Chinese migrant workers encountered considerable prejudice in the United States , especially by the people who occupied the lower layers in white society , and Chinese " coolies " were used as a scapegoat for depressed wage levels by politicians and labor leaders . Cases of physical assaults on Chinese include the Chinese massacre of 1871 in Los Angeles and more recently the murder of Vincent Chin in Detroit . The 1909 murder of Elsie Sigel in New York , of which a Chinese person was suspected , was blamed on the Chinese in general and led to physical violence . " The murder of Elsie Sigel immediately grabbed the front pages of newspapers , which portrayed Chinese men as dangerous to " innocent " and " virtuous " young white women . This murder led to a surge in the harassment of Chinese in communities across the United States . " The emerging American trade unions , under such leaders as Samuel Gompers , also took an outspoken anti-Chinese position , regarding Chinese laborers as competitors to white laborers . Only with the emergence of the international trade union Industrial Workers of the World did trade unionists start to accept Chinese workers as part of the American working-class
Chinese massacre of 1871
Chinese massacre of 1871
Anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States