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Immigration problems in the years 1880-1925
Immigration problems in the years 1880-1925
Chinese immigration in America
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Immigration to the United States When the Chinese were immigrating to the United States in the 1880’s. There was as many as 75,000 Chinese immigrants. Most Chinese immigrants moved to the United States to avoid starvation, because in china they didn’t eat much because there wasn’t much to eat in China. Some moved just to seek an adventure, because many Chinese had never been to the United States. In the 1840s and 1850s, China was hit with a series of natural disasters. One disaster that china suffered was in 1847, Henen suffered a substantial draught. Then two years later, a famine struck Guangxi. The provinces of Hubei, Anhui, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang were flooded by the Yangtze River . The Taiping Revolution from 1850 to 1864, caused partially by flood and famine in Guangdong, disturbed the land and the created a financial problem for the people. Most immigrants moved to the United States also to find better paying jobs. Also they came because the laws are better and fairer in the United States then in china. Some resettled to the U.S to start a family or went there to be with their family that might have already been in the U.S. The outflow of more than 10 million teals of silver in 1848 intensified the copper-silver exchange rate problem. The influx of foreign goods caused the people to go broke.Many Chinese women also came to America to marry Chinese merchants who had settled in America. The women, however, were first raised in China, and then brought over to the US when they were ready to marry. This practice stemmed the belief that it was safer and cheaper this way. After all, the anti-Chinese sentiment on the West Coast was increasing and as it was, many Chinese in the US had financial difficulties. However, not all... ... middle of paper ... ...e immigration population in the U.S grew considerably over the past so years. In 2011 there were 40.4 million foreign born people residing in the U.S where as the immigrant population in the 1960 was 9.7 million. Broken down by immigration status the foreign born population in 2011 was composed of 15.5 million naturalized us citizens, 13.1 million legal permanent residents and 11.1 million unauthorized migrants. According to new status from the U.S government 1600 more Chinese immigrants came into the us in 2011. More than 1.06 million immigrants in 2011, out of which 87,000 were Chinese. In 2011 Chinese immigrants accounted for 8.2 percent of the total number of the immigrants to the us. When Chinese came to America because of everything going on in china the population in the United States sky rocketed. Chinese is a very large group of people in the United States.
Many came for gold and job opportunities, believing that their stay would be temporary but it became permanent. The Chinese were originally welcomed to California being thought of as exclaimed by Leland Stanford, president of Central Pacific Railroad, “quiet, peaceable, industrious, economical-ready and apt to learn all the different kinds of work” (Takaki 181). It did not take long for nativism and white resentment to settle in though. The Chinese, who started as miners, were taxed heavily; and as profits declined, went to work the railroad under dangerous conditions; and then when that was done, work as farm laborers at low wages, open as laundry as it took little capital and little English, to self-employment. Something to note is that the “Chinese laundryman” was an American phenomenon as laundry work was a women’s occupation in China and one of few occupations open to the Chinese (Takaki 185). Chinese immigrants were barred from naturalized citizenship, put under a status of racial inferiority like blacks and Indians as with “Like blacks, Chinese men were viewed as threats to white racial purity” (188). Then in 1882, due to economic contraction and racism Chinese were banned from entering the U.S. through the Chinese Exclusion Act. The Chinese were targets of racial attacks, even with the enactment of the 1870 Civil Rights Act meaning equal protection under federal law thanks to Chinese merchants lobbying Congress. Chinese tradition and culture as well as U.S. condition and laws limited the migration of women. Due to all of this, Chinese found strength in ethnic solidarity as through the Chinese Six Companies, which is considered a racial project. Thanks to the earthquake of 1906 in San Francisco, the Chinese fought the discriminatory laws by claiming citizenship by birth since the fires
Based on your viewing of "Gold Mountain Dreams," Becoming American: The Chinese Experience, what were the major factors that caused men to leave their villages in China and come to California and other parts of the United States? The major factors that caused Chinese men to leave their villages was because of a great flood that destroyed their villages in China and also at the time there was a civil war was going on that kilt 30 million people in there home land. These were the two main factors that drove young men leave head to the seaports to leave China. The men knew they had an obligation to their villages and families to provide and leaving China to go to America provided them the opportunity to take care of their families. There was
One particular ethnic group that suffered severe discrimination was the Chinese people. They first came to America for several reasons. One of them was the gold rush in California in 1849, in which they were included in a group of immigrants called the “Forty-Niners” (179). From gold mining, they switched to other jobs with resulted in the rise of anti-Chinese sentiments. People felt that Chinese people were taking the jobs away from them, because Chinese people worked for much smaller salaries that businesses preferred. This mindset gave way to the creation of The Chinese Exclusion Act passed in 1882, which prohibits more Chinese immigrants from coming to America. In addition, the act states “no State or court of the United States shall admit Chinese to citizenship”. Like the Naturalization Act, the Chinese Exclusion Act was created to hinder Chinese people from becoming citizens so that America could remain homogenously white (186). It also aimed to stop Chinese people from establishing a bigger community in the country in hopes of eliminating the threat of competition to their white counterparts (186). Like African-Americans, Chinese people were considered racially inferior and have struggled to prove that they were worthy to be called true Americans, rather than
Beginning in the mid-19th century, Chinese immigration to America was influenced by both the "pull" of California's Gold Rush and the""push" created by China's impoverished conditions. Years of drought, floods, disease, and famine ravaged China, a country already burdened with over-population and internal instability. European and American exploits into the region further exacerbated China's economic, political, and social problems. Chinese peasants, particularly in the rural Pearl River Delta area in the southeastern province of Guangdong, were desperate for relief. They began to migrate to urban centers in search of employment and survival. When this proved insufficient, the Chinese migrated to Southeast Asia and the Pacific Region. Word soon reached China that "Gum Saan," the "Gold Mountain" as the Chinese referred to America, was a land of opportunity for those seeking a better life.
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.
American objections to Chinese immigration took many forms, and generally stemmed from economic and cultural tensions, as well as ethnic discrimination. Most Chinese laborers who came to the United States did so in order to send money back to China to support their families there. At the same time, they also had to repay loans to the Chinese merchants who paid their passage to America. These financial pressures left them little choice but to work for whatever wages they could.
It should be noted that only a very small number of Chinese immigrants came to the United States prior to 1850. This number began to increase dramatically between the year 1850 and 1882, when the news of the discovery of gold mines in California reached China. At that period of time, western invasions and civil unrest had led to inflation, starvation and loss of land in southern China. Therefore, many young men sailed for the "Gold Mountain" ...
Gold Rush 1849 was the reason for such a frenzy. It caused people to migrate to California from near and far too dig for gold from the river. According to the film, The Chinese Exclusion Act Explained: US History Review, “This attracted Chinese entrepreneurs to try to make it rich”. The Chinese was one of the cultures that was one of the cultures that left their home to find a better life for their families. However, after being greeted in the United States, they were discriminated against them since they were feared by the Europeans. Racism towards the Chinese immigrant caused a lot of hardship on them in the Western civilization, enabling them to enter or exit without returning to the States.
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...
The numbers of immigrants to United States has risen from thousands to a record high of one million immigrants by the year 2008. The table below can represent this information
Before the US entered World War II, the west coast of America was riddled with racism and prejudice against Asian-Americans; especially in laws like the Chinese exclusion act of 1882 and the California Alien Land Law of 1913 which mainly targeted Japanese immigrants. Then with Imperial Japans seemingly unprovoked and unjustified attack of pearl harbor, it was easy for Americans to justify hysteria and their pre-existing prejudices against American citizens of Japanese descent. It was to the point that even being 1/16 Japanese could brand you as a possible treat to the nation. Then on the incredibly baseless, possibility of an internal Japanese threat Executive Order 9066 was enacted; declaring most of the west coast a war zone and declaring the region under martial law. The Order made it legal to send Japanese Americans to
After the first wave of Chinese immigrants arrived in the United States in the early 1840s during the California Gold Rush, many Chinese people continued to travel across the Pacific escaping poor conditions in China with hopes and ambitions for a better life in America. Soon after the first wave, many more Chinese immigrants began to arrive into the 1860s on the Pacific coast for work in other areas such as the railroad industry. The immigrants noticed an increasing demand for their labor because of their readiness to work for low wages. Many of those who arrived wanted to go home at some point, and therefore there was no push for naturalization...
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.
After the 1853 recession, many Californians were looking for cheap labor to capitalize on profits. Chinese immigrants came to America for a assortment of reasons, including work in the Pearl River delta region, and the company of sensibly fast trade routes to the United States, and the attraction of gold. As a result of their lower demand for wages, and their inclination to form self-supporting communities without support, Chinese immigrants became the best option of labor for many people.
Today, in most cases, people don’t spend very much time thinking about why the society we live in presently, is the way it is. Most people would actually be surprised about all that has happened throughout America’s history. Many factors have influenced America and it’s society today, but one of the most profound ways was the way the “Old Immigrants” and “New Immigrants” came to America in the early to mid 1800s. The “Old Immigrants were categorized as the ones who came before 1860 and the “New Immigrants” being the ones who came between 1865 and 1920. The immigrants came to the United States, not only seeking freedom, but also education. Many immigrants also wanted to practice their religion without hindrance. What happened after the immigrants