Chinese American

A Chinese American is an American who is of ethnic Chinese descent. Chinese Americans constitute one group of overseas Chinese and are also one group of Asian Americans. Numbering 2.3 million in 2000, Chinese Americans make up 22.4% of Asian Americans (larger than any other Asian American subgroup), and constitute just over 1% of the United States as a whole.

Immigration

Chinese immigration to the United States has come in several waves.

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According to records from the United States government, the first Chinese arrived in the United States around 1820. Subsequent immigrants that came from the 1820's up to the late 1840's were mainly men, who came in small numbers. However, due to the lack of Chinese women in the United States at that time, many of them intermarried with Americans of European descent. The best known Chinese immigrants that came during this period are the world-famous Siamese twins Chang and Eng Bunker.

Related Topics:
United States - Chinese - Chang and Eng Bunker

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The major initial wave only started around the 1850s. This was when the West Coast of North America was being rapidly colonized during the California Gold Rush, while southern China suffered from severe political and economic instability due to the weakness of the Qing Dynasty government, internal rebellions such as the Taiping Rebellion, and external pressures such as the Opium Wars.

Related Topics:
West Coast - North America - California Gold Rush - China - Qing Dynasty - Taiping Rebellion - Opium Wars

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As a result, many Chinese emigrated from the poor Toisanese- and Cantonese-speaking area in Guangdong province to the United States in order to work on the railroads. They used to endure in such poor living conditions in their homeland that many were willing to sign up for prepaid long-term labor contracts to work in the US. Many gave the sum of money to their family and didn't expect to be able to return home alive. They considered this act to be akin to selling themselves as pigs (賣豬仔). These Chinese clustered in Chinatowns, the largest population was in San Francisco. Some estimated over half of these early immigrants were from Taishan. This immigration (encouraged by the Burlingame Treaty of 1868) was stopped by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 which made Chinese immigration illegal until 1943. Many Western states also enacted discriminatory laws which made it difficult for Chinese and Japanese immigrants to own land or even find work. These laws were not overturned until the 1950s, at the dawn of the modern civil rights movement.

Related Topics:
Toisanese - Cantonese - Guangdong - Railroad - Chinatown - San Francisco - Burlingame Treaty - 1868 - Chinese Exclusion Act - 1882 - 1943 - Civil rights movement

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With the loosening of American immigration laws in 1952 and 1965, a second wave of Chinese immigration began. There was an increase in immigration of professionals from Mainland China, which began to allow for emigration in 1977. This group of Chinese tended to cluster in suburban areas and tended to avoid urban Chinatowns. These Chinese tended to speak fluent Mandarin often in addition to their native dialect.

Related Topics:
1952 - 1965 - Mainland China - 1977 - Mandarin

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A third wave of recent immigrants consisted of undocumented aliens, chiefly from Fujian province who came to the United States in search of lower-status manual jobs. These aliens tend to concentrate in urban areas such as New York City and there is often very little contact between these Chinese and higher-educated professionals. They generally speak some Mandarin but mostly Min, which, although close to Taiwanese does not generally produce much affinity with Taiwanese Americans. The amount of immigration from this group has begun to decrease as the economic situation in Fujian improves. Typically, an immigrant from Fujian will pay a snakehead several tens of thousands of dollars to be transported to the United States, as well as room and board. The funds for the

Related Topics:
Fujian - New York City - Mandarin - Min - Taiwanese - Taiwanese American - Snakehead

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trip are financed by family and village. The immigrant will usually work for three years, the first two to pay off the debt and the third as profit.

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Ethnic Chinese immigration to the United States since 1965 has been aided by the fact that the United States maintains separate quotas for Mainland China and Hong Kong.

Related Topics:
Mainland China - Hong Kong

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Absent from the list of Chinese Americans are immigrants from Hong Kong, who because of immigration law, tended to immigrate to Canada.

Related Topics:
Hong Kