Giovanny Aguilar
May 18, 2014
HST.100
Through Thick and Tin
In “Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home” written by Madeline Y. Hsu she discusses transnationalism among immigrants from Taishan. Transnationalism is a key part of globalization and it shows us how other people operate across national boundaries. Hsu wrote this book to shed light to the Chinese American culture and to help better understand the history of their people and culture. By doing this, the author hopes to show how immigrants from Taishan, a populous coastal county in south China, are responsible, at least until 1965, for the majority of Chinese immigrants coming to the United States. She is amazed at how that single county of Taishan is now representing well over half of the Chinese in America.
The book itself is very informative and uses a lot of examples such as stories and newspapers. Hsu discusses how Chinese immigrants, despite being in America, always kept constant connections with their families back home. She mentioned that the point of their migration is too come over here and make some money in order to send it back home so that their families can live little better. By doing so they managed to keep Taishan economically successful. One thing that she points out, that can be interpreted as one of the true messages of the book, is that despite making more money here in America the Chinese immigrants kept loyal to their families back home and that the people in America were only here to help support their families. Hsu likes to point out the hard effort these people would go through just to ensure the fact that they would be able to see their families again. A perfect example given in the book that shows the lengths Chinese people went through just to en...
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... instead of increasing, starting at 2,660 in the year 1915 and ending with 643 Chinese migrants in the year 1940.
I personally believed that Hsu out did her self with all the information given in this book; she connected all the dots perfectly and explained all the sacrifices these immigrants would make just to make it in the world and provide for their families. The person who wrote the book review I used was not found but he agrees with the fact that Hsu did an outstanding job connecting and making the audience feel connected to the characters used to prove her point. He thinks that she revolutionized the Chinese American study. Despite all the hardships people go through they all have reasons to keep fighting and keep moving on to advance in life and continue living and that is one of the few things that Hsu wanted to show her audience and she was successful.
It also shows some more common ideas, like how all families have secrets, and in just a short time, someone’s life can be turned upside down and they have to find the best way to stay strong for themselves and their families. The most important thing I learned from this book, is how some people in other cultures find life to be very difficult when they are trying to do what is best for their family. Anita kept saying America is the ‘free country’ and I couldn’t agree more. So many people want to come here for so many different reasons, and it makes you realize that if our country is so great that people from all over the world want to move here, we are very lucky to be so highly thought
This nation was relatively stable in the eyes of immigrants though under constant political and economic change. Immigration soon became an outlet by which this nation could thrive yet there was difficulty in the task on conformity. Ethnic groups including Mexicans and Chinese were judged by notions of race, cultural adaptations and neighborhood. Mary Lui’s “The Chinatown Trunk Mystery” and Michael Innis-Jimenez’s “Steel Barrio”, provides a basis by which one may trace the importance of a neighborhood in the immigrant experience explaining the way in which neighborhoods were created, how these lines were crossed and notions of race factored into separating these
Immigrants' lives become very difficult when they move to a new country. They are often discriminated against due to their race and/ or nationality. This problem occurs many times throughout Dragonwings, a book by Laurence Yep. In his book, the Chinese characters who immigrate to America face many challenges in their new lives. They are thought of as inferior, have to endure many hardships, and become lonely due to the fact that they must leave the majority of their families in China. In this book, the immigrants face multiple difficulties and challenges in the new world they know as the Land of the Golden Mountain.
“It was not easy to live in Shanghai” (Anyi 137). This line, echoed throughout Wang Anyi 's short piece “The Destination” is the glowing heartbeat of the story. A refrain filled with both longing and sadness, it hints at the many struggles faced by thousands upon thousands trying to get by in the city of Shanghai. One of these lost souls, the protagonist, Chen Xin, was one of the many youths taken from his family and sent to live the in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. Ten years after the fact, Chen Xin views the repercussions of the Cultural Revolution internally and externally as he processes the changes that both he, and his hometown have over-gone in the past ten years. Devastatingly, he comes to the conclusion that there is no going back to the time of his childhood, and his fond memories of Shanghai exist solely in memory. This is in large part is due to the changes brought on by the Cultural Revolution. These effects of the Cultural Revolution are a central theme to the story; with repercussions seen on a cultural level, as well as a personal one.
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 ...
...nese immigrants that came to America in the mid 1800’s came for the same reasons as every immigrant group, dire situations in their native lands and the opportunities for economic prosperity. Having escaped their misfortunate pasts, the Chinese immigrants took the opportunities afforded to them in the gold mining fields and on the railroad tracks. Providing a much needed labor force to America at the time, the Chinese would never get their just credit. Instead they would be discriminated more in the years to come. Acts such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 would greatly reduce the number of Chinese immigrants allowed to come into the country ("The Chinese," n.d.). Coupled with measures put in place by the state of California such as the “Anti-Coolie Act of 1862”, the Chinese immigrants faced humiliation after contributing so much to the United States of America.
