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Pros and cons chinese exclusion act
Pros and cons chinese exclusion act
Discrimination of Asian immigrants
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Many scenarios have shown racialized groups in different ways including the Asian/ Asian Americans. The Chinese Exclusion Act started a racialized group where the Chinese could not come to the United States. The Quota System significantly reduced European immigration, and all immigration for East Asia was banned by the National Origins Act. These Asians were being judged on their nationality onscreen through stereotypes. From white wages and standards of living being threatened, the Asians began being racialized through stereotypes on screen and off screen.
Madame Butterfly shows cultural differences and certain characteristics the Americans had towards Japan and the Asians. The theme in these early films is a Japanese female or male always undergoes the betrayal, and it is always the woman, either Japanese or American, which dies. Many of the films featuring the Japanese ended in violence or suicides, including Madame Butterfly. The Japanese woman ended up committing suicide because of a social issue between her and Pinkerton. This could have been because of certain religio...
One particular ethnic group that suffered severe discrimination was the Chinese people. They first came to America for several reasons. One of them was the gold rush in California in 1849, in which they were included in a group of immigrants called the “Forty-Niners” (179). From gold mining, they switched to other jobs with resulted in the rise of anti-Chinese sentiments. People felt that Chinese people were taking the jobs away from them, because Chinese people worked for much smaller salaries that businesses preferred. This mindset gave way to the creation of The Chinese Exclusion Act passed in 1882, which prohibits more Chinese immigrants from coming to America. In addition, the act states “no State or court of the United States shall admit Chinese to citizenship”. Like the Naturalization Act, the Chinese Exclusion Act was created to hinder Chinese people from becoming citizens so that America could remain homogenously white (186). It also aimed to stop Chinese people from establishing a bigger community in the country in hopes of eliminating the threat of competition to their white counterparts (186). Like African-Americans, Chinese people were considered racially inferior and have struggled to prove that they were worthy to be called true Americans, rather than
The English immigrants are given a brief introduction as the first ethnic group to settle in America. The group has defined the culture and society throughout centuries of American history. The African Americans are viewed as a minority group that were introduced into the country as slaves. The author depicts the struggle endured by African Americans with special emphasis on the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement. The entry of Asian Americans evoked suspicion from other ethnic groups that started with the settlement of the Chinese. The Asian community faced several challenges such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and the mistreatment of Americans of Japanese origin during World War II. The Chicanos were the largest group of Hispanic peoples to settle in the United States. They were perceived as a minority group. Initially they were inhabitants of Mexico, but after the Westward expansion found themselves being foreigners in their native land (...
The Naturalization Act of 1790, which restricted naturalized citizenship to only "free white persons," marks the beginning of racial eligibility for citizenship in the United States (Koshy, 1998, p. 290). Subsequent exclusionary policies, such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the Immigration Act of 1917, the National Origins Quota Law of 1924, further emphasized whiteness as one of the most defining prerequisite for naturalization. In the early 20th century, the meaning of the racial category "white" became the subject of multiple legal disputes involving Asian Indians. Disagreement over the inclusion of Asian Indians in the "white" category originated due to the fact that "their complexion was dark, but they were ethnologically Caucasian" (Shah, 1999, p. 249). One of the most infamous cases, United States vs. Bhagat Singh Thind, was presented in an article from the March 10, 1923 issue of The Literary Digest, describing the outcome of the case and its implications on the Indian community, primarily in California. Through a textual analysis of the article, this paper discusses the formation of the legal definition of whiteness, the ways of justification of social inequality, and the construction of Asian Indians as a racially unassimilable group in U.S. immigration history.
The Asian Exclusion Act of 1924 eventually superseded the Gentlemen’s Agreement and was quite possibly the most exclusionary immigration policy the the US had ever enacted. The Immigration Act of 1924, otherwise known as the Oriental Exclusion Act, was signed on July 1, 1924, banning all Asian immigrants into United States and effectively ending the first wave of Korean immigration until the end of World War II (Son I). The 1924 Immigration Act stemmed from nativists who petitioned for implementing “immigration restriction” as means of bottlenecking the influx of “undesirable foreigners” (Lee 134). The objective of this Act was to significantly decrease the inflow of “eastern and southern European immigrants” and outright banned Asian immigration
Prejudice and oppression by whites underlies the discourse used to describe Asian Americans as the "model minority". According to Eric Liu, Asian Americans have been called the "New Jews," a label "meant to accentuate the many parallels between these two groups of immigrants: Jews started out as outsiders; Asians did too… Jews climbed the barriers and crowded the Ivies; Asians did too. Jews climbed faster than any minority in their time; Asians did too". The difference between these two racial groups asserts Liu, is that in America "the very metaphor of ‘the Jew’ now stands for assimilation", but Asians are unable to blend into white American society as Jews did half a century ago.
