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Chinese immigrants to the US past and present
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Chinese immigrants to the US past and present
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During the late 1800s, waves of Asian immigrants from other countries arrived at the United States of America. These countries include China, Japan, Korea, Philippines, and India. They believed that coming to the United States would enable them to achieve the “America Dream”, but various laws and discrimination prevented them from achieving the dream. In response to these laws and discrimination, Asian immigrant groups asserted a sense of agency to protect themselves from oncoming discrimination and prejudice. Agency is defined as Asian Immigrants/Americans resistance to the discrimination, unfair laws, prejudice, and low wages. Some agency was successful and others were not, but the main idea was that Asian immigrants were not powerless. They are able to resist through solidarity, strikes, and courts. Different types of agency were employed by different groups, but their goal was ultimately the same, to make it easier to live in the United States. Although Asian immigrants experienced racial discrimination and prejudice, their sense of agency allowed them to unite and survive in the heavily racist United States.
Shortly after the Mexican War in 1848, there was a labor shortage in the United States. American policymakers proposed to bring in Chinese laborers because of their experience and knowledge in agriculture, and also to work on the dangerous transcontinental railroad (Takaki, 22). The Chinese were not the only ones that were brought in to be laborers. The Japanese, Koreans, and Filipinos were also brought in (mainly situated in Hawaii).
In Hawaii, the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, and Filipinos tendered the fields for low wages and were treated as “disposable commodities” (Takaki, 24). They faced horrible...
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... some cases, a voice. With higher wages, unity, ethnic solidarity, and an active voice, the Asian minorities were able to slightly minimize the discrimination and survive in the United States.
Works Cited
Takaki, Ronald T. Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans. Boston: Little, Brown, 1989. Print.
Duus, Masayo. The Japanese Conspiracy: The Oahu Sugar Strike of 1920. Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1999. Print.
"Waipahu Plantation Strike." Immigration to North America. N.p., 3 June 2011. Web. 14 Mar. 2014. .
"San Francisco Chinatown." Chinatown History. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2014. .
Price, Darby. “Takaki Ch. 1, 4, 5” Engineering Building Room 343, San Jose. 24 February. 2014. Lecture.
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In this paper by Scott Alan Carson, Carson writes about Chinese Sojourn Labor. Carson writes how institutional arrangements and labor market forces that interacted in the construction of America’s railroad led to the demand for Chinese Laborers. Carson writes more about these relationships and the work given to the Chinese than writing about the more personal details of the workers. For instance, Carson writes that because of land grants given by the government Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads earned more capital by completing more railway tracks. Carson also writes how the Chinese did the jobs no one else wanted to do, and they did them for lesser wages. Therefore, Carson writes specifically about the work of the Chinese and the factors that caused the hiring of Chinese more so than the personal aspects of the workers.
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
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For 20 years, Asian Americans have been portrayed by the press and the media as a successful minority. Asian Americans are believed to benefit from astounding achievements in education, rising occupational statuses, increasing income, and are problem-fee in mental health and crime. The idea of Asian Americans as a model minority has become the central theme in media portrayal of Asian Americans since the middle 1960s. The term model minority is given to a minority group that exhibits middle class characteristics, and attains some measure of success on its own without special programs or welfare. Asian Americans are seen as a model minority because even though they have faced prejudice and discrimination by other racial groups, they have succeeded socially, economically, and educationally without resorting to political or violent disagreements with the majority race. The “success” of the minority is offered as proof that the American dream of equal opportunity is capable to those who conform and who are willing to work hard. Therefore, the term ...
The United States has a long history of employing laborers from other countries. In 1850, Before Mexicans were prevalent; Chinese workers were hired in California to tend the land. After the Chinese Exclusion Act the Japanese workers were hired (Espinosa). Amid 1850 and 1890 the growth of Mexican immigrants began to increase and Mexican laborers were present in the agricultural industry, mining industry, and railroad (Espinsoa). The United States continued to utilize legal migrant workers for many years following and to this day there are laws allowing for legal migrant workers through the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act or MSPA (United States Department of Labor).
Non-Chinese laborers often required much higher wages to support their wives and children in the United
Harvest Of Shame, an interesting and touching black and white documentary from the early 1960’s, documents and exposes the deploring lives of thousands of American migrant cultural workers narrated and dissected by one of the best and first American broadcast journalists called Edward Roscoe Murrow. The principal objective of this movie is not only to show the poor and miserable lives that all of these people live, but to let all the other Americans who are above these workers on the social and wealth scale know that the people who pick up their fruits, vegetables, and grains have no voice, no power, and no help to battle the inequities and mistreatment they receive.
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"Have you heard the one where someone broke into this guy's house and all his electronics were
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