Chinese Immigrants in America Essay

Around the mid-19th to the 20th century, myriads of immigrants flocked to the U.S. seeking better job opportunities,or searching for religious freedom. U.S. citizens were fearful, envious, and willing to exclude immigrants who came to the US as they were viewed as an economic threat to the society. They believed that these immigrants were racially, morally and intellectually inferior to them and as such did not see or treat as their equals. These dysfunctions lead to severe and harsh treatment of immigrants. Historically, the three major immigrant groups that faced the most discrimination during this era were the Asians, German, and the Irish. American citizen’s fear of job secureness led to the resentment and discriminatory treatment towards Asian Immigrants. They believed that the majority of the Asian American immigrants were taking too many of their jobs. As such, the U.S. government decided that it would be necessary to restrict the amount of Asian Americans, in order to keep the U.S. citizens from being unemployed. The U.S. government passed numerous laws, banning Asian American immigrants from the United States. One distinct law that they passed was the 1922 Cable Act, this law “stripped a female citizen of citizenship, if she married an alien unable to become a citizen.”(Lutz 7).The law was basically passed to prevent Asian immigrants from obtaining citizenship by marrying a female U.S citizen.In fact, the government believed that female citizens that engaged in this

After civil war had settled down, many immigrants came to America to live from many countries such as Germany, Ireland, and England. There are as many as 12 million immigrants at this time. Regarding Chinese immigration, they immigrated to the United States from 1849 to 1882. Between this period, America had California Gold Rush, which is one of the reasons Chinese people immigrated. Because the Chinese Exclusion Act was taken into practice, no more Chinese people could immigrate to the United States after 1882. Chinese immigration is the divergent point for Chinese’ lives who lived in America.

In 1848, California struck gold at Sutter's Mill, California. Chinese immigrants now had yet another incentive to go west in search of their fortune. For the most part, these immigrants were young male peasants who came in

Chinese parents and American parents differ greatly in their parenting styles and a noticeable difference can be seen in the success of their children. The children of Chinese parents often excel in various areas, including in their educational, musical, and professional lives. The children of American parents, however, usually have a harder time excelling in those areas. Chinese parents and American parents hold opposing philosophies about how they view their children, opposing methods about how they raise their children, and opposing effects on the personalities of their children.

This lithograph depicts a common camp scene at the mines in California. The Gold Rush drew thousands of Chinese workers to America. Besides fleeing from poverty and bad political situations in their home country, the one common goal was to reach economic wealth. But as much as they were searching for a better life, most of the Chinese immigrants did not intend to stay in the country permanently (Daniels 11).

In 1965, the last legal barrier to Chinese immigrants fell with the signing of a new law that ended immigration quotas based on race. In the 19th and early 20th centuries the story of the Chinese in America was primarily a legal drama, played out on the nation’s borders and in courts. After the new immigration law went into effect, it became a personal story told by one individual and by one family at a time.

The culture of every ethnic group is beautiful in its own way and worth cherishing. Today, America is known as the great melting pot not for the number of immigrants it has but rather because of the wonderful cultures and traditions the immigrants brought with them. Immigrants do not need to forgo their mother tongue, significant celebrations or customs to become American. However to be socially accepted, they will need to learn English, take part in celebrating national holidays and fulfill their patriotic duties Americans like every other U.S citizens.

America is traditionally a country of immigrants. Very few people today have relatives who were Native Americans, many of them because of religious persecution, and others because of they were just looking to start a new life on the exciting untouched frontier. For instance, in Florida, the first arrivals were European, beginning with the Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon who explored the land in 1513, following French and Spanish settlement during the 16th century. From the past, America was seen as a country of opportunities. People from all over the world have moved here looking for better opportunities. There are a lot of reasons why immigrants should live in this country, but I would like to mention three of them.

