The Chinese-American Race

In this piece, I will explore the Chinese-American race and how they became a huge part of the Unites States. Chinese-Americans play a bigger part in everything in the US, from jobs and struggles that they have faced to growth in the economy. Living in our society now versus living in our society in the 1800's has changed tremendously over the last 200 years. Exploring this topic sparked many questions in my mind and this should clear up any questions you have about the topic. Chinese-Americans are one of the most interesting and successful cultural groups in the United States.

The Chinese race has been a big part of the United States for a long time now. Chinese were among the first to immigrate to the United States during the California

gold rush and today are the largest population (23%) of Asian Americans. (Piccorossi, 2012) The earliest Chinese to immigrate to the US were male laborers, trying to find work and money to support the family. I find the statistic that 23% of the US is Asian American pretty insane. Living in Iowa makes it harder to see the Asian American culture, but I know it is there.

Arriving in tough times, the Chinese were trying to find wealth and gold. They found success and that was the start of immigration to the US. The Chinese came in 3 groups, 1849-1882, 1882-1965, and 1965 to the present. They arrived in America looking to strike it rich with hopes of being to send money back to their poor families, or of returning to China after a few years with newly acquired wealth. Another reason is America served as a symbol of something higher than monetary prosperity. It represented the hope of freedom from intolerance based upon one's particular views. (History, 2017)

Jobs were difficult for the Chinese Americans. They came to the US to acquire wealth to send back to their families but when they got here they realized that the jobs were not sunshine and flowers. Chinese Americans worked hard for the money they earned. They found work in the fields, mills, cigars, shoe, and garment. The jobs they did were difficult and challenged them, but it made them work hard and they got paid which helped put food on the table for family back in China. I thought the Chinese would have difficulties finding jobs in the first place. From what I have found, they found jobs and labor and were able to make money just like everybody else at that time. I am thinking that maybe racism towards the Chinese did not exist.

The US has lost 5 million factory jobs since 2000.

And trade has indeed claimed production jobs - in particular when China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. Nevertheless, there was no downturn in U.S. manufacturing output. As a matter of fact, U.S. production has been growing over the last decades. From 2006 to 2013, “manufacturing grew by 17.6%, or at roughly 2.2% per year."(Don't, 2017) Chinese have been successful since coming here. It is not a surprise that the Chinese have had a lot of opportunities and have turned our manufacturing around for the better. I think this is positive and negative because jobs are being taken but they Chinese are legal citizens so if they do it better they should have the

job.

President Arthur started an exclusion act the was supposed to last 10 years and prohibit the Chinese from coming to America. The act ended up only lasting a few years before it was terminated. Chinese people were denied for a short amount of time but then they were let back in. I think that the president at that time thought that giving our jobs to the Chinese was a bad thing to do but then, later on, realized that they were helping and doing labor that most people did not want to do.

While I imagine more organization and political mobilization in the future, Asian-American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) civic participation have been discouraging at best for the past couple decades.

The racial group has historically had some of the lowest voter turnout rates, and in 2014 nearly half considered themselves to be politically independent. Yet Asian-Americans are currently the fastest-growing racial group in the United States.(Role, 2017) Along with millions of other, Asian Americans struggle to go to the polls. Politically Asian Americans lay little to no stamp on the presidential campaign and in 2017 are also becoming more scared that Donald Trump will make a decision that will hurt them.

Chinese-American stereotypes have existed for as long as I can remember. The stereotypes that I have heard are mostly offensive. Asians have small penis's and they are all geeks and genii. They are so rich because all they do is sit behind a computer or if you are driving up on a sports car someone might say, "I bet that's an Asian." I have heard those many times and they are very disrespectful because the only one that is semi-true is that Chinese people are huge in technology and make a lot of money for it. I think people hate on them because they are richer and

better.

According to the World Bank, in terms of stabilized prices, the rate of China's contribution to global economic growth was 14 percent between 1980-2000, against 20.7 percent of the United States. During the same period, the rate of China's contribution to global trade growth reached 4.7 percent, ranking third in the world following the United States (14.4 percent). (другу, 2004) China's contributions to the US are out of control. Almost every product in the United States is made in China and the contributions by Chinese-Americans is very high as well.

After exploring and learning a flabbergasting amount of information on Chinese-Americans, a conclusion has been made that they are helping us way more than hurting. They bring income into our economy and take jobs that most people wouldn't enjoy. They have stereotypes just like every race but most of them can not be proven true. Maybe it is just a coincidence that everytime you see a nice sports car it is an Asian cruising in it. The success they have is one of a kind and can not be matched by any other ethnic group in the world.