Essay On Self Employment

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Work and employment have been, and still are one of the prominent reasons why so many Asians continue to immigrate to the United States. As early as the Gold Rush in 1840s, when gold was discovered in the Sacramento Valley in California, which led many Chinese to come to the U.S. to find their fortune and return home rich, Asians (primarily Chinese then) had been coming to the United States. In addition to working in the gold mines, Chinese also worked as small merchants, domestics, farmers, grocers, and starting in 1865, as railroad workers on the famous Transcontinental Railroad project. At first Chinese workers were perceived favorably because of their good work ethics, and employers were pleased to hire foreign workers who were willing …show more content…

This forced the Chinese to retreat into their own isolated communities as a matter of survival. Inside these early Chinatowns, small business ownership began to develop and expand as many Chinese provided services (primarily restaurants, laundry, and small merchandise retailers) to other Chinese and increasingly, to non–Chinese. The phenomenon of self–employment has been a prominent mode of work for many Asian Americans and the trends have continued through today. The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act greatly facilitated the growth of Asian ethnic communities, which tend to concentrate on metropolitan areas across the United States. The increase in Asian immigrant population in turn led to a resurgence of self–employment among many Asian Americans. Nowadays, many Asian Americans are self–employed at small businesses, such as restaurants, laundries, small merchandise stores, groceries, beauty services, etc. Based on data from the 2000 Census 5% Public Use Microdata Samples (PUMS), of all races or ethnicities, Asian Americans (including U.S. raised and Foreign-raised), particularly Koreans (24%), Taiwanese (15.4%), Japanese (12.1), and Chinese (10.8) have the highest percentage of being self–employed in small businesses. There are several reasons that Asian Americans are overrepresented in self–employed small businesses, which make up nearly a third of private-sector employment, according to the survey of Business owners conducted in

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