Counseling Asian Immigrants Demographic review According to U.S. Census Bureau, the term Asian refers to those having origins of the native people of the Far East, Southeast Asia, and Indian subcontinent (U.S. Census Bureau, 2004b). Pacific Islander is another common term which refers to those having origins of Hawaii, Samoa, Guam, or other Pacific Islands. In the U.S, Asian American a more acceptable term, which is represented by more than 43 different ethnic groups of people originated from different geographic areas. The Chinese immigrants were among the first Asians who came to the U.S. in the 1850s, followed by Japanese, Koreans, and Filipinos. Asian immigrants build the transcontinental railroad, work in the gold mines, and in the sugar plantations. Vietnamese and other Southeast Asians came in the late 1970s, after the Vietnam War (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2001). Discrimination and Racism Throughout history, Asian Americans have been exposed to discrimination and racism. According to Sue and Sue (2013), most adult Americans, based on survey about Chinese Americans, believe that Chinese Americans would be more loyal to China than to the United States; half of the people surveyed believe that Chinese Americans would pass secret information to China, 25% of the sample would disapprove someone in their family to marry an Asian American, and 17% would be distress if Asian Americans moved into their neighborhood. On July17, 2009, California legislature approved a bill, to apologize to the state’s Chinese American community for racist laws enacted as far back as 1849 (Liu, 2009). Nevertheless, Asian immigrants are still struggling with racism and discrimination issues. Success Myth ... ... middle of paper ... ...o take into consideration her culture, gender and age. Her cultural background and her age would suggest she would hold more traditional Chinese cultural believes and values than a younger person of Chinese descent. Asian immigrants tend to define their presenting problems in concrete terms, and they expect the counselor, being an expert, to provide them with solutions. Thus, a counselor I needed to carefully balance my attempts to identify the problem while appearing to respect the client’s cultural background in a similar manner. The goal of the therapy was to achieve symptom relief from anxiety through seven sessions of CBT. In addition to CBT, due to anxiety reaction, I introduced Mr. Young to breathing exercises to help to control her breathing. Finally, I provided Mr. Young with several sources of information to help her understand the nature of her problem.
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
With the passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, the first significant restrictive immigration law in United States history was instituted that would provided a framework to be used to racialize other threatening, excludable aliens. Furthermore, this marked the first time that groups of immigrants were excluded based on their race and nationality. At the time, America could be identified as being an Anglo-Saxon dominated nation where native-born citizens had the ultimate say in government and societal issues. The influx of Chinese immigrants in the 19th century posed a problem for many of these nativists. The Chinese immigrants were coming to America at an astounding rate and willing to work for less money, thereby, endangering American values and civilization. Additionally, they were deemed as a threat to the white supremacy in the West. In order to bring this racial threat to light, many Anti-Chinese activists’ compared the new immigrants to African Americans in that both were believed to be inherently inferior savages only suitable for degrading labor in which they were often employed (Lee 34). However, the strongest argument against the Chinese focused on them being unwilling and incapable of assimilating into society. In the ...
In “Angle Island’s history”, writers narrate the story of the cross century unequal immigration policy that take place on Angel island that American government do not find a real way to solve the problem and help immigrants; instead, they oppress immigrants with oppressive laws. American government never respects our Asian immigrants no matter in languages or behaviors. For example, they called Asian people “handle masses” instead Chinese people or Asian people that they treat we Chinese as masses not human beings at all. In addition, until now, they do not want Asian immigrants to stay in American, for they never thought to protect immigrants. In my opinion, lower classes could describe majority American attitudes towards Asian immigrants. To be honest, one’s thought is not easily being changed and our Asian immigrants images have already saved in American’s minds. It is true that our Asian do not have a better development and economy compared with American. However, this cannot be considered as the reason of not showing respect to Asian for American. In my opinion, this shows the inequality among different
When Chinese immigrants enter the United States of America, it is evident from the start that they are in a world far different than their homeland. Face to face with a dominant culture that often times acts and thinks in ways contrary to their previous lives, immigrants are on a difficult path of attempting to become an American. Chinese immigrants find themselves often caught between two worlds: the old world of structured, traditional and didactic China and the new world of mobile, young and prosperous America. They nostalgically look back at China longing for a simpler life but look at the United States as a land of opportunity and freedom that they did not know in China. For this is why they came to America in the first place, to provide for their children and themselves what they could not in China. To do this, of course, they are faced with the challenge of assimilating. Learning the language, acquiring education, owning property, etc. are all ways to seize the American Dream. However this poses a problem for the Chinese immigrant for, in the process of assimilation, they lose some of their Chinese culture. This especially rings true for the children of Chinese immigrants: the second-generation Chinese Americans.
