In the 1870’s, white laborers considered the Chinese to be competition for jobs and sometimes responded with great hostility. Californians led the effort to prohibit further Chinese immigration, encouraging the passage of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. In 1871, Brett Harte wrote a poem, Plain Language from Truthful James, that rebuked a white card shark cheating a Chinese man. Intended to be a commentary on the prejudice against the Chinese, the poem was often misinterpreted as a condemnation of the Chinese.
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