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Influence of Chinese Culture on American Culture
Essay: chinese american immigration in early 1900
Chinese immigrants to the US past and present
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Three Contributions Of Chinese Immigrants
The Chinese started immigrating to the United States in 1849. They left China in search of a better life. Life in China in the 1800's was very hard. There wasn't enough food, money and the cities were overpopulated. They heard about the United States and believed there was an opportunity to start over again. They hoped to find jobs on the railroad or to strike gold. When they arrived in the United States, life was difficult. Laws were made which discriminated against them. However, eventually they became a respected part of our society. They are responsible for many contributions which are part of
American life today. This essay will describe three of these contributions: two products, ginseng and tea, and one method of medicine, acupuncture.
Ginseng is a perennial herb grown in China and other Asian countries.
It is also grown in North American, but the Asian variety is thought to be more valuable. There are many legends and superstitions surrounding ginseng. The
Chinese have long believed that the ginseng is a cure for many aliments and can even make one live longer. However, Western researchers are have been unable to prove this. Today, many manufacturers add ginseng to such products as hair tonics, shampoos, skin creams and even soft drinks. Also ginseng can be bought over the counter in drug stores under such names as “Ginkoba” and “Ginsana”. “
Ginkoba” is supposed to...
Chinese sailors visited New York City in the 1830s (“The Chinese Experience”); others came as servants to Europeans (“Chinese Americans”). However, these immigrants were few in number, and usually didn’t even stay in the United States permanently (“History of Chinese Americans”).... ... middle of paper ... ...
And so thousands of Chinese flocked from China to America, in search for work in the gold mines. After the profits from gold mining decreased because most of the easily obtainable gold had been found, an estimated 10,000 Chinese left the mines and were in search of jobs. From independent miners who had worked for themselves, many Chinese immigrants now became wage earners who worked for bosses. A growing number of Chinese were working in businesses owned by whites. But earning wages instead of prospecting did not discourage Chinese from moving to America. A paycheck of up to $30 could be made working for the railroad, which was 10 times as much than could be earned in China.
Throughout history, Americans have always been intimidated by immigrants. The idea of an immigrant coming to America and easily being able to get a job scared Americans. Americans feared that good jobs would be taken from hard working Americans and given to immigrants for less pay because they required less money to live on or were used to no wages or lower wages in their Country of origin. People would immigrate to America in search of a better life, and often times they could find homes and jobs that made them want to stay. A melting pot is described as being a mixing of different cultures into one universal culture. In Erika Lee’s, The Chinese Exclusion Example, immigrant exclusion helped re-define the melting-pot
In many cases throughout America’s history immigrants have settled here for many different reasons. In conclusion these reasons were known as push and pull factors. Push factors are factors that repel migrants from their country. And pull factors are factors that attract migrants to move. In my main immigrant group which is the Chinese, there were several push and pull factors that I will be mentioning. First, some of the push factors that were included in my group were the fact that there were a lot of disasters. For example there was draught, poverty, a famine, and floods were also included in these disasters. To state these factors more specifically, it was around the 1840s and 1850s when China faced these disasters. In the fact of the draught, it was a place called Henen that suffered this tragic event. Then two years later that’s when the famine struck Guangxi. The flood affected many provinces such as Hubei, Anhui, and Jiangsu which was caused by the Yangtze River. These factors killed and injured a lot of people, as a result numerous amounts of them settled in the United States. On the other hand Chinese also came to the United States because of pull factors. Which I mentioned before that it is a factor that attracts a migrant to move. The things that attracted them to the United States were the fact of having better jobs, education, health, and economic funds. But the most important and major factor that lured the Chinese to the U.S was the California gold rush. The way that they have obtained their information on the opportunities that America held were from random people, advertisements, and last but not lease the most important way that they learn was by trading vessels. Th...
When the word “gold” is thrown around such news travels far and fast. This caused people from all areas of the world to flock thousands of miles during the Westward Expansion period in efforts of going from “rags to riches” to obtain the American dream. One particular group of laborers the Chinese went to pursue a dream in the west by working on the transcontinental railroad system. This paper will reveal experiences and discriminationsthat Chinese laborers faced while working on railroads during the Westward Expansion era in hopes of overcoming poverty.
