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Chinese immigration. Introduction: I should like to start by saying that after the Civil War, immigrants from all over the world again began to stream to the United States. Between the years 1870 and 1900, nearly 13 million immigrants arrived from virtually any part of the world. This number surpassed the number of immigrants to the USA over the previous 70 years. During the 1870 s and 1880 s, the majority came from Germany, Ireland, and England that used to be the principal source of immigration before the American Civil War. Even so, a relatively large group of Chinese immigrated to the United States between the start of the California gold rush in 1849 and 1882, when federal law stopped their immigration.
In the following essay I am going to elaborate on the issue of Chinese immigration to the USA and will try to express my opinion about what would happen in the USA without the Chinese immigrants of the XIX century. Body: It should be noted that while the majority of immigrants came to settle in the United States permanently, many worked for a time and returned home with whatever savings they had set aside from their work. For instance the majority of Chinese immigrants, for example, were single men who worked for a while and returned home. At first, they were attracted to North America by the gold rush in California (Takaki, 23). Many prospected for gold on their own or labored for other miners. Soon, many opened their own businesses such as restaurants, laundries, and other personal service concerns.
After the gold rush, Chinese immigrants worked as agricultural laborers, on railroad construction crews throughout the West, and in low-paying industrial jobs that basically contributed to the economic advance of the USA in the late XIX century. At the same time, with the onset of hard economic times in the 1870 s, other immigrants and European Americans began to compete for the low-paying dirty or and labor-intensive jobs traditionally reserved for the Chinese. With economic competition came dislike and even racial suspicion and hatred between various ethnic groups. Such feelings were accompanied by anti-Chinese riots and pressure, especially in California, for the exclusion of Chinese immigrants from the United States.
The result of this pressure was the Chinese Exclusion Act, passed by Congress in 1882 (Ashabranner, 90). This Act virtually ended Chinese immigration for nearly a century. As the following documents suggest, there were many opinions about this issue. In many respects, the motivations for the Chinese to come to the United States are similar to those of most immigrants. Some came to "The Gold Mountain, " and others came to the United States to seek better economic opportunity (Takaki, 25). Yet there were others that were compelled to leave China either as contract laborers or refugees.
The Chinese brought with them their language, culture, social institutions, and customs. Over time they made lasting contributions to their adopted country and tried to become an integral part of the United States population (Wu, 41). Chinese immigration can be divided into three periods: 1849 - 1882, 1882 - 1965, and 1965 to the present. We are only discussing the first period in this essay which is the years 1849 - 1882. This first period began shortly after the California Gold Rush and ended abruptly with the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. During this period thousands of Chinese, mostly young male peasants, left their villages in the rural countries to become laborers in the American West.
They were recruited to extract metals and minerals, construct a vast railroad network, reclaim swamplands, build irrigation systems, work as migrant agricultural laborers, develop the fishing industry, and operate highly-competitive manufacturing industries. At the end of the first period, the Chinese population in the United States was about 110, 000 (Bailey, 120). If the USA did not accept the Chinese as immigrants in the XIX century it would certainly be at a loss. Many types of food and items related to Chinese food have been introduced to the American society and used at the present time. Chinese tea was a popular beverage in eighteenth and nineteenth century America. Since the 1960 s, Chinese cuisine has been an integral part of the American diet as well.
Chinese restaurants are found in small towns and large cities across the United States. Key ingredients for preparing Chinese food are now found in all chain supermarkets, and lessons in Chinese cooking are regular features of national television. Something that Chinese brought with them as a part of their culture is a multi-million dollar industry in the USA. Chinese take-outs, catering, and chain restaurants have been commonplace in many cities. American households now routinely use Chinese ingredients such as soy sauce and ginger. They employ cooking techniques, such as stir frying and own Chinese utensils such as the wok and the cleaver (Chu, 55).
Most of the Chinese immigrants arriving in the United States knew various dialects of Chinese which later satisfied the US secret services with the need for Chinese translators during the Korean and Vietnam wars. Without the immigrant Chinese the USA would have much harder time finding the needed translators / interpreters (Thernstrom, 78). Conclusion: Although the Chinese immigrants in the late nineteenth century faced many hardships, they had a profound effect on America. Primarily, the Chinese supplied the labor for America's growing industry. Chinese factory workers were important in California especially during the Civil War. They worked in wool mills, and cigar, shoe, and garment industries; twenty-five occupations in all.
It should be noted that without cheap Chinese labor, many of the US companies would not develop and would face bankruptcy because of the existing expensive labor. Chinese entrepreneurs started their own factories, competing with the white people. The Chinese provided a quarter of California's labor force. Chinese labor was also sought elsewhere in America, on the east coast and in the south to substitute for the now freed slaves. Chinese labor was sought after mainly because they supplied cheap labor. The worldwide effort to abolish slavery was aided by the Chinese cheap labor.
The Chinese were also the first to stake claims in California gold fields prompting many to relocate to the west. With the gold rush, the Chinese were prompted to exploit other western state resources, providing products of use to the American society. The Chinese began the era of railroad building. The Central Pacific Railroad Company employed about 15, 000 Chinese to construct the Transcontinental Railroad. Without the immigrants, it is hard to think of 15000 people willing to build the railroad in hard conditions for pennies as the Chinese did. The numerous railroads the Chinese built in America helped open rich resources in many of the states.
The Chinese converted much of the land they settled in into rich farm land. Without the Chinese immigrants these lands in the USA would still be barren. Chinese cultivating, planting, and harvesting in vineyards, orchards, and ranches were useful by supplying great numbers of fruits and vegetables to the US market. Their skills were recognized and imitated on other farms. The west, no longer dependent on the east for products, could now produce their own products with the help of the Chinese. After observing the struggles and hardships that the Chinese immigrating to America faced and encountered, one may realize that to move from one's homeland and slowly assimilate into a new culture while holding on to traditional customs, ethnicity, and culture is not an easy task.
This task involved persistence, patience, and perseverance. Most importantly, the Chinese contributed themselves and their heritage to this melting pot known as America. Bibliography: Ashabranner, Brent. Still a Nation of Immigrants. New York: Cobble hill Books, 1999. Bailey, Thomas A.
and David M. Kennedy, eds. The American Pageant. Massachusetts: D. C. Heath and Company, 1998.
Chu, Daniel. Passage To The Golden Gate. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc. , 1997. Hoobler, Dorothy. The Chinese American Family Album. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Pozzetta, George, Immigrant Institutions: The Organization of Immigrant Life (Amer Immigration and Ethnicity, Vol 5), McGraw Hill, 2002. Takaki, Ronald. Journey to Gold Mountain. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1999. Thernstrom, Stephen. Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002. Chin, Gabriel, The Origins of Constitutional Immigration Law: Immigration and the Constitution, Volume One (Controversies in Constitutional Law), NY Random House, 2000. Wu, Dana Ying-Hui. Coming to America. Brookfield: Millbrook Press, 1993.
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Research essay sample on Chinese Exclusion Act California Gold Rush
