Asian Americans In The 19th Century

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

The Making of Asian America: Book Review In The Making of Asian America by Erika Lee the readers are introduced to a new perspective of Asian Americans. Prior to reading this novel, the audience may not have known how important the Asian American culture is to the foundation of the United States. Lee She incorporates ideas that in a high school history class has been ignored, such as the Chinese Massacre that occurred in Rock Springs, Wyoming In class we were briefly introduced to different Asian cultures via film, as we saw in the film that colonial masters looked to Asian countries to gain an imperial benefit.

Chinese immigrants during the 1800s was a vital contributor to the success of the Central Pacific transcontinental railroad. The railroad would not be such a big accomplishment for its size and time it took to complete, if not from the contribution of foreign labor, in this case Chinese. While the importance of foreign labor is very evident from the creation of the transcontinental railroads, the Chinese workers life while in the United States during this time did not illustration that. The life of the average Chinese workers saw an increased discrimination, compared to their counter parts. This is demonstrated by lower wages, harder living conditions, and various laws passed by the United States government till about the mid-1900s.

In the early 20th century, Chinese and Japanese characters were often pictured as outsiders and dangerous villains. They and other Asian Americans were stereotyped as “inscrutable” and poor at speaking English. Between 1900 and 1930, vicious images of forward, buck-toothed “Japs” exploded across the U.S. media. In widely circulated “Letters of a Japanese Schoolboy,” journalist Wallace Irwin articulated and stimulated various anti-Japanese stereotypes, including a mode of speech mocked with phrases such as “so sorry, please” (with l often replacing r, and vice versa). White leaders often spoke of the alleged immorality of Japanese Americans, sometimes using the ape-like imagery applied earlier to Irish or African

The world’s history had a turning point in the fifteenth century. The oceans were no longer an obstacle as previously seen to reach beyond. The Europeans felt inferior to the power and wealth of the Islamic world and saw the possibility to claim power and richness by conquering the oceans. During the 15th century and the 16th century Europeans established colonies in the Americas, the so called “New World”. When Europeans arrived in the Americas, most did not even consider that the peoples they encountered had cultural and religious traditions that were different from their own; most believed indigenous communities had no culture or religion at all.

In 1880, the Hayes Administration authorized a well known U.S. diplomat named James B. Angell. His job was to negotiate and control a new treaty they were planning with China. The treaty was called the Angell Treaty, which permitted the United States to restrict or prohibit Chinese immigration. In 1882, the Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which eliminated the process of immigration of any Chinese laborers, whether it were skilled workers or unskilled workers for 10 years. The Act also required every Chinese person going on a voyage in or out of the country to carry a certificate identifying his or her occupation as a laborer, scholar, diplomat, or merchant. This Act was the first in the whole American history to place broad restrictions

The successful parts of Asian American progress after worl war 2 were residential and economic. Asians Americans started moving and living in white neighborhoods which in the long run it help them by their children attend a good school and have a better education and help them with their economy. One fact that was interesting to me was “From 1940 and 1970, the percentage of Chinese Americans in professional and technical fields grew from 2.8 percent to 26.5 percent, and a quarter of Chinese had completed four or more years of college” (259). It was interesting how Chinese were more successful in going to college than whites and have a better position.

The United States is known as a free country, and has become a popular destination for many to immigrate to. Along with this immigration, came many problems and controversy since the 1790s and still continues to raise concerns today. The immigration problems in the late 1800s and 1900s are very similar to today. This is evident in the different complications and disputes that occurred in the late 1800s and 1900s all the way to 2015.

The slightest action or movement by the government or the people can alter a nation’s economy drastically. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the United States of America was, most assuredly, in need of a positive economic agent. This agent became a geographical expansion to the West. Unquestionably, the settlers’ means of excelling production, efficient distribution, innovative services, and rich resources in the West were incorporated in the enhancement of the economy countrywide.

The influx of immigrants that came over during the late 1800s were “different” than what Americans were previously used to. Due to this they were considered “new immigrants”. They came from places such as Russia, Poland, Italy, and Greece, rather than the more north western European nations. A majority of the immigrants that came from these countries, instead of being slightly wealthy and literate were dirt poor, illiterate, and unskilled. The Americans treated them poorly and considered them to be lesser people. The Chinese were also were a group that were treated very poorly when they came over, and that ultimately led to the Chinese Exclusion Act which prohibited immigration of Chinese laborers. The immigrants were split socially into different neighborhoods not only by wealth, but by race, many of which can still be distinguished by name in big cities

Meanwhile, Chinese female in the mainland United States remained few. Due to the fact that most Chinese female are from mainland China in the East. An era where woman is powerless and mostly ignored by the crowd, Chinese women are less noticeable and a very few of them were transported from China into the United States. Therefore, because of the insufficient number of female, Chinese family cannot build a larger family and lineage.

Historian Daryl Joji Maeda called the The Asian American movement “a multiethnic alliance comprising of all ethnicities by drawing on the discourses and ideologies of the Black Power and anti-war movements in the United States as well as decolonization movements around the globe.” By the 1960s, a new generation, less attached to the ethnic differences that plagued Asian immigrant groups, began to grow and work together. The black and white binary race treatment in the US alienated Asian-Americans as an other, causing some to begin their own rally for Asian-American civil rights.

Since its founding, the United States has attracted immigrants from all over the world and consists of a variety of different cultures. Immigration has had an enormous impact on American society and economy and shaped the country remarkably.

Struggles of Finding One’s Identity In the essay Growing Up Asian in America by, Kesaya E. Noda talks about finding her identity. Noda starts the essay by stating how the identity she was given was not one she received through her own personality and actions. Rather, society quickly gave her an identity with its own respected stereotypes due to the color of her skin. Society “hurtled” this identity at her with an expectation that she fulfill the attributes characterized with an Asian American.

In the very beginning of the 1830s, nearly 125,000 Native Americans lived on millions of acres of the land in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, and Florida.