The Revolving Door to "Gold Mountain": How Chinese Immigrants got Around U.S. Exclusion and Replenished the Chinese American Labor Force, 1900-1910

Ken Chew, University of California, Irvine
Mark Leach, University of California, Irvine
Robert C. Romero
John Liu, University of California, Irvine

By what means did Chinese Americans get around the U.S. embargo on immigration as they sought to maintain viable communities during the late 19th and early 20th centuries? This paper investigates the use of centrally orchestrated immigrant "substitution" schemes. First, we use primary and published law enforcement documents (circa 1896-1902) to elucidate the mechanics of the substitution schemes. Second, we use records for 4,887 steamship person-arrivals (circa 1904-1907) to estimate the contribution of substitution schemes to the total flow of illicit Chinese migration and their impact on the age composition of Chinese American communities. Substitution schemes were crucial parts of a "revolving door" system that achieved both external compliance with the immigration embargo and replenishment of the Chinese American labor force with younger workers.