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Chinese immigration to america 1800s
Chinese immigrants in the us essay
Chinese immigration to america 1800s
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On February 27, 1877 a joint special committee of the Senate and House of Representatives was appointed to investigate Chinese immigration. The arguments against Chinese immigration, presented in paragraph two of the report are that they “live in filthy dwelling”, do not follow proper nutritional standards, have no concern for health of fire safety, and that their “vices are corrupting the morals of the city.” There was a belief that the Chinese were monopolizing “industrial pursuits” and this led to lower wages for workers. “Doubtful means of support” in reference to Chinese women could mean that when these women were unable to find “normal” work they were forced into a darker industry such as sex work. In the third paragraph the authors
The first Chinese immigrants to arrive in America came in the early 1800s. Chinese sailors visited New York City in the 1830s (“The Chinese Experience”); others came as servants to Europeans (“Chinese Americans”). However, these immigrants were few in number, and usually didn’t even st...
This investigation is designed to explore to what extent did attitudes toward the Chinese immigrants during the building of the transcontinental railroad differ from those towards Irsih immigrants? To assess the attitudes toward the Chinese immigrants, this study focuses on the building of the transcontinental railroad in the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century. This study investigates the views, tasks given during the building of the railroad, and benefits given to the Chinese and Irish immigrants and the impact of their work on the views toward each group of immigrants.
The pursuit of a comfortable living or wealth caused a lot of men to venture into the West leaving behind his or her homeland and families. Chinese labors faced conflicts in their homeland;
As many women took on a domestic role during this era, by the turn of the century women were certainly not strangers to the work force. As the developing American nation altered the lives of its citizens, both men and women found themselves struggling economically and migrated into cities to find work in the emerging industrialized labor movement . Ho...
The United States’ government instilled a closed door policy with the creation of many immigration laws in an effort to make America a melting pot of similar ethnicities. However, the prejudice of American society that was enforced by immigration policy forced immigrants to form their own communities for the purpose of survival and protection, turning America into a mosaic of different cultures. The Burlingame Treaty of 1868 and Naturalization Act of 1870 both created a false image of acceptance for immigrants while simultaneously restricting immigration. The United States’ government only began clearly restricting immigration with the Page Act of 1875 and Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
...rked as unskilled laborers in the new factories. Most were poor, disgruntled, and found that America was not what they had expected when they left their native countries. The city bosses provided aid to these immigrants and then gained their political support. They unfairly took advantages of the immigrants to gain power, which helped them to gain the money they were seeking. The immigrants had a difficult life because most of them were crowded into ghettos and slums. They received low wages and faced dangerous and unhealthy working conditions daily. Concentration increased and living quarter size proportionately decreased. The immigrants experienced poor sanitation and contagious diseases and most did not have any plumbing or ventilation. They had a difficult and sad life, and many were more happy in their oppressive homelands than industrialized America.
One reason that the old immigrants had such negative feelings toward open immigration was the amount of jobs that would be taken from them due to the cheap labor these new immigrants provided. In a resolution letter to congress from the AFL the unstated motive to denying Chinese immigrants from entering our country was not that they would increase crime or corrupt the politica...
A nativist minister during the 1870’s gave this testimony during a Congressional hearing on Chinese immigration, “Coolieism, with very slight exceptions, leaves the Chinese just what they were in their native land, with all their idolatry, immorality, vice, and heathen customs, habits, dress, tastes, prejudices, and most unacquirable language a large, distinct class of people, adverse to all that is American.
The Chinese immigrant experience has traveled through times of hardships, under the English man. They have struggled to keep themselves alive through racism, work, and acceptance. Although many have come to Canada for their lives’ and their children’s to be successful, and safe. It could not be just given until adversity gave them the life they hoped to one day life for. In the starting time of 1858, the Chinese community had started coming to different parts of Canada considering the push and pull factors that had led them here. Because of the lack of workers in the British Columbia region, the Chinese were able to receive jobs in gold mining. Most Chinese were told to build roads, clear areas, and construct highways, but were paid little because of racism. The Chinese today are considered one of the most successful races in Canada because of the push and pull factors that they had come across, the racism that declined them and the community of the Chinese at the present time.
