Originally published in 1939, this book was the first objective study of the anti-Chinese movement in the Far West, a subject that is as much a part of the history of California as the mission period or the gold rush. Some historians of the Asian American experience consider it to be, more than half a century later, the most satisfactory work on the subject.
For this reissue, Roger Daniels has updated the bibliography to 1991.
Sandmeyer's study centers around two points: first, that organized labor was always the strongest supporter of the anti-Chinese movement; second, that the major political parties were so closely matched in strength that organized labor held the balance of power. Of particular value is the author's painstaking dissection of the many different types of restrictive action by the state and various municipalities. He provides an excellent picture of the forty-year conflict between this local legislation and the federal laws.
The late ELMER CIARENCE S AN DM E YER received his doctorate from the University of Illinois. He was a teacher at and president of Santa Monica City College. ROGER DANIELS, professor of history at the University of Cincinnati, is the author of Asian America: Chinese and Japanese in the United States since 1850.