Transcript Chinese Immigration

Chinese Immigration in America
1940s-1960s
New York from 1940s-1960s
• WWII (1939-1945)
– US became allies with China in 1941 against the
Japanese which changed the exclusion act
• St. Lawrence Waterway
• Cross Bronx Expressway
– Robert Moses begins construction of the Cross Bronx
Expressway. Everyone that was in the way was told to
move out of their homes in 90 days. Destroy 21
neighborhoods, upends 250,000 people.
– Common name for the system of locks, canals and
channels that allow travel from the Atlantic Ocean to
the Great Lakes.
• Civil Rights Act banned discrimination in voting, public
areas, workplace and schools (1964)
• Voting Rights Act made it illegal to deny voting rights
because of race. (1965)
– Some Chinese were able to naturalized after both were
passed so they were able to vote.
• African American Civil rights movement
– New York Race Riots of 1964 (started a series of them until
1965)
– Began in Harlem after the shooting of a fifteen year-old
James Powell by an off duty police man.
– Police brutality, 8000 residents, large scale riots.
– Order was finally restored to Rochester on July 26 after the
National guard was called in.
Chinese Immigration
• Early Chinese Immigration– Gold Rush (1849)
– Transcontinental railroad contract laborers
– Mention the picture
Chinese Exclusion Act (1882-1892)
• First major law restricting immigration to the US
– Barred naturalization by any Chinese person already in US
– No immigration unless you had special work permit to work in the US
Must be for individual, diplomat or student
– Prohibits the immigration of wives and children of Chinese workers
already living in the US
• Intended for 10 years, extended by Geary Act of 1892
• Response to economic fears on the west coast because the
unemployment and low wages were attributed to Chinese workers.
• Foreshadowed the immigration-restriction acts of 1920s
• Repealed by Magnuson Act in 1943 in WWII because China was an
ally to fight against imperial Japan.
• It still only allowed 104 Chinese immigrants per year.
• Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 eliminated the nationalorigins policy and Chinese were once again re-allowed in
– Got rid of the quota system and focused more on skills and
relationships with citizens
Push Factors
• Economic Hardship in China (Rural, hard labor)
• Political Unrest
Taiping Rebellion
Cultural Revolution/ Great Leap Forward
• Better education in America (Science,
Engineering, etc. )
– Student Visas
– Stay for more opportunities
Opium Wars (1839-42)
• Two wars (1839-1842) and (1856-1860)
• Arose from China’s attempts to suppress the
opium trade
• Widespead addiction was causing serious
social and economic disruption in China.
Cultural Revolution/ Great Leap Forward
• Great Leap Forward (1958-1960 )
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To organize population by large-scale rural communes
Everyone gave up ownership of tools, animals
to meet the industrial and agricultural problems
Use labor intensive methods of industrialization which
would use manpower and not machines or money.
– Up to 9 Million died in 1960 alone
– Huge Failure, even Mao admitted this.
• Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)
– Renew the spirit of Chinese revolution
– True communism by completely getting rid of all capitalist
and traditional Chinese elements.
– Shut down schools, attacked elderly and intellectuals
Taiping Rebellion
• Hong Xiuquan (disappointed civil service candidate)
that was influenced by Christian teachings that had
visions and though he was the younger brother of
Jesus that was sent to reform china.
• They gathered from several thousand supporters to
1,000,000 basically to usurp the Qing dynasty ruled by
foreign manchu.
• The chinese language was simplified, equality between
men and women. All property was held common
(primitive form of communism)
• Qing dynasty was severely weakened and was never
able to return to its previous power.
Pull Factors
• Early Chinese immigrants (young,male) were
attracted by the Gold Rush and American
businessmen
• Gaam San (Gold Mountain)
• Democratic Government in America, asylum
seekers
• RMB vs USD
– 6.21:1 now
Who came here?
• Young, male laborers
• ‘Bachelor town’
– Chinese Exclusion Act barred the immigration of wives
and children of Chinese workers already in the US
• They never intended to stay for long.
• Early immigrants came for their ‘pot of gold’ and
intended to return home so they didn’t really
need women here.
– Work for a few years, then go home and build a
house, get married
• Lived in their own ghettos, ‘Chinatown’.
Chinatown, NY
• Largely self sufficient because of
discrimination
• As a result of prejudice, exclusion, instiution
discrimination
• Opium dens with prostiuties and slave girls for
the men in chinatown.
• Created underground associations that
allowed laborers that were not documented
to work in the blocks of chinatown.
Chinatown Now
• There are many different Chinatown’s in the world (New
York, San Francisco, Toronto, etc.)
• Manhattan Chinatown is the biggest in the US
• Estimated population of 150,000
• Bounded by Lafayette, Worth, Grand, and East Broadway
Streets
• Five Points, Doyers Street(famous movie shot there), Mott
Street, Church of the Transfiguration(erected in 1801 by
lutheran church and sold to Roman Catholics in 1853.
• Chatham Square- Kim Lau Memorial Arch in the memory of
Chinese Americans that died in WWII
• Columbus Park –created by Jacob Riis in the late 1890s.
Now used as place to practice taichi, fortune tellers, and
mahjong players.
Chinese in America Now
• Lunar New Year Parade
• Racial “Microaggressions” (Not just for Asian
Americans but for all races)
– Microaggressions are subtle forms of racial bias and
discrimination
– One example: ‘Where are you really from?’ ‘You speak
really good English!’
– ‘It’s the combination of having one’s racial reality
questioned and having to decipher mixed messages’Anthony Ong
– Further see Asian Americans as ‘foreign’ or not really
American.
Notable Chinese Americans
• Vera Wang-established Fashion designer
• Jerry Yang –Cofounder of Yahoo
• Ang Lee –America Director (Life of Pi)
(academy award)
• Bruce Lee (came to America in 1959)
– He was born in America, moved to HK, then came
back
– Successful actor,