The History of Asians in America” by Timothy Fong

Thesis: Prior to the 1965 Immigration Reform Act, the Vietnam War, and the global economic restructuring of the 70s, Asian immigrants and Asian Americans faced “tremendous” legal/institutional barriers that led to their experiencing discrimination and civil rights violation.1. Visibility and invisibility: At the same timeInvisibility: In the making and remaking of the American history/America(Emil Guillermo/Asian Week) on PBS, They Made Americaon 64 innovators & entrepreneurs; no Asian in the documentaryGlorifying the Anglo-Saxon/British elitism Asian Americans = only as victims of individual prejudice, mob violence, and institutional discrimination; victims of hostility and oppressionVisibility: Biological/natural/racial features: The image of “perpetual foreigners”2. A brief history of Asians in America: ImmigrationImmigration1stwave: 1848-1924: hundreds of thousands, China, Japan, the Philippines, Korea, India;The earliest in the 5thcentury: Buddhist missionaries from China; the coastal area of Southern California; archaeological finds; 1571: Chinese shipbuilders in Baja California; brought by the Spaniards;Prior to 1848: Filipino seamen in the coastal area of Louisiana; brought by the Spanish galleons; the presence of Chinese merchants and sailors in the U.S.; Asian Indians in the U.S. as indentured servants and slaves in the late-18thcentury; 1848 the California gold rush; large-scale immigration from China; 52,000 Chinese;Mid-1860s: Gold ran out; worked on transcontinental railroad construction; More than 300,000 Chinese in the U.S. in the 19thcentury; different occupations; some to Hawaii; most in the mainland America; The pull factors: Between the 1840s – 1860sCapitalist and financial interests of the U.S.The U.S. business-economic map; the gold rush and transcontinental railroad constructionHuman mobility & national and international trade; the domestication of the West; Need for cheap labor: Free migration and emigration of the Chinese; American trade privileges in China;The 1868 Burlingame Treaty = “free migration and emigration” of Chinese to the US in exchange for American trade privileges in China (p. 16); 1870: Chinese = 9% of California’s population; 25% of the state’s work force; Mostly young single men: Sojourners
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The U.S. laws: To limit the immigration of Chinese women & to prohibit intermarriage with white women; The “U.S. against China” push factors: After the completion of the TR railroad in 1869: Work in agriculture, clearing land, digging canals, orchards, harvesting crops; city jobs (making shoes, cigars, clothing); small-business owners (restaurants, laundries, general stores); domestic workers (house boys, cooks, gardeners);Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882: Hostility of the certain localities and the pressure on the government;To ban Chinese laborers and their wives;Assessment: Contribution to the U.S. economic development & development of the West: Mostly the groundwork essential for large economy & the domestication and development of the WestThe long-term impact upon the Asian American/immigrant communities: Immigrants as ‘disposable” people to be blamed and kicked out; Hindering the development of families and community: Bachelor society: Most were lonely bachelors; 1890 data = 102,620 Chinese men vs. 3,868 Chinese women = 26:1;Japanese: Emerging as an international military powerFirst came to Hawaii; not until 1890s to the U.S. mainland, in large numbers; Fully exploited the agricultural sector; as agricultural laborers; began owning their own farms; by 1919, controlled over 450,000 acres of agricultural lands = 1% of California’s agricultural land; 10% of the state’s crops;Preference: Japan emerging as an international military power (Russo-Japanese War); the1907 Gentlemen’s Agreement to allow Japanese women to enter the U.S.;Stable family & community formation