Immigrant in United States had me thought a lot about immigrants, more specifically Korean immigrants. I chose to focus on Korean immigrants because the city that I come from, Orange County, California, has a large Asian population. I do have some friends that are actually from another country and I would hear comment about green card, immigrant acts, their home country, and citizenship status. My hometown is the one that influenced me to research about the history of Korean immigrant.
January 13, 1903, first group of Korean immigrants arrived to Hawaii for work and/or school. Korean immigrants grow only little by little. The unique part of that decade is Picture Brides. It is another term for mail-order bride. Korean male immigrants in United States at the time tend to get lonely and want to marry Korean woman. They would send pictures to Korea and find someone that is willing to marry him and move to United States (Women’s History in Public: “Picture Brides” of Hawaii). I find that quite unique and it’s actually common during early 1900s.
Due to an increasing population of Asian immigrants, governments created Immigrant Act of 1924, also known as Johnson Reed Act. The purpose of that act is to exclude all immigrants, especially Asians from entering to United States (Bureau of Public Affairs). Due to that act, it did actually decrease the numbers of immigrants from Asia, even the Picture Brides. Korean cannot immigrate to American for almost twenty-five years.
Fast-forwarding to late 1940s, I noticed that in the United States census, there’s a sudden increase number of Korean immigrants population. Based on my research, that’s when the Korean War started. There are series of events that happened during that time. June 25, 1...
... middle of paper ...
...York
City, NY: NYU.
Immigration Act of 1924. (n.d.). Retrieved November 27, 2013, U.S.
Department of States website: https://history.state.gov/milestones/1921-
1936/immigration-act
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. (n.d.). Retrieved November 27, 2013, from
U.S. Department of States website: https://history.state.gov/milestones/19451952/immigration-act
Immigration Explorer. (2009, March 10). Retrieved November 3, 2013, from New York
Times website: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/03/10/us/20090310-immigration-explorer.html Korean War. (2013). In The Hutchinson Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://www.credoreference.com/entry/heliconhe/korean_war Post-War Years. (n.d.). Retrieved November 27, 2013, from U.S. Citizenship and
Immigration Services website: http://www.uscis.gov/history-and-genealogy/our-history/agency-history/post-war-years
Beginning in 1882 with the Chinese Exclusion Act, the United States stopped being a nation of immigrants and instead became a new type of nation, a gate-keeping nation. For the first time in its history, the United States did not welcome immigrants with open arms. As a result, the United States began to exert federal control over immigrants, which would change the ways Americans viewed and thought about race, immigration, and the nations’ identity as a whole.
The Asian Exclusion Act of 1924 eventually superseded the Gentlemen’s Agreement and was quite possibly the most exclusionary immigration policy the the US had ever enacted. The Immigration Act of 1924, otherwise known as the Oriental Exclusion Act, was signed on July 1, 1924, banning all Asian immigrants into United States and effectively ending the first wave of Korean immigration until the end of World War II (Son I). The 1924 Immigration Act stemmed from nativists who petitioned for implementing “immigration restriction” as means of bottlenecking the influx of “undesirable foreigners” (Lee 134). The objective of this Act was to significantly decrease the inflow of “eastern and southern European immigrants” and outright banned Asian immigration
Gjerde, Jon. Major Problems in American Immigration and Ethnic History: Documents and Essays. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998. Print.
As America continued to recruit workers from other countries, they continually worried about an immigration problem. In 1924, the Federal government passed the Immigration Act which officially barred further immigration from Asia and Europe to the U.S.
-Despite the already severe legal and social restrictions on Asian immigration, some European Americans felt that immigration should be forbidden altogether with a specific Asian Exclusion Act. In arguments which seem familiar to modern followers of the immigration debate, Asians were accused of taking white jobs and causing social
Asian Americans were viewed as one of the minority groups. During the period of early 1920s, the number of Asian immigrants rose. As many Asian women married aliens for naturalized citizenship. Also, Asians were took over white jobs, causing hatred and social unrest. Therefore, a series of strict and harsh immigration laws targeted to Asians and therefore many Asians women faced a lot of social issues such as discrimination, gender identity and their precarious civic status in a vulnerable society before and during 1920s. For instances. The immigration Act of 1921 and 1924 were introduced and it created another restriction on immigration by forming a stricter quota system. The main purpose of The Acts was to guarantee that they would never qualify for land ownership or naturalization. Meanwhile, in 1922, the Supreme Court declared that Japanese were ineligible for citizenship. Until the Immigration Act of 1924, all Asians were denied to entry the United States. Under the harsh restrictions, many Asians did not receive equal education opportunities and they usually worked as unskilled laborer. Most Asian women, including merchants’ wives worked in shops, canneries, laundries and maintaining the home in the United States. Moreover, they worked as prostitution and paid with copper pennies. However, since many restrictions targeted Asians, they suffered from the
In response to the World War I for the following years from the flow of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. Congress of United States passed a law to limit immigrations, which named Immigration Act of 1924 or the Johnson-Reed Act. The Immigration Act of 1924 was an Act use to limit the big number of immigration entry to the United States. The Immigration Act of 1924 only provided two percent immigration visas from 1980s national census. Asians were not allowed to immigrate to the United States.
