Chinese immigrants come for jobs in the coal mines, clearing land, or working as cooks and servants.

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The first Chinese known to visit Puget Sound came with the explorer John Mears in the late 1700s

The gold rush on the West Coast and the need for laborers to build the railways across the country attracted a flow of immigrants from China in the mid-1800s. When those jobs ended, they settled in cities taking low-wage jobs.