"The Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) was a US law that shut off all immigration from China to the US except for scholars, merchants, diplomats and professionals. It is where the American idea of “illegal aliens” comes from, the beginning of the country’s racist immigration policies.
At first immigration from China was limited, then Japan and Korea (1907), then the Asiatic Barred Zone (1917) and then southern and eastern Europe (1924). On top of that, Chinese and Mexicans were being driven out by violence and deportation.
That is why the US was so lily-white in the 1950s. Some think of that as the “natural” state of the country, but it was the creation of a set of racist policies that began with the Chinese Exclusion Act, policies that were not overturned till 1965."
Via Community Village Sites
There was a China town in San Jose, CA (south of San Francisco) that burned down – twice! It is no longer there. However, there is a small Japan Town now in San Jose and a ‘Little Saigon’.