Our USA has always desired cheap labor. Our USA's solution was always to import workers -- from Africa, China, Mexico, etc.

China has grown into a superpower today largely because it has so much cheap labor. And our USA struggles to compete because our workers cost more.

Our USA's heavy handed methods of importing labor (African slaves and illegal Hispanic workers) always had unintended consequences, such as race riots, gang violence, rending of the social fabric. San Francisco's Chinatown became an exciting place during the gang violence of the Tong wars.

Here's a recent article on Chinese workers brought over from the Chinese mainland by the Central pacific RR.

[www.sierrasun.com]

QUOTE:

In 1865 the Big Four – Stanford, Huntington, Crocker and Hopkins — had a problem. They couldn’t hire and keep enough workman to construct the Central Pacific Railroad. New hires would leave for the Virginia City silver mines shortly after they were hired.

Crocker’s solution was to try former Chinese gold miners to see if they would stay and do the work. The experiment was a success and the railroad began hiring all the available Chinese workers in California. After that, Crocker asked a labor contractor to employ laborers from the Chinese mainland.

The contractor recruited poor farmers from Guangzhou province, near present-day Hong Kong. ...

The Central Pacific was able to hire over 12,000 Chinese using this process. Theirs was the workforce that built the railroad through the forests and tunnels of the Sierras. Then, they toiled across Nevada to meet up with the westbound Union Pacific north of the Great Salt Lake.