At various times, the Knights distrusted Italians, Finns, Hungarians, and more, but the one racial or ethnic group they banned from the organization was the Chinese. The Chinese were largely wage laborers like themselves, but the Knights thought them quite different from other immigrants or freedpeople. They regarded them not as workers but as coolies, virtual semislaves who undermined free labor. Their attacks on the Chinese had as much to do with their popularity,
