Chinese Immigrates

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.

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.

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.

Millions of immigrants over the previous centuries have shaped the United States of America into what it is today. America is known as a “melting pot”, a multicultural country that welcomes and is home to an array of every ethnic and cultural background imaginable. We are a place of opportunity, offering homes and jobs and new economic gains to anyone who should want it. However, America was not always such a “come one, come all” kind of country. The large numbers of immigrants that came during the nineteenth century angered many of the American natives and lead to them to blame the lack of jobs and low wages on the immigrants, especially the Asian communities. This resentment lead to the discrimination and legal exclusion of immigrants,

Immigration was a crucial aspect of the Gilded Age although it brought many issues to the USA. The large influx of Chinese brought out America’s racist views and caused the economy to be affected negatively. To begin with in the California gold rush, the large number of Chinese were blamed for taking all the gold and they were forcefully relocated to the city to work labor jobs. This large growth of laborers caused businesses to lower their average wages and non-immigrant Americans were unable to find jobs. Ones that did already have jobs were angered by the lower wages. Since the economy in the 1870s was in decline, Anti-Chinese groups, such as the Supreme Order of Caucasians, formed to protest against Chinese immigrants all across USA. Labor

The Chinese immigrant is one of the largest group in the United States. Looking back the history of U.S., most people believe that the first Chinese immigrants came to California during the Gold Rush period. Also, the Chinese community is one of the largest and oldest ethnic group of Asian Americans. Some researchers consider the history of ethnic Chinese in Southern California relates to three periods. In my opinion, I would like to say that there are four major waves which the first wave begins in the 19th century, the second wave occurs in the 1940s to 1980s, the third wave happens during the 1980s, and the last wave arises in a recent decade year.

One of the first significant pieces of federal legislation aimed at restricting immigration was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which banned Chinese laborers from coming to America. Californians had agitated for the new law, blaming the Chinese, who were willing to work for less, for a decline in wages.The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first significant law restricting immigration into the United States. Those on the West Coast were especially prone to attribute declining wages and economic ills on the despised Chinese workers. Although the Chinese composed only .002 percent of the nation’s population, Congress passed the exclusion act to placate worker demands and assuage prevalent concerns about maintaining white “racial purity.”

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

Many groups immigrated to the United States, mostly in California, for land, jobs, wealth and freedom. One of the main ethnic groups of immigrants that came to California to work were the Chinese. Many companies used the Chinese men to work on railroads that connected America through transportation that later helped develop modern day America.

In the late 1800’s European, Chinese, and Japanese immigrants traveled To the United States. The Europeans came looking for opportunities while Japanese were recruited from Hawaiian planters as for the Chinese immigrants they came for many reasons some were attracted to the gold rush, while the others came to work for the railroads, farmed or became domestic servants. While immigration and urbanization was beginning to unfold they began creating social, political, and economic problems. These problems made life hard for immigrants but one race that seemed to be affected was the Chinese not only was it because they became successful but also because they increased in a big amount and as technology started improving labor was not needed as much. Chinese arrived between 1851-1882, 300,000 Chinese arrived on the west coast When the Chinese immigrants first came to work in the gold mines , agriculture , and railroads the Chinese were very instrumental in building railroads and at the time Chinese immigrants started to grow successful but as they increased so did the strength of anti-Chinese sentiment among other workers wanting to limit the amount of Chinese immigrants.

Before the war, Chinese Americans were known as non-citizen immigrants who aren’t allow to go back to visit China. The male immigrants can’t to bring their wives over from China and they weren't allowed to marry whites legally. In fact any white American woman that married a non-citizen Chinese man automatically lost her citizenship under US law. This left Chinese communities across the United States empty of children, filled with aging bachelors, and inexorably dying away. Ironically the renewal of the Chinese American community came about because of the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906 that destroyed immigration and birth records across the city. The US Supreme Court in Wong Kim Ark v. United States in 1898 had affirmed citizenship

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 Chinese Exclusion Act was established in 1882, in which the first time United States prevent a group of immigrants with nationality (Lee 4), marked United States’ from welcoming nation to an enclosed and discriminative nation, has monumental impact on each Chinese immigrants and culture of the entire American Chinese community (6). The poor conditions and lack of opportunities in the 19th century China and the Chinese’s hope of accumulating wealth to support their families in China fostered the huge influx of Chinese immigrants to United States. The discovery of gold in California also fuelled many Chinese’s dream of fast wealth (112). Due to the need for mass labour stemming from industrialization and high productivity of Chinese labours, employers would enthusiastically hire Chinese labour, which in turn sparked the increasing competition with the local workers and a growing anti-Chinese sentiment (114).

Every person who lives in America is either an immigrant or a descendant of an immigrant. Though we may not consider it, it is a fact that everyone here has come from some other place. The majority of immigrants have come to America voluntarily. Seeking a change they envisioned America as country thriving with different opportunities. For the immigrants it was a chance at a better life, not only for themselves, but for their children. It is estimated that over sixty million people have immigrated to America and it is this immigration that has built America into a "melting pot." America is a country thriving with varies ethnic, cultural, religious, and economic identities. It is this "melting pot" that makes

Around the mid 1800’s we started to see the movement of the Chinese immigrants in the pacific-coast of the united states, more specifically in California. They laid railroad tracks in the west coast and also serviced in mining during the California gold rush. You start to see the success of the Chinese immigrants which encouraged the poor Chinese to come to America. The Chinese started to spread and settle in Oregon as well as in Washington in the 1860’s providing labor for the state’s mines and salmon canneries and also setting up the Northern Pacific Railroad which connected Lake Superior to Tacoma, Washington and also helped build the Seattle to Newcastle railroad.(cite #2) These immigrants were very industrious, willing to work long hours