Asian immigrants have faced many obstacles transitioning to life in America. One major obstacle Asian immigrants came face to face with was receiving an education. Asians are known to place high value on learning and education, but many things stood in their way and hindered them from even receiving an education. Between Asian immigrants and Americans lie a language barrier, which is often seen as a set back. An example of this is Lac Su since he had to serve as a translator for his parents, which in turn affected his school work. He was forced to learn American culture and English at a faster rate than his parents because they were busy with their own responsibilities to the family. Another obstacle Asian Americans faced receiving an education was separate classrooms and segregated schools, as seen in the Tape v. Hurley case. The case followed the discrimination eight-year old Mamie Tape faced as she was denied admission to Spring Valley School on that grounds that she was of Chinese race. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Tape, however the Francisco Board of Education took it upon themselves to establish a separate school system specifically for Oriental children. Racially segregated schools deeply influence the student’s performance. Asian American children are taught different material and in a different style than their counterparts. These and many more obstacles impeded Asian Americans from receiving an education that they were entitled to.
Freedom Schools first began during the Civil Rights Movement with African American students, for the betterment of black children, but in some sense Asians jumped on the bandwagon and benefitted from the formation of these Freedom Schools as well. Omatsu writes, “Specifically, today’s ...
... middle of paper ...
...hen she arrived in the Philippines it was clear that everyone had put her father on pedestal when he left for America. Immense amounts of pressure were placed on her father to become successful and wealthy and when he could not near their perception of him, he could not return. The babaes were particularly interested in the magnitude of activism they encountered in the Philippines. They witnessed protests that lasted all day, rather than just a couple of ours. They were awed by the dedication and hard work they put in to fight for their rights. Civil engagement works to shed light into many individuals through their lived experiences, Melany writes, “Going to the Philippines strengthened me as a person and made me proud that I am a Pinay. It gave me that understanding to now defend myself when it comes to explaining my culture and my history and my people.” (pg. 615)
In Marcelo M. Suarez- Orozco and Carola Suarez- Orozco’s article “How Immigrants became “other” Marcelo and Carola reference the hardships and struggles of undocumented immigrants while at the same time argue that no human being should be discriminated as an immigrant. There are millions of undocumented people that risk their lives by coming to the United States all to try and make a better life for themselves. These immigrants are categorized and thought upon as terrorist, rapists, and overall a threat to Americans. When in reality they are just as hard working as American citizens. This article presents different cases in which immigrants have struggled to try and improve their life in America. It overall reflects on the things that immigrants go through. Immigrants come to the United States with a purpose and that is to escape poverty. It’s not simply crossing the border and suddenly having a great life. These people lose their families and go years without seeing them all to try and provide for them. They risk getting caught and not surviving trying to make it to the other side. Those that make it often don’t know where to go as they are unfamiliar. They all struggle and every story is different, but to them it’s worth the risk. To work the miserable jobs that Americans won’t. “I did not come to steal from anyone. I put my all in the jobs I take. And I don’t see any of the Americans wanting to do this work” (668). These
In the book “Academic Profiling” by Gilda L. Ocho, the author gives evidence that the “achievement gap” between Latinos and Asian American youth is due to faculty and staff of schools racially profiling students into educational tracks that both limit support and opportunities for Latinos and creates a divide between the two groups. Intersectionality, the ways in which oppressive in...
...silenced in this country, in order to have voice and be visible in society, one must strive to be a white American. They feel the need to embody and assimilate to whiteness because the white race has a voice and is seen, rather than silenced and unseen, in society. They are privileged with the freedom of not having to cope with the notion of being marked, silent, and unseen in society. This creates pressures for Asian Americans and immigrants to suppress their own cultural identities and assimilate to whiteness in an attempt to potentially be able to prosper and make a life for them in America. Asian Americans feel as though being who they truly are and express their unique cultural identities will alienate themselves even more than they already are.
We’ve all heard it said that Asian Americans are good at math; anything involving science, technology, and medicine. They study all the time, work really hard, and live a version of the American dream many of us never thought to dream of. And of course, we know these stereotypes are dangerous and often untrue, but perhaps we still find ourselves buying into them. Ronald Takaki”, the ethnic studies expert, writes about the idea that Asian Americans are more successful than any other American minority group in his article “The Harmful Myth of Asian Superiority. Takaki refutes this idea by strategically, and somewhat effectively, using reason, statistics, and word choice to show that Asian Americans still face some of the same hardships and barriers
During the Gold Rush of 1848-1849, California began to experience a large wave of Chinese immigration to the United States. Stories of the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill drew thousands of Chinese immigrants into North America from various parts of Asia. These immigrants, who were primarily poor peasants, flooded the “Golden Hills” we know as California in pursuit of better economic opportunity. To fill in the needs of the increasingly widespread mining communities in the West, many Chinese immigrants ultimately became merchants, railroad workers, agricultural laborers, mining laborers, and factory workers. Throughout the Gold Rush, members of the Chinese labor force played significant roles in both the social and economic development of the American West, particularly with regards to the construction of the transcontinental railroad.