After the Gold Rush had concluded, Chinese immigrants were needed for employment such as, rail road construction and mining. The immigrants were accepted because they were hard workers. According to Schaefer (2015),
The severe drought that “took place in Henan Province in 1847, the flooding of the Yangtze River in the four provinces of Hubei, Anhui, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang, and the famine in Guangxi in 1849” left many Chinese families devastated and homeless (“Chinese Immigrants”). Moreover, the importation of opium created social and economic crisis in China. Due to the high taxes that was caused by the Opium War, many farmers were forced to give up their land. However, when merchant vessels brought news of the “gold mountain” in the United States, hordes of Chinese men took the opportunity to start a new life in America. During the year 1852, about “20,026 Chinese flooded the San Francisco customs house” (“Chinese Immigrants and the Gold Rush”). Near the end of the year 1850, “Chinese immigrants made up one-fifth of the population of the four countries that constituted the Southern Mines” in California (“Chinese Immigrants and the Gold
Before the US entered World War II, the west coast of America was riddled with racism and prejudice against Asian-Americans; especially in laws like the Chinese exclusion act of 1882 and the California Alien Land Law of 1913 which mainly targeted Japanese immigrants. Then with Imperial Japans seemingly unprovoked and unjustified attack of pearl harbor, it was easy for Americans to justify hysteria and their pre-existing prejudices against American citizens of Japanese descent. It was to the point that even being 1/16 Japanese could brand you as a possible treat to the nation. Then on the incredibly baseless, possibility of an internal Japanese threat Executive Order 9066 was enacted; declaring most of the west coast a war zone and declaring the region under martial law. The Order made it legal to send Japanese Americans to
While modern Chinese immigrants come to the United States seeking jobs as did their predecessors, new motivations have drawn families to the country. In the mid-1800s large numbers of Chinese people began to arrive in America. These immigrants were driven from their homeland by the opium wars, British colonization, peasant rebellion, floods, and ...
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.
The Chinese did not immigrate only because of the new opportunities, despite the fact that Canada was a flourishing country. Political, social, and economic changes stimulated the immigration of Chinese to Canada. Their homeland, China, was growing to be an overpopulated country. From 1787 to 1850, the population of China skyrocketed from 16 million to 28 million. Natural disasters prevented successful harvests. Floods, earthquakes, and droughts ruined crops. Food supplies dwindled, leaving the Chinese citizens hungry, many dying of hunger. Famine became widespread. Many Chinese died from hunger and the plague. The Pearl River Delta, specifically, suffered from 7 typhoons, 14 floods, 4 earthquakes, 2 droughts, 5 famines, and 4 plagues. In addition, when China was defeated in the Opium War of 1842, five new international trading ports were opened. The new trading ports greatly weakened trade in China’s major southern port.
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,
Traditional Chinese Medicine: An Introduction [NCCAM Backgrounder]. (n.d.).National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine [NCCAM] - nccam.nih.gov Home Page. Retrieved December 11, 2011, from http://nccam.nih.gov/health/whatiscam/chinesemed.htm
Lee, Erika. At America's Gates: Chinese Immigration During the Exclusion Era, 1882-1943. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2003.
Millions of immigrants over the previous centuries have shaped the United States of America into what it is today. America is known as a “melting pot”, a multicultural country that welcomes and is home to an array of every ethnic and cultural background imaginable. We are a place of opportunity, offering homes and jobs and new economic gains to anyone who should want it. However, America was not always such a “come one, come all” kind of country. The large numbers of immigrants that came during the nineteenth century angered many of the American natives and lead to them to blame the lack of jobs and low wages on the immigrants, especially the Asian communities. This resentment lead to the discrimination and legal exclusion of immigrants, with the first and most important law passed being the Chinese Exclusion Act. However, the discrimination the Chinese immigrants so harshly received was not rightly justified or deserved. With all of their contributions and accomplishments in opening up the West, they were not so much harming our country but rather helping it.