The tale “American Born Chinese” by Gene Luch Wang depicts the story of three characters, Monkey, Jin, and Danny. They all have the problem of fitting into their new environments. Jin Wang has to deal with Asian stereotypes. Danny has to deal with embarrassment of his cousin. Lastly, Monkey has to deal with the fact that there is no position for him in the heavenly ranks. However, over time, these characters have to come together to fit in. Yet the question remains: what exactly about fitting in is the problem? Although Jin Wang takes the form of Danny to reject his Chinese roots, the embarrassment of Chin-Knee shows he cannot hide behind a false American identity, thereby delineating that race is the source of his problem.

When they arrived in America most of the Chinese immigrants moved west. Most of the Chinese immigrants moved west because they wanted to get jobs in rural areas and build homes for their families. A lot of Chinese immigrants got jobs working on building railroads. The Chinese immigrants were very good at this job, because they got paid very low wages, and that affected the pay rates of white Americans, European immigrants, and Russian immigrants. In the 1882 Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. This act stated that Chinese laborers could not enter the country, because chinese immigrants accepted low wages, and also affected the pay rates of others. However Immigrants from Italy and Russia did not have to go through this. They also had an easier time getting jobs because of

Before World-War II, the Chinese immigrants to the U.S had many characteristics. First, the Chinese immigrants mainly came from mainland China, such as the Guangdong province. The Chinese immigrants mainly came from the Guangdong province of China because of the location of Guangdong province. The Guangdong province was close to coastal areas where Guangong people could take the boasts and migrate to America. Also, Guangdong people was far away from the Chinese government's control. Therefore, Chinese immigrants could easily migrated from the Guangdong province of China to America. Second, most of the Chinese immigrants were poor and came from rural areas in China. They migrated to America because they suffered from poor harvests and

Furthermore, there were many opportunities that the U.S itself presented to Chinese immigrants that were very desirable. For example the United States presented different variety of jobs. Such as Chinese gold miners, this was very exquisitely beneficial to them, because most of the Chinese’s reason for migrating to the United State was because at that time gold was discovered their. The Chinese did not only mind for gold other jobs were also included like, cooks, storekeepers, launderers, railroad workers, and household servants. And the two main jobs that you can find the most variety of numbers of Chinese were miners and railroad workers. In fact of the railroad jobs, for them it was a decent paying job. It was a pretty good amount of number of Chinese immigrants that were railroad workers; it was approximately ten thousand of them. And as I stated before the pay was pretty decent, the average railroad payroll for Chinese immigrants was about thirty five dollars a month. But their pay check would soon decrease during the day. Because the cost of food was about fifteen to eighteen dollars, so basically a Chinese railroad worker would make twenty dollars a month. Even though through the good payments the two main well paying jobs the Chinese had were very dangerous in many conditions. For instance, when they usually work in mines

“Push factors like Chinese facing military and political chaos, harsh economic conditions, collapsing of the feudal system, a lack of business spirit due to the ineffectiveness of trade regulations, high taxes, lack of private investments and the dream of prosperity in America lcontributed to Chinese immigration. From 1840-1900, a significant influx of Chinese immigrants came to Hawaii and United States. However, they immigrated to other countries, including Australia, Canada, Africa, South

In the 1850’s, Chinese immigrants began entering California in search of gold and the California dream. They had heard that California was the new frontier, a frontier that would provide them with the opportunity for economic riches. Young and ambitious, many of these Chinese immigrants quickly married in their homeland and set out for the gold rush, promising to return (with wealth). Likewise, in the 1880s, when the state of California was undergoing rapid economic transformation, Japanese immigrants — just as young and ambitious as their Chinese counterparts — set out for America where they had heard the streets were “paved with gold.” But little did these Chinese and Japanese immigrants know that what they would discover in California

     The focus of our group project is on Chinese Americans. We studied various aspects of their lives and the preservation of their culture in America. The Chinese American population is continually growing. In fact, in 1990, they were the largest group of Asians in the United States (Min 58). But living in America and adjusting to a new way of life is not easy. Many Chinese Americans have faced and continue to face much conflict between their Chinese and American identities. But many times, as they adapt to this new life, they are also able to preserve their Chinese culture and identity through various ways. We studied these things through the viewing of a movie called Joy Luck Club,