Abstract
Chinese elites who were exempted from the Exclusion Act of 1882 became important figures in interethnic dialogue in the West. This article focuses on herbalists and missionaries, who were often able to cross boundaries of race, geography, and gender through their professions. In comparing the experiences of these elites in Los Angeles with their counterparts in San Francisco—the two cities in California with the highest Chinese populations by 1890—the authors demonstrate how a limited degree of inclusion was possible during a period of extreme discrimination and race hatred. The examination of photographs, newspaper articles and advertisements, memoirs, and other materials provides a way to understand the class dimensions of the Exclusion Act in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century California.