Background
The laws limiting Chinese immigration to the United States (see the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Page Act of 1875) prevented most Chinese men from sending for their families back in China. Girls and young women were shipped to the United States illegally, presenting forged papers saying they were related to upper-class Chinese men already in California. Younger girls were sold as "Mui Tsais", domestic servants, while older girls and women were sold into prostitution, sometimes by their own families. Many "Mui Tsais" were sold into prostitution when they reached their early teens. A Chinese prostitute lived a brutal, short life, usually dying within five years.
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