ed in California, famine hit the Guangdong Province in southeast China. Hearing about California's gold, many Chinese men left for America hoping to make a fortune and return home a few years later to their loved ones. Few struck it rich and the rest fought to survive. The Gold Rush in California and the Pacific Northwest increased the demand for railroads to connect these remote parts of America. Building railroads required lots of low-paid labor, which hungry immigrant Chinese provided. By 1880, there were about 300,000 Chinese in America, but American accepted few once the railroads were completed. In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, th
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