“It is almost impossible to place a Chinese or Japanese of either the first or second generation in any kind of position, engineering, manufacturing or business,” per the Stanford University Placement Service report.

Mainstream society thought of Chinese males as workers in service industries such as laundries, restaurants, and produce markets. Those who aspired to break into the professions—that is, college graduates with degrees in fields such as engineering, architecture, or the sciences—faced difficulty in trying to secure positions at large, Caucasian-controlled firms. In California, consonant with the state’s legacy of racial discrimination, many firms had specific regulations against hiring Asians. “It is almost impossible to place a Chinese or Japanese of either the first or second generation in any kind of position, engineering, manufacturing or business,” the Stanford University Placement Service reported in 1928. (Chang 185)

Xue-Ming Bao

Seton Hall University

“It is almost impossible to place a Chinese or Japanese of either the first or second generation in any kind of position, engineering, manufacturing or business,” per the Stanford University Placement Service report.