The “Chinese Question” dominated Western politics not just because Californians were racist (although they were) and not just because Chinese in shoe making, cigar making, and laundries worked for lower wages than whites (which they did), but because whites, both immigrant and native-born, had rhetorically turned the Chinese into “coolies.” Coolies were indentured laborers, which Chinese immigrants were not, but by portraying them as such, Sinophobes made them the tools employers would use to reduce white workers to slavery.