The United States of America is the place of opportunity and fortune. “Many immigrants hoped to achieve this in the United States and similar to other immigrants many people from the Asian Pacific region hoped to make their fortune. They planned to either return to their homelands or build a home in their new country (Spring, 2013).” For this reason, life became very complicated for these people. They faced many challenges in this new country, such as: classifying them in terms of race and ethnicity, denying them the right to become naturalized citizens, and rejecting them the right of equal educational opportunities within the school systems. “This combination of racism and economic exploitation resulted in the educational policies to deny Asians schooling or provide them with segregated schooling (Spring, 2013).”This was not the country of opportunity and fortune as many believed. It was the country of struggle and hardship. Similarly, like many other immigrants, Asian Americans had the determination to overcome these obstacles that they faced to prove that the United States was indeed their home too.
In this paper I will be sharing information I had gathered involving two students that were interviewed regarding education and their racial status of being an Asian-American. I will examine these subjects’ experiences as an Asian-American through the education they had experienced throughout their entire lives. I will also be relating and analyzing their experiences through the various concepts we had learned and discussed in class so far. Both of these individuals have experiences regarding their education that have similarities and differences.
As a minority, coming from an international country to a foreign nation has been the most crucial decision that my family has concluded to live the possibility of the "American Dream". However, growing up as an Asian-American student wasn’t simple; I was faced with the challenge of malicious racial slurs, spiteful judgment, and unjustified condemnation that attacked my family's decision to come to America.
What will be your first thought when you hear the word “undocumented”? Immigration issue, especially undocumented immigration issue is always framed as Latino issue. On the contrary, Asian immigrants are often left out of this discussion. As the matter of fact, Asia is now the largest sending region for immigrants. Asian Americans are the fastest-growing immigrant population in the United States today. They are expected to become the largest immigrant group in the United States (Foley 16). Asian American should not be left out from the discussion of immigration reform because Asian American has made a great contribution to the history of immigration in the U.S. Many of them are still struggling with
In many cases throughout America’s history immigrants have settled here for many different reasons. In conclusion these reasons were known as push and pull factors. Push factors are factors that repel migrants from their country. And pull factors are factors that attract migrants to move. In my main immigrant group which is the Chinese, there were several push and pull factors that I will be mentioning. First, some of the push factors that were included in my group were the fact that there were a lot of disasters. For example there was draught, poverty, a famine, and floods were also included in these disasters. To state these factors more specifically, it was around the 1840s and 1850s when China faced these disasters. In the fact of the draught, it was a place called Henen that suffered this tragic event. Then two years later that’s when the famine struck Guangxi. The flood affected many provinces such as Hubei, Anhui, and Jiangsu which was caused by the Yangtze River. These factors killed and injured a lot of people, as a result numerous amounts of them settled in the United States. On the other hand Chinese also came to the United States because of pull factors. Which I mentioned before that it is a factor that attracts a migrant to move. The things that attracted them to the United States were the fact of having better jobs, education, health, and economic funds. But the most important and major factor that lured the Chinese to the U.S was the California gold rush. The way that they have obtained their information on the opportunities that America held were from random people, advertisements, and last but not lease the most important way that they learn was by trading vessels. Th...
Immigrants have been a vital part of the U.S. ever since the day the country was founded. But perspectives on immigrants have varied through time and one of the most popular ways of presenting them was through political cartoons. From the 1860s-1910s one of the biggest issues the U.S. was facing was how to properly regulate the flow of immigrants into the country. We also see this tying of Americanness and whiteness, where even certain Europeans weren’t considered full American even though they were white. White Americans wanted more white seeming migrants which would help further establish the American identity as white. The political cartoons show the shifting perspective placed on immigrants, from a universal fear of them, to a more divided
What kind of effects did migrating have on the people who did it? Many people and races immigrated to the U.S in the search for a better living condition. Most went for job opportunities and the struggle of racial discrimination. Although these are two factors behind the reason of immigration, there's many more that caused these people to feel the need to leave their homeland. One similarity between all the immigration groups is that they all were pushed and pulled by some factor. The Japanese we're pushed to America hearing news that “money grew on trees”. The Japanese first emigrated to the hawaiian islands, because of reasons such as hunger, debts, high taxes, economic hardship and the search for jobs. Alike the Japanese, the Mexican and Irish immigrated because of similar reasons. Those groups struggled
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.
Though the United States is home to many immigrants, controversy surrounds the issue of immigrants in the United States. The United States in a melting pot of various backgrounds and cultures, yet it is hard for all to merge into acceptance of one another. The first chapter of Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and class covers stratification, prejudice and discrimination, and inequality.
A. A. The Philippines People, Poverty and Politics. New York: The New York Times. St. Martins's P, 1987. 1-225.