San Francisco became a major city in 1849 when the gold rush began. The gold rush became a reason for people around to world to migrate and settle in San Francisco. This made San Francisco a diverse city. There were problems that came with all this migration throughout the years of the gold rush, which became even worse once the gold rush ended. The gold rush soon created problems with gender, ethnicity, and social economic status. In the novel, “Making San Francisco American: Cultural Frontiers in the Urban West 1846-1906” by Barbra Berglund, a history professor at the University of Florida, describes all the problems San Francisco was faced with because of all the migration that flooded during the gold rush. She gives various examples of…show more content… Americans believed that the Chinese were the ones that made the gold rush so they became the new target. Even though many of the Chinese didn’t find any gold or not that much because they went at the end when all the gold was almost gone. The Americans blamed the Chinese for ending the gold rush which lead to a great separation in the population. Since the Americans didn’t want to be near Chinese they pushed then into a confined location. Many chinse people had to live in small area. The Chinese started to build their own town it was eventually called China Town because it was where all the Chinese could practice their own beliefs and could be protected from all the Americans who would abuse them. Chinese were also having to deal with the discrimination they received when working. An average Chinese railroad worker made only about 60% of what an American would make, and if a Chinese worker did the most difficult and dangerous job they would still only make 90% of what a “white American” would make. Chinese people would also work at restaurants as Berglund states that “James J. Ayers, who would become one of the first editors of the San Francisco call, recollected that ‘the best restaurants … were kept by Chinese, and the poorest and dearest by Americans’” (27). This was most likely because the Chinese workers not only got payed less so there were more workers, but also that the Chinese workers did not want to lose their jobs so they did their best. While the American workers were paid more so there were less workers and many of they didn’t try as hard because they probably thought that they could find another job
