In 1875, in order to celebrate and continue the spirit that turned the Mexican Territory into a U.S. state, a group of men establish an organization with membership restricted to white men born in California. To set themselves apart from the state’s rapidly increasing population, they call themselves the Native Sons of the Golden West. For decades to come, their members will include California governors, state legislators, mayors, and federal immigration officials.

While fighting the ...

... Geary Act, a group of Chinese Americans born in California decide to make a public statement of their equal right to their own U.S. citizenship. Noting that they too were born in California, 185 Chinese American men organize the "Rising Sun Parlor No. 1" as another San Francisco parlor of the Native Sons of the Golden West.

"It is to be a society not only for mutual benefit," the San Francisco Call reports, "but for general protection to Chinese ...

... who are not natives."

Chinese Americans continue to assert their own U.S. citizenship. San Franciscans organize a Chinese American answer to the whites-only NSGW, incorporating in 1895 as the Native Sons of the Golden State.

Chinese Americans continue to organize to challenge Exclusion and other unequal treatment.