How Did The Chinese Move To America

As the mothers immigrated to the United States, they had undergone identity changes that would separate themselves from their Chinese cultures. Some identity changes are miniscule, yet left an impact on the mother's. Adjusting to the expectations set upon them during immigration made them present their westernized side. Many were reduced to being just students, displaced immigrants, or war brides. Immigrating women were not viewed as being there

In conclusion, Chinese immigrants came to America for gaining money and return to China. This is the main purpose for the most Chinese immigrants. Most of them worked at Railroad Company, so many laborers died after they began working. All

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.

Beginning in the late 19th century and continuing to the early 20th century, many Chinese families struggled to gain social, economic, and educational stature in both China and the United States. In the book, A Transnational History of a Chinese Family, by Haiming Liu, we learn about the Chang family rooted in Kaiping County, China, who unlike many typical Chinese families’ exemplified hard-work and strong cultural values allowing them to pursue an exceptional Chinese-American lifestyle. Even with immigration laws preventing Chinese laborers and citizens to enter unless maintaining merchant status, Yitang and Sam Chang managed to sponsor approximately 40 relatives to the states with their businesses in herbalist

American citizens despised the Chinese workers because they worked very hard and followed instructions for very little pay, as stated in a speech given by a German immigrant on the Chinese exclusion act he said “It is almost impossible for a poor white servant girl to find employment in a white family. No! The mistress of the house wants a Chinaman. Why? He is very handy. She can say, ‘John Chinaman, do this’, and John does it, and John never says a word”. The white immigrants assumed that the Chinese were doing this to spite them and steal the jobs the white immigrants and American citizens thought they were entitled to. Another example of Americans and white immigrants accusing the Chinese of taking

To make it worse, the Chinese’s exotic culture, language, and dress, surprised many Americans, and at that time period, to be different was considered bad. They were given dangerous and lowlife jobs even the hard working Irish didn’t want. The building of the transcontinental railroad required the use of explosives to carve a way through the Rocky Mountains and this job fell to the Chinese. Thousands of Chinese lives were lost. Another job was the laundry shops.

In the early 1800’s industrialization of the northeast and other national endeavors such as railroads and road building required much manual labor. This vast manual labor job market opened the flood gates into the United States for immigrants seeking prosperity and a better life for themselves and their families. By the mid 1800’s many Chinese immigrants had made the voyage to the U.S. and sought work mainly in the factories of the prosperous northeast as well as the California gold mines. Culturally the Chinese people’s actions are motivated by the concept of bringing honor and respect to the family as a whole, and less concerned about individual successes or prestige, which resulted in Chinese immigrant’s willingness to do high quality work for long hours for very little pay. This was beneficial to the employer and company, but displaced many other immigrant workers which caused racial tensions. Chinese immigrants were accustomed to living in tight quarters, working together as families or community units and making do with what was available. These qualities assisted in the development of China Towns, housing and cultural centers for the Chinese immigrant population, near or in the large cities where their populations were greatest such as New York and San Francisco as. Many Americans viewed these China Towns as unsanitary and unhealthy brothels where prostitution and smoking opium was commonplace.

After the first wave of Chinese immigrants arrived in the United States in the early 1840s during the California Gold Rush, many Chinese people continued to travel across the Pacific, escaping poor conditions in China with hopes and ambitions for a better life in America. Many more Chinese immigrants began arriving into the 1860s on the Pacific coast for work in other areas such as the railroad industry. The immigrants noticed an increasing demand for their labor because of their readiness to work for low wages. Many of those who arrived did not plan to stay long, and therefore there was no push for their naturalization. The immigrants left a country with thousands of years of a “decaying feudal system,” corruption, a growing

The Chinese came to America in search of wealth. They wanted to make money to send back to their poor families at home and to become very rich (Leo Luo). The Chinese went through the attack of being so poor because of the Qing dynasty the ruler he declined to help during the opium wars. After all the Chinese began to need resources to live off , so they began to look for jobs and hope to become very wealthy and then return back to their homes to help support their families at home (“ Chinese immigrants to America”). On the other hand the Chinese did overcome their needs and became

From 1849 through the start of the 20th century, the first Chinese who immigrated to the United States struggled with many challenges against their race and objectives. They traveled abroad with hopes of returning to their home country with wealth and power to support the family that remained in China. Introduced as aliens with a culture and lifestyle that was different from the American race, the Chinese were given the impressions as an inferior group of people and were seen as threats to the Americans’ job securities. In 1860, immigration numbers augmented rapidly when the Central Pacific Railroad Company requested workers to build the western segment of the Transcontinental Railroad (stretches from California to Utah). By 1870, the census counted 49, 310 Chinese in California, making up about 8.5 percent of the state’s population. Many Americans saw the increasing numbers of the Chinese living in California as a spreading disease. Bayard Talor, a 19th century American poet, described the Chinese as “morally, the most debased people on the face of the earth. Their touch is pollution, … and [they] should not be allowed to settle on our soil.” Determined to rid the country of this “pollution,” Americans sought methods to terminate their entry to the Western border states, specifically California. Throughout the later decades of the 19th century, the Californian government enforced laws that limited Chinese rights, and with each one, a tighter reign was drawn on the

Migrating to America in search of new opportunities, sadly, the Chinese were referred to as Chinks and coolies. Throughout history, Americans have been in debt to immigrant groups, like the Chinese, who were the only ones willing to do the most dangerous and underpaid work. Yet, Americans have been the most hostile towards the Chinese—the only racial group ever to face an Exclusion Act. During the 19th century, 80,000 Chinese immigrants arrived in the United States during the Gold Rush, but they found no gold—only nativists who did not want them there. So, instead of mining, many Chinese settled for odd jobs and labored on the Transcontinental Railroad, a previously unparalleled project to connect the American West Coast with the American

There are many interesting facts about the Chinese immigrants in California. Many immigrants arriving in the 19th century were mostly males. The population of Chinese Americans decreased after the Chinese Exclusion Act until 1920. Only the privileged merchant class was allowed to bring their families to the United States from China. More than 100,000 Chinese immigrants immigrated to California to find better jobs from 1849 to 1882. The Chinese were the first Asians to arrive in a large

In the 1850s, Chinese workers migrated to the United States for job opportunities, first to work in the gold mines, but also to take agricultural jobs, and factory work, especially in the garment industry. Most of the Chinese workers had more than one job because what they were facing such as financially. Chinese immigrants were particularly talented in building railroads in the American west, and as Chinese laborers became successful in the United States, a number of them left their jobs and became entrepreneurs in their own right as they knew they were talented and clever enough so they decided to take it to their own hand. As the numbers of Chinese laborers increased, so did the strength of anti-Chinese sentiment among other workers in the

In the 19th century, there was a great influx of Chinese citizens into the United States to work in the goldmine, agricultural plantations, and in different factories. The Chinese population grew significantly in the US, and this brought resulted to pressure among the non-Chinese workers (Blumenfield, 2013). There were also claims that there were a lot of illegal acts taking place in Chinatowns like prostitution, illegal gambling and drug abuse. This was followed by formulation of a series of laws by different states to restrict the