The film, “Iron Road” improves the viewer's understanding of the pushes and pulls that brought china men to Canada, what was happening in china at the time, the CPR, the working conditions and racism. China was an economically unstable country in the mid-1800s. Two wars, the Opium War and the Taiping Rebellion took the lives of millions of people, natural disasters such as floods created complications with food production. Social stability declined, gangs and bandits threatened villages, the result was severe poverty and starvation. Impossibly high rents and taxes consumed the farm's profits, faced with such dire conditions, many peasants moved away from their farms Guangdong, to look for work. The competition for jobs was intense, and the
Kwong, Peter. 1999 “Forbidden Workers: Illegal Chinese Immigrants and American Labor” Publisher: The New Press.
Millions of immigrants over the previous centuries have shaped the United States of America into what it is today. America is known as a “melting pot”, a multicultural country that welcomes and is home to an array of every ethnic and cultural background imaginable. We are a place of opportunity, offering homes and jobs and new economic gains to anyone who should want it. However, America was not always such a “come one, come all” kind of country. The large numbers of immigrants that came during the nineteenth century angered many of the American natives and lead to them to blame the lack of jobs and low wages on the immigrants, especially the Asian communities. This resentment lead to the discrimination and legal exclusion of immigrants, with the first and most important law passed being the Chinese Exclusion Act. However, the discrimination the Chinese immigrants so harshly received was not rightly justified or deserved. With all of their contributions and accomplishments in opening up the West, they were not so much harming our country but rather helping it.
Oftentimes the children of immigrants to the United States lose the sense of cultural background in which their parents had tried so desperately to instill within them. According to Walter Shear, “It is an unseen terror that runs through both the distinct social spectrum experienced by the mothers in China and the lack of such social definition in the daughters’ lives.” This “unseen terror” is portrayed in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club as four Chinese women and their American-born daughters struggle to understand one another’s culture and values. The second-generation women in The Joy Luck Club prove to lose their sense of Chinese values, becoming Americanized.
One challenge that the immigrants face in this story is that they are thought of as inferior by Americans, or "demons" as they have begun to refer to them. Demons are not accepting of differences; therefore the Chinese are looked down upon, and don't get equal rights and privileges. For example, Moon Shadow's grandmother tells him that his father traveled to America to work as a laundryman before he was born. She tells Moon Shadow that gold, in the Land of the Golden Mountain, is everywhere and men can scoop it up by the bucket-full. When he asks why his father does not get enough gold to return home, his grandmother replies, "Demons roam the mountain up and down and they beat up any of our men who try to get the gold" (6). She mentions that they are allowed to take only a small pinch of it, and only if they do all of the hard, grueling labor that they are told to do. This quote proves that Chinese (Tang) people are belittled. They are forced to work like slaves. Good-paying jobs are very difficult for them to find. They must also be careful when choosing them. Moon Shadow states, "There was plenty of money to be made among the demons, but it was also dangerous" (1). This states that though there are many job opportunities in America, the lives of Chinese people are sometimes put at risk. This would almost certainly not have been the case if an American were to have the same job. This demonstrates the prejudice which exists against Tang men. The book also mentions that Americans often assume Chinese people are greedy, that they are after Americans' money.
Women usually worked as secretaries or on the assembly line because “bosses felt that young women were more diligent and easier to manage” (p. 56). Men, however, were either in a high managing position in the factory or worked in the lowest of jobs available, such as a security guard or driver. It was interesting to learn that about one-third of all of China’s migrants are women. These women go to the factory towns to work, but also, a majority of them leave their homes to see the world and experience life on their own for the first time. Chang makes a point that “to some extent, this deep-rooted sexism worked in a woman’s favor” (p. 57). The statement is supported by the idea that women are less treasured in their families; therefore, they had more freedom to do what they wanted with little care from the family. Shockingly, Chang noticed that no woman ever complained about unfair treatment. “They took all of these injustices in stride” (p.58). The women were grateful for the opportunity leave home and gain a sense of freedom; injustice was not a prominent