9781422277416

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Getting Here

A glint of gold flashed in the banks of a stream. It was 1848, and a workman was building a new sawmill on Sutter’s Creek in California. The discovery set off a gold rush that brought tens of thousands of treasure hunters to America. Many of these newcomers were Chinese men. In China, some began referring to the United States as “gold mountain.” By 1851, 25,000 Chinese people had moved to California. Gold discoveries in Australia and Canada during the same time period sparked similar waves of migration from China to those countries. Before the gold rushes, large communities of Chinese people had already

Words to Understand emigrant

a person who leaves his or her home country to live

elsewhere ethnicity a person’s national or cultural identity

immigrant a person who has permanently settled in a new country prejudice a commonly held opinion about a group of people that is not based on fact or reason sojourner a person who temporarily lives in a place

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