Ah Toy is representative for the way in which immigrants and in her own case the Chinese were treated by the state authorities and the judicial system in particular. It was common practice the discriminatory attitude of the judicial system towards the Chinese immigrants given the fact that, on the one hand the legislature considered the immigrant population to be a threat to the well being of the Americans, and on the other hand, the Chinese' apparent lack of interest for the American judicial system would make them irrelevant in the face of the law. This is why the 19th century saw a number of legislative initiatives which legalized a discriminatory treatment of the Chinese immigrants and of miners in particular. Therefore, "in 1852, scarcely three years after the first Chinese arrived in California, the state legislature passed a discriminatory tax measure, aimed primarily at Chinese gold miners (an 1854...
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