After many years of famine and poverty plaguing the land of China hundreds of thousands of Chinese in seek of opportunity began immigrating to the United States. Many motivated by the discovery of gold in California others came to the United States to seek better economic opportunity. Yet there were others that were compelled to leave China either as contract laborers or refugees. The Chinese brought with them their language, culture, social institutions, and customs. Over time they made lasting contributions to their adopted country and tried to become an integral part of the United States population.
             In the eighteenth century, Chinese green tea became very popular among Europeans and Americans. Chinese silk and porcelain were also in great demand. The Chinese, on the other hand, needed almost nothing the west had to offer. This created an imbalance of trade, especially bad for the British, who were weary of sending shiploads of silver to Hong Kong. Their solution was to develop a third-party trade,exchanging their merchandise in India and Southeast Asia for cotton and opium, which became welcomed in China as currency, in spite of the Imperial Chinese prohibition on opium. During the early 1800's opium addiction reached epidemic proportions in China. It became so popular the British began using it instead of money.
             Nevertheless In 1839 the Qing government, after a decade of unsuccessful anti-opium campaigns, enacted drastic laws against the opium trade. Their commissioner, Lin Zexu, seized and destroyed some 20,000 chests of opium and detained the entire foreign community. The British retaliated violently attacking and soundly defeating the unprepared Chinese, forcing them to sign the first of what the Chinese dubbed the 'unequal treaties'. As a result Hong Kong became a British territory. England was given 'most-favored-nation' status, and British nationals were exempt from Chinese law.
             After gold was discovered in Cali...