Why Did Chinese Immigrate to the United States?

In China, since the reform and opening-up, there have been two waves of immigration in the last century late 70s and early 90s. With the advent of a new century, China’s economy has come into the phase of rapid development and its informatization construction has been developed at a high speed. Surprisingly, at that time, there is growing the third emigration which is a larger scale one. Among these immigrants, the professional elite and the proportion of affluent people increases year by year.

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).

The late 19th century marked a new chapter in American Capitalism. Hawaii and California were both looking for cheap laborers to fuel their new system at this time, and American planters found their answer in Chinese and Japanese immigrants. Even though Chinese and Japanese immigrants both flocked to America, the two countries had different reasons for leaving their homes. American laborers, on the other hand, were appalled by the surplus of laborers and demanded the government to monitor these Asian immigrants. While capitalism pulled Chinese and Japanese people in search of wealth to America, the American government held a strong grip on those that were allowed into the country.

During the late 1800s, inhabitants from all parts of the world made the decision to leave their jobs and homes to immigrate to the United States. They fled rising taxes, famine, crop failure, land and job shortages, to come to the United States. Perceived to be one of the greater countries for economic opportunity, many sought freedom from religious and political persecution. Around twelve million immigrants arrived in the United States between 1870 and 1900. Before the Civil War, the majority of immigrants were from Germany, Ireland, and England. There would be a drastic change in the next three decades. After the Civil War, immigrants

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.”

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

Immigrants from China arrived in the West looking for jobs in the building of railroads.

Instead, they stayed in America for good. The Chinese immigrants now wished to assimilate their own culture and ideas with the American ideas. Americans, mostly Nativists, were extremely bothered by this because the Americans did not want the Chinese to bring their alien culture to America (Document 1). Other groups, who resented other races from assimilating, organized classes so the immigrants can learn the American language and way. They said immigrants should become citizens by learning the “American language.” They thought if the people that come to America and don’t learn the way of the Americans, then this country will soon be just like the old country, the country which they have already left (Document 3). Resentment over immigration still arose within the United States.

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

The reasons for Chinese women to immigrate to America included natural disaster and internal problems in China in the 1840’s and 1850’s, the desire for family reunion, economic pursuit, and personal fulfillment. Problems that China faced involved a severe drought, the flooding of the Yangtze River, floods, and famine. This all amounted to ruined land, a rebellious peasantry, and a failing economy. Another problem China

“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 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

China is one of the oldest countries in the world. Most of the Chinese immigrants were motivated to come to America due to the California gold rush .They sold many of items in order to afford a ticket to the New World, this included livestock, and property. The immigrants started arriving around 1850. Many of the Chinese did not have intentions of staying in America, those people were called sojourners (Huot 221). The Chinese were not accepted throughout the nation. One of the most popular reasons for rejection was because