Nonetheless, the Chinese continued to protest the American policies that targeted them. “We helped build your railroads, open your mines, cultivated the waste places, and assisted in making California the great State she is now,” one group of petitioners would write to the president of the United States. “In return for all this what do we receive? Abuse, humiliation and imprisonment. We ask that these things be changed, and that we be treated as human beings instead of outlaws.” (Chang 140)