Chinese citizens have a long history of being discriminated in the United States dating back to the 1800s. During the mid to late 1800’s, vast amounts of Chinese workers immigrated to America for riches, to escape the economic hardships of Britain after the Opium War, and they viewed America as a place free of intolerance. Those reasons including the California Gold Rush sparked the Chinese to travel to America and settle within the West Coast. However, Chinese immigrants did not live completely equal to whites as they could not testify against white people as told by the California Supreme Court. Racism in the United States was the primary motivation for the discriminatory actions against Chinese immigrants in the middle to late 1800’s.