Chinese immigrants to the United States of America have experienced both setbacks and triumphs in the quest to seek a better life from themselves and their families. First arriving in America in the mid-1800s to seek jobs and escape poor conditions in their home country, the Chinese found work as labors and settled in areas known as Chinatowns (Takaki 181-183). In the early years, these immigrants experienced vast legal racism and sexism as women were forbidden to enter the country and the Chinese Exclusion Act prevented laborers from entering the country for years (Takaki 184-192). Today, the modern Chinese-American experience has changed from the experience of early Chinese immigrants. Many immigrants enter the country seeking better education as well employment (Yung, Chang, and Lai 244). Immigrant women have made great strides in achieving equality to men. Despite advancements, many immigrants still experience discrimination on some level. One example of a modern Chinese immigrant is “Ruby”, a college student who, with her parents, immigrated from Hong Kong to a suburb of Providence, Rhode Island, 7 years ago. Ruby’s story shares insight on the modern Chinese-American experience and the struggles this group still faces. Chinese immigrants have long maintained a presence in the United States, and despite many struggles, have eventually began to reap the benefits of this great nation.
The period from 1905 to 1924 is characterized by quite a different group of Korean Immigrants. One part of this group was made up of Koreans who were running from their government and students who were studying in the US. Syngman Rhee, who would become the leader of South Korea during the Korean War, was earning his Ph.D. at Princeton University during this time. About 500 students and political refugees arrived in America (...
In the early 1900’s immigration was less and more complicated then today. It was easier to get in and harder to make a living. In “The Sun From America” by Isaac Singer it took time to make a living in America.
Fukuoka, Yasunori “Koreans in Japan: Past and Present,” Saitama University Review, vol. 31, no.1, 1996.
One of the first restriction, the Chinese exclusion act in 1882 that restricted any more Chinese workers to come to America. Then followed by the Asiatic barred zone act in 1917 that made immigration stricter by including a literacy test to reduce immigration. And later on in 1924 the immigration act was passed putting a quota limiting every nationality, allowing only 3% of the total population of that nationality to immigrate to America. This was one of the actions to restrict immigration, mainly Europeans immigrate to America after World War I. After World War I, many European countries are still in the process of recovering from it which lead a push to immigration to America. But soon after, World War II began with Hitler leading Germany back into power with Japan as its ally. As America soon joined the war in 1941, the attack on Pearl Harbor quickly followed and another restriction for the Japanese was quickly set in place in 1942. It prohibited the immigration of the Japanese and pushed all the Japanese and Japanese-Americans to concentration camps. Besides war, the 9/11 tourist attack was also a hit to immigration making immigration stricter. After the homeland security act was passed, security was tighten among borders and deportation of illegal immigrants soon followed. Over history the restriction of immigration was mainly due to the sense of danger that America felt as immigrants may
The arrival of immigrants to the United States is often associated with fear. Immigrants are vulnerable to attacks if they are cast as threats to the way of American life. A deeper look into immigration policies reveals that immigrant restrictions are seated in racialized notions. Immigrants before the founding of the nation came for the opportunities of a better life. The immigrants who would continue to come thereafter came for much the same reasons. But government policies demonstrate repeated attempts to block the immigration of undesirable immigrant communities.
The United States of America was founded on the idea that anyone could leave their destitution and ‘make it’ in America. This idea came to be called the American Dream; a phrase that was written into being around 1850. Not thirty years later, however, an entire immigrant group would be barred from entering the country, and that bar would last for sixty-one years. The Chinese Exclusion Act was put into law by President Chester Arthur in 1882 and repealed in 1943. During that period, all Chinese laborers were barred from immigrating to the United States. The Chinese Exclusion Act stagnated the growth of Chinese Culture in the United States and led to the racial stigma that fueled racism against Japan in the Second World War.
In chapter thirty five, author Shelley Sang-Hee Lee explains that “Immigration is an important part of our understanding of U.S. social experience” (Hee 128). Asian immigrants bring their diverse culture, language and custom from various Asian countries. They help improve American economic development. Also, they play an important role in American society. The first Asian immigration flow is the Chinese Immigration in the mid-19th century to work in the gold mines and railroads. The Asian immigrant population grew rapidly between 1890 and 1910 (Hee 130). The increasing of population of Asian immigrants have brought a lot of problems. Many of them were facing the issue of ethnicity, discrimination, and the process of assimilation. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 which banned the immigration of Chinese laborers and proscribed foreign-born Chinese from naturalized citizenship and the Asian Exclusion Act League in 1907 which limited the entry of Asian immigrants have reshaped the demographic of Asian immigrants in the U.S (Hing 45). With the rise of anti-Asian movements, many Asian immigrants were rejected from entering America or deported to their homeland. In the early history of immigration in America, the issue of deportation is an important part of the Asian American experience in the