1850: Soon after California statehood, Chinese begin arriving, drawn by the demand for cheap labor by the railroads and mines. California levies a tax on foreign miners.

1854: Chinese are prohibited from testifying in court against whites.

1855: State Legislature imposes at $50 "head tax" per Chinese immigrant. San Francisco passes "pigtail ordinance" requiring Chinese lawbreakers to cut their hair within one inch of the scalp.

1871: A Los Angeles mob, which prominent citizens, tortures and hangs 17 Chinese men.

1879: New state Constitution bars corporations from hiring Chinese and prohibits the employment of Chinese in any public works "except for punishment for crime."

1882: Congress enacts Chinese Exclusion Act prohibiting Chinese laborers from entering the country. The law also prohibits Chinese immigrants from becoming U.S. citizens. It is repealed in 1943.

1892: The Office of Immigration opens an inspection station at Ellis Island in New York Harbor.

1900s: In the first great wave of immigration, the U.S. receives 8.8 million immigrants, including large numbers from Italy, Russia and Austria-Hungary. Japanese begin arriving, recruited by the agricultural industry to make up for the loss of Chinese labor.

1906: California bars marriage between whites and "Mongolians." San Francisco school board sets off an international incident by segregating Japanese school-children. Outcome is the 1907 Gentlemen's Agreement barring Japanese laborers.

1913: President Woodrow Wilson dispatches Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan to beg California Legislature not to pass anti-immigrant legislation. Non-citizen Japanese are barred from owning property or leasing farmland. Mexican immigrants begin pouring into state to meet demand for labor.

1921: Congress' Quota Act limits immigrants of given nationality of 3% of their numbers already in the United States. The law does not restrict immigration from the Western Hemisphere.

1924: Japanese immigration is effectively cut off. Quota is lowered to 2% of residents of each nationality. Border Patrol is created.

1929: Race riots flare in Northern California against Filipino laborers.

1930: In height of Depression, deportation of Mexican laborers is widespread. Approximately half a million Mexicans exit-many of them U.S.-born children.

1942: California agricultural industry persuades Congress to establish the bracero program, bringing in Mexican workers to offset labor shortages.