States, but negative public perception of Chinese labourers fostered the passage of ethnically targeted restrictive immigration policies such as the Page Act (1875), Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), Scott Act (1888), and Geary Act (1892). This atmosphere of entrenched social segregation and legislative discrimination lead immigrants to inhabit increasingly isolated Chinese neighborhoods called Chinatowns, and also gave rise to the organization of Family Associations and Community Organizations which sought to support Chinese interests, provide social support, and present a unified political voice in California and across the nation. …show more content…
The goal of this organization was to change the way Chinese in America were being treated. The Native Sons were later reorganized in 1904 by Walter Lum, Joseph Lum, and Ng Gunn, and by 1912 it had become a statewide organization. By 1915 this association was officially reorganized and chartered as the Chinese American Citizens Alliance (C.A.C.A.), a national non-profit organization which had begun to include a range of out of state