When thousands of Chinese migrated to California after the gold rush the presence caused concern and debate from other Californians. This discussion, popularly called the “Chinese Question,” featured in many of the contemporary accounts of the time. In the American Memory Project’s “California: As I Saw It” online collection, which preserves books written in California from 1849-1900, this topic is debated, especially in conjunction with the Chinese Exclusion Act. The nine authors selected offer varying analyses on Chinese discrimination and this culminating act. Some give racist explanations, but the majority point towards the perceived economic competition between the Chinese and the lower class led to distrust and animosity.
Chinese immigrants to the United States of America have experienced both setbacks and triumphs in the quest to seek a better life from themselves and their families. First arriving in America in the mid-1800s to seek jobs and escape poor conditions in their home country, the Chinese found work as labors and settled in areas known as Chinatowns (Takaki 181-183). In the early years, these immigrants experienced vast legal racism and sexism as women were forbidden to enter the country and the Chinese Exclusion Act prevented laborers from entering the country for years (Takaki 184-192). Today, the modern Chinese-American experience has changed from the experience of early Chinese immigrants. Many immigrants enter the country seeking better education as well employment (Yung, Chang, and Lai 244). Immigrant women have made great strides in achieving equality to men. Despite advancements, many immigrants still experience discrimination on some level. One example of a modern Chinese immigrant is “Ruby”, a college student who, with her parents, immigrated from Hong Kong to a suburb of Providence, Rhode Island, 7 years ago. Ruby’s story shares insight on the modern Chinese-American experience and the struggles this group still faces. Chinese immigrants have long maintained a presence in the United States, and despite many struggles, have eventually began to reap the benefits of this great nation.
The Chinese immigrant experience has traveled through times of hardships, under the English man. They have struggled to keep themselves alive through racism, work, and acceptance. Although many have come to Canada for their lives’ and their children’s to be successful, and safe. It could not be just given until adversity gave them the life they hoped to one day life for. In the starting time of 1858, the Chinese community had started coming to different parts of Canada considering the push and pull factors that had led them here. Because of the lack of workers in the British Columbia region, the Chinese were able to receive jobs in gold mining. Most Chinese were told to build roads, clear areas, and construct highways, but were paid little because of racism. The Chinese today are considered one of the most successful races in Canada because of the push and pull factors that they had come across, the racism that declined them and the community of the Chinese at the present time.
As gold discoveries slowed down and the Civil War gradually came to an end, the First Transcontinental Railroad was finally completed between Omaha and Sacramento. Over time, unemployment began rising across the country, especially in California, where a vast majority of Chinese immigrants resided in. The welcoming of Chinese immigrants slowly began to wear off as the white working class perceived a threat to their livelihood that these immigrants could potentially cause, leading to an increase in racial tensions. These growing tensions culminated in the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 and eventually closed U.S. borders to all Chinese laborers, with the exception of ethnic Chinese individuals. This paper highlights the significant impact of large-scale Chinese immigration to California during the Gold Rush, the lasting contributions made by the Chinese towards Western ...
When the Chinese Exclusion Act was signed into law in May 1882, it was followed by a rapidly decreasing amount of new immigrants to the United States. Regardless of problems that the United States attempted to solve with the Act, violent massacre and persecution of Chinese people in the United States continued. Because of this, many Chinese immigrants that did stay in America continued on for years to receive prejudice and racism in the labor market and cultural society. This then continued to force many Chinese immigrants further and further down the path of segregation and into the protection of Chinatowns and poverty, counteracting the great American idea of the “melting pot.”
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
Unlike most other families mine had decided to live with the Chinese rather than in the isolated compound away from them. I and my parents, we saw no need for separation, after all, what bad could it be? The culture and language of China had begun to grab my attention from the moment I started to learn them. I went to
...xperienced harsh discrimination and even legal exclusion from our country. They were blamed for the lack of job opportunities and low pay of jobs and received extremely unfair treatment that labeled them as an inferior race. However, the inter-ethnic tension blinded us from seeing how the immigrants were contributing to our country in positive ways. They not only created economic and social gains for us, but also opened our minds to a whole new way of life and prepared us for the multicultural years to come. With all of the help and modernization that they contributed to our country, the racism and discrimination that the Chinese immigrants received day-in and day-out was not rightly justified or deserved.
“The minute our train leaves the Hong Kong border and enters Shenzhen, China, I feel different. I can feel the skin on my forehead tingling, my blood rushing through a new course, my bones aching with a familiar old pain. And I think, my mother was right. I am becoming Chinese. (179). In the story A Pair of Tickets by Amy Tan, the protagonist character, Jing-mei, finds herself in several difficult situations due to how her social and cultural upbringing has shaped her. She finds herself pulled between her Chinese DNA and her American background. While she was raised being told that she was Chinese and “it’s in her blood”, she does not identify as such, because she grew up in America and only sees herself as an American. After her mother’s passing,