Asian Ethnic Identity In The United States

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

for Asian immigrants was the Chinese Exclusion Act, discussed in Lowe’s text and in the Chinese immigration presentation. The Chinese Exclusion Act stopped Chinese laborers from emigrating for ten years and denied the Chinese from becoming naturalized U.S. citizens. Due to the immigrant exclusions and restrictions, Asian immigrants and Asian Americans lose their sense of identity. On page nine in Lowe’s text, she stated that Asian immigrants and Asian Americans “have also been subjects of the immigrant process and are agents of political change, cultural expression, and social transformation.” I agree with this statement, because it can be understandable how and why Asian immigrants had to change their ways and self. For example, since they had no voting rights, and couldn’t make political decisions, their opinions no longer mattered in the United States, so they get into the habit of no longer thinking about it. Because they had no rights, their cultural expression’s also changed because their opinions didn’t matter, likewise for their social transformation. Without being able to express your opinions, how can one hold onto their self identity? In my opinion, I believe that the Asian immigrants self identity changed as soon as they emigrated to the United States. Lowe contributes to my opinion through her study on Omi and Winant observations on page ten in her text. Omi and Winant observe that “race is an

Of all the problems Asian Americans face that Ronald Takaki mentioned, it seems that the “Yellow Peril”, “Bamboo Ceiling”, and “Model Minority” are the major issues. The hysteria of Asians are going to takeover the United States is such arrogance. In addition, the notion that Asian Americans are having the most success in America is completely overblown. Moreover, the misrepresentations that all Asian Americans are not leaders or have poor communication tendencies are wrong. These stereotypes have negatively affected Asian Americans and it still being used today. Ronald Takaki believes that those three major issues “Yellow Peril”, “Bamboo Ceiling”, and “Model Minority” are cause of Asian Americans discrimination.

In this essay, I attempted to lay bare the issues of being an Asian-American and being labeled as an ethnic “other” in modern America. This label of “other” causes them to become marginalized and lose their sense of identity, belonging neither to Western culture nor Eastern culture. In order help stop this loss of identity in Asian-Americans, we must tear down the social construct of the “other” and integrate the different cultures into the melting pot of popular culture. Once we have stopped alienating different cultures, we can then have a moral society that upholds diversity and identity.

Though Asians make up the largest portion of the world’s population, Asian-Americans are one of the least represented minority groups within the United States. Out of an estimated 318 million people living in the U.S., Asians account for 5.2%, or approximately 17 million people. Compared to Hispanics at 54 million and African-Americans at 42 million, Asians and/or Asian-Americans are vastly outnumbered by the two other major minority groups and even more so by the majority, European-Americans. Even though Asians are typically considered the “model minority”, they are faced with the same issues that plague many other minority groups within the U.S. today to include stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination and ethnocentrism. There has been a history of discriminatory national policies directed at the immigration of Asians to the U.S. and in times of duress, the labeling and targeted institutional discrimination of specific ethnicities of Asian-Americans as traitors based solely on country of origin and not on the deeds and actions of said U.S. citizens (Japanese internment camps of World War II).

It is crucial to recognize the huge toll the Chinese Exclusion Act took on Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans, and the negative influence of racialization it had on immigration policy of other countries. In this paper, I will discuss the consequences of the Chinese Exclusion Act on Chinese culture and society in the United States, regarding to the isolation of Chinese society in U.S., paper identities and lives of illegal Chinese immigrants and how this Act guided the establishment

In our new book, The Asian American Achievement Paradox -- based on a survey and 140 in-depth interviews of the adult children of Chinese, Vietnamese and Mexican immigrants in Los Angeles -- fellow sociologist Min Zhou and I explain what actually fuels the achievements of some Asian American groups: U.S. immigration law, which favors highly educated, highly skilled immigrant applicants from Asian countries.

