Some of the context behind all of the specifically anti Chinese racist laws of that era, is that the people in Washington were legitimately worried that China would just send boats of people to the west coast and out colonize the US because there were so few white colonizers on the west coast at that time, so it was very useful to have all those laws and drum up that kind of hatred specifically.

There were only around 500,000 people in the entirity of California at the foundation of this party for perspective.