- Asian American history is the history of ethnic and “racial groups in the United States who are of Asian descent. Spickard (2007) shows that the ‘Asian American’ was an idea invented in the 1960s to bring together the Chinese, Japanese, and the Filipino Americans for strategic political purposes”. Soon other Asian-origin groups, such as Koreans, Vietnamese, Hmongs, and South Asian Americans, were added."For example,
A number of scholarly works have been implicated in the elderly Asian American mental health. Normal ageing could be assumed differently from people with dementia from the Asian origin creating stigmatization, aggravating severe chronic mental illness (Liu, et al., 2008). Asian immigrants with difficulty in English have made them prone to difficulties in communication creating disparities in the health status specially the mental health (Mui, et al., 2007). Recent elderly Asian immigrants have been experiencing acculturation stress, involuntary resettlement, and barriers in stereotypical intergenerational solidarity (Ng & Northcott, 2010). Education and self-efficacy had positive correlations with health promotion and mental well-being in Asian immigrants (Sohng, Sohng, & Yeom, 2002).
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.
I also researched instances of counter actions taken by Asian Americans to protest against these negative images. My research also has examples of Asians that have succeeded in breaking through the racial barriers in the media. The results show that even though racial stereotyping still exists in various forms of mass media, there are signs that show noticeable improvement in allowing a more balanced image of Asian Americans. Statement of the Problem There are close to 12 million Asian Americans living in the United States (U.S. Asian, 2000). Asian Americans are considered one of the fastest growing minorities (Pimentel, 2001).
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...
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.
In the history of the United States of America, immigration has always been involving racial discrimination, especially towards the Chinese people. From the time when Gold Rush started in the West Coast, the Chinese immigrants were experiencing both physical and verbal offenses from Americans. As the Jean Kwok writes in the book Girl In Translation, the narrator Kimberly and other main characters living as Chinese immigrants indeed profoundly experience all kinds of inconspicuous discrimination in both of their educational path and their careers even though the political policies that directly discriminated the Chinese people have already been alleviated.
Did you know that the Asian American race has the highest minority rate worldwide? Asian Americans take up only 5.8 percent of the United States population. They have had a hard time here in the United States trying to achieve and live the “American Dream” but they have had many things get in the way of that. Things that get in their way are factors like Worldwide discrimination. No matter where they go, they get discriminated from things just because they are Asian American. Another thing is their education getting in the way of it. Asian Americans try and apply to a college they want to get into to get into their career but they get turned down just because they are Asian American. This is a huge problem for them because it will keep them from living the so called “American Dream”.
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.
The Chinese were the first immigrate to the West, starting in the 1850's to work in California’s gold mines and railroads. Limitations on immigration began in 1882, with the Chinese Exclusion Act, which became a permanent feature in U.S. Immigration policy in 1904 severally limiting who can enter except students, travelers, merchants and a few others. This was Act was repealed in 1943 (Hirschman & Wong, 1986).
Soniah Shah says that “laws excluding Chinese from becoming citizens, owning property, marrying, or attending public schools with whites were enacted in the mid- to late-1800s.” Through disenfranchisement, discrimination, and subjugation, asian citizens denied same rights as whites. Back then, racism was much more normative, and it wasn’t seen as unnatural for a white man to treat an asian man as inferior. Today, however, Asians are upheld as the model minority.Yet, this is a myth, as it is not true for all of them. The overall earnings of asians vs whites is based upon statistical averages, which means that wealthy business owners are lumped in with impoverished immigrants.