Other Asian American groups were able to attain better economic opportunities for themselves because of a booming wartime economy. Through the process of naturalization, they were also recognized as citizens who had the same rights as other American citizens. This process helped to uplift their communities and change the perceptions of Asian Americans at the time. Conversely, Japanese Americans’ responses towards their mistreatment show their conviction in their rights as American citizens. These efforts were recognized with the passage of the McCarran-Walter Act, which allowed for the naturalization of Japanese and Korean immigrants. The act also eliminated the formal racially exclusive legislation that had been affecting Asian American communities. Along with the War Brides Act, which allowed for the immigration of women who had married American servicemen, new legislation after World War II helped to facilitate Asian immigration to America. This increased immigration helped to create more families in Asian American communities and bring about an end to the “bachelor societies” of Asian immigrants who had never been able to raise families. While the discussion of race and belonging during World War II featured the polarization of the Asian American communities, it is interesting to know that the struggles of Asian Americans during World War II would set

 The United States was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, but during an immigration boom in the late 1890s and early 1900s, Asians and Europeans faced discrimination and violence because of their difference in language, appearance, and religion. People came to America from all over the world to experience the wealth and prosperity that was associated with this great country, but certain ethnicities were excluded from the hope and freedom they were promised by the forefathers. When coming through California, Asians faced with hardships and trials that caused them to return to their country and sometimes to end

The Asian American immigrants are part of the ethnic and racial groups in the United States who lives in the continent of Asia. Asian have lived in the United States for a long time. Throughout the history, Asian Americans have encountered segragation and discrimination during the periods of changes in demographics, economic recession, and war. They have been discriminated by school policies and practices due to beign different. Paul Spickard (2007) has said that Asian Americans was an idea invented in the 1960s to bring together Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino Americans for political purposes. Later, other

The U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as Hart-Cellar Act, represents the most significant period in the history of Asian Americans. Decades of continuous exclusion and racist immigration policies, came to an end with the adoption of the Act, which resulted in unprecedented flows of immigrants from Asia, Mexico, Latin America, and other countries immigrating to U.S. Most influential proved to be the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, which brought national and international attention to the pervasive problem of racism and economic inequality in American society, including discriminatory immigration laws. New arrivals, especially from Asia, have transformed the demographic and diversity characteristics of Asian American community, and American society in general. The immigration Act of 1965 was the most important immigration reform legislation for Asian Americans and other racial minorities because it finally challenged the American race relations and dramatically improved the lives of Asian Americans.

The author, Ronald Takaki, wishes to illustrate that the perceptions of Asian Americans as a "model minority" are not entirely accurate. Takaki writes that the facts and figures used to compare Asian-Americans to other, less successful minority groups are misleading. For example, the author writes that although Japanese Americans are seen as upwardly mobile, they have not yet achieved equality. The essay states that "while Japanese American men in California earned an average income comparable to Caucasian men in 1980, they did so only by acquiring more education and working more hours." In addition, the author found that while some Asian American groups do have higher family incomes than Caucasians, at the same time

As the immigrant population currently projected to overtake latinxs and hispanics as largest group of residents in the United States of America, Asian Americans have shown their will to survive in a way that many groups have not, and that is by banding together in order to achieve the life they deserve. Taking the overgeneralization of pan-ethnicity and using it as a device for increased numbers and support for the causes of a group of people who otherwise may not have much to do with each other, is a testament to how vulnerable they must have felt as well as how successful they have managed to be many aspects of progress. What I have gained from this course is the understanding that at the root of ethnic studies and the Asian American community is the “for us, by us” sentiment that contributed to the blurred lines between the different part of their communities as social, political and cultural, structures, collectives and groups which came out of an obligation and necessity to protect those immigrants and their future generations from a country which has always pushed European superiority in all aspects of society.

In the wake of the Civil War and the major improvements in the lives of African Americans during Reconstruction that followed, America saw its inequitable treatment of minorities shift from African Americans to Asian immigrants. To clarify, African Americans were still subject to much racial terrorism and many civil rights abuses, but they had recently gained major legislative victories with the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 14th Amendment in 1868 that had helped to ensure their legal citizenship and equal rights in America. During this same time period, Asian immigration to America had begun to increase. Due to the nativist feelings that still pervaded in post-Civil War America and concerns about the labor market brought about by

Throughout the highly detailed and descriptive study that Jennifer Lee and Min Zhou describe, the audience is explicitly exposed to the achievements of Chinese and Vietnamese 1.5 and second generation individuals that were randomly selected. The primary argument that the two authors are willingly demanding to tackle are the various reasons to why these two specific immigrant groups are so much more successful in terms of education and occupation level in the United States, compared to their counterparts, the White and Black and even the Latino group. Furthermore, the argument begins by explaining the cultural and ethnic identity stereotypes that the Chinese and Vietnamese group attain, however, this is not the sole reason on their success. The study revealed many interviews between these two