California's Chinese ask US to apologise

A member of California's state assembly Paul Fong wants the federal government formally to apologise for mistreatment of the Chinese.

Earlier this month, Connecticut became the seventh state to apologise to black people for the wrongs committed under slavery. Alabama, Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina and Virginia are the others.

Mr Fong, a Democrat, believes the Chinese deserve the same. "It was a double standard all the way," he said.

California's Chinese immigrants helped build ships, levees, irrigation systems and the transcontinental railroad. They worked on farms and in mines and helped develop the abalone and shrimp industries, but were subject to special taxation, forced out of towns and denied the rights to own property, marry whites, or attend public schools. They were also the targets of the first law limiting immigration based on race or nationality, the Chinese Exclusion Act.