By 1852, almost 20,000 Chinese immigrants had arrived in California. They represented only one part of the state’s cultural diversity, but they were easily the most notable and despised portion of that diversity. Historian Alexander Saxton described Chinese immigrants as the “indispensable enemy”: in other words, an easy and necessary target for racial hatred. Efforts to restrict “foreign” miners in California began in 1850, with a twenty-dollar-per-month tax on anyone construed to be a foreigner (this applied primarily to Mexicans and Latin Americans). Various immigrant groups protested this tax. On March 30, 1853, the California state legislature passed a new “license” tax of four dollars per month on miners who were not citizens of the United States—and everyone knew this law applied specifically to Chinese immigrants. The enforcement of this law was often carried out by groups of whites with little legal authority from the state of California. Chinese miners had to receive a new “license” each month or face prosecution.

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