Regarded as unassimilable, Asian immigrants were systematically discriminated by way of American immigration policies. The earliest policy enforced that overtly excluded groups of individuals based on racial categorization was passed in 1882. This was known as the Chinese Exclusion Act. As the years went by, hostile sentiments towards Asians fostered and eventually manifested themselves in the Immigration Act of 1924. In response to these discriminating policies, prospective immigrants sought alternate routes to America, often involving the channel of human smuggling. Despite the presence of human smuggling prior to the late 20th century, heightened awareness of this exploit resulted from the media sensation around the Golden Venture ship,
According to Oxford Dictionary, stereotype is a preconceived and oversimplified idea of the characteristics which typify a person or situation (Oxford). But in reality it is more like a subtle form of bias, such as those based on people's gender, race or occupation. For example, Americans are generally considered to be arrogant and materialistic while Asians, on the other hand, are expected to be shrewd but reserved. Obviously, not all Americans are arrogant and not all Asians are shrewd. So, if one just assumes what a person is like and don't look at each person as an individual, he or she is likely to make errors in estimates of a person's character. Such biases are easily ignored, yet are a fact of life. These biases can affect how people see others, as well as themselves, which may lead to unexpected consequences. Thus, stereotyping can influence the communication and understanding between people, usually in a negative way. To examine the side effect brought by stereotyping, I will go through Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Duras’ The Lover and analyze the roles played by stereotype. The protagonists of both books are set in a background, to which they do not originally belong or where is colonized by foreign invaders. Therefore, stereotype becomes a mutual theme and plays an important role in these two books.
With the passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, the first significant restrictive immigration law in United States history was instituted that would provided a framework to be used to racialize other threatening, excludable aliens. Furthermore, this marked the first time that groups of immigrants were excluded based on their race and nationality. At the time, America could be identified as being an Anglo-Saxon dominated nation where native-born citizens had the ultimate say in government and societal issues. The influx of Chinese immigrants in the 19th century posed a problem for many of these nativists. The Chinese immigrants were coming to America at an astounding rate and willing to work for less money, thereby, endangering American values and civilization. Additionally, they were deemed as a threat to the white supremacy in the West. In order to bring this racial threat to light, many Anti-Chinese activists’ compared the new immigrants to African Americans in that both were believed to be inherently inferior savages only suitable for degrading labor in which they were often employed (Lee 34). However, the strongest argument against the Chinese focused on them being unwilling and incapable of assimilating into society. In the ...
For nearly a century, spanning from the latter half of the 19th century to the first half of the 20th century, Chinese-Americans and Chinese immigrants endured discrimination from the United States government and its people. The Chinese are another group of people that were treated as less than in America’s long history of legal racism. The Chinese experience is often overlooked as other
“Orientals will always submit to a greater force,” (Hwang Henry David. “M. Butterfly”. Penguin Group, 1988.), a line that was said to Toulon by Gallimard in the play. This one simple line was created on stereotypes. Throughout the entire play, we see these stereotypical messages in the things that these characters say and the way they act. As quoted in the first line, Gallimard is letting Toulon know that the he believes that the Vietnamese will surrender to the Americans because they are Orientals and believes that all people in the east are weak and unable to stand up for themselves. That is not the only time in the play where a stereotype is bluntly represented. During
For instance, the Asian American population has, on average, the highest level of education and the highest income among all races. Due to this, the racial discrimination this group had to endure throughout history is overlooked. Nevertheless, the manifestation of this inequality can be observed by the Asian communities still present in the United States, such as Chinatown in San Francisco. These communities appeared after white people brutally attacked and killed Asians because they felt the Asians were stealing their jobs and lowering their wages, driving Asians out of cities and forcing them to rely on each other and their own businesses for survival (Croteau & Hoynes, 2013). In addition, since Asians were not considered qualified for American citizenship throughout most of history, they are often still considered foreigners today. Another example of inequality today can be seen through real estate and the wealth gap between whites and minority groups. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 ended the discrimination against non-whites in the housing industry, but racial inequality still remains. When white neighborhoods began to integrate non-whites, white people sold their homes after their realtors instilled the fear of their homes decreasing in value. Realtors bought white homes for less than they were worth, and sold them to non-whites at inflated rates, a process known as “block-busting”.
Asian Americans faced deportation and segregation too. Asians were confined to their community settlements some known as ‘China Towns’ as a means of controlling their access to jobs. Some were rounded up and deported; a large number of Chinese workers were deported during the depression. The government reduced the number of immigrants from Asia, specifically China (Encyclopedia.com, Minorities and The Great Depression, 2003).
In Shakespeare’s tragedy Othello, the title character is a 16th century Moorish general of the Venetian army who, because of the cultural and historical background of the play’s setting, the playwright, and the original intended audience, is portrayed as both well-respected for his military prowess and disparaged for his race. Similarly, Hispanics in today’s American society are portrayed as both sexy and thugs.
Although we live in an era where things are changing by the day, there are still remnants of the colonial culture that came before us. Things like beauty and racial stereotypes are still alive today. We experience the things in our daily lives whether we are aware of it or not wear, watch and in some cases simply the way we look, whether it be your features or the shape of your body.
The contrast in western and eastern culture are very noticeable and allowed us to see the differences. The obsession Gallimard has in finding that perfect woman when it fact was a man is ironic and humorous. I still just don’t understand how he would not have notice that Song is a man. Maybe he was so lost in his delusion of what he found to be the perfect woman made it what see Song as a woman even when he found out that Song is indeed a man. I had a lot of fun watching and reading Madame Butterfly and M. Butterfly. The play in stark contrast to what I usually read. The differences between Madame Butterfly and M. Butterfly give me a unique senses of the struggle that Madame Butterfly and Gallimard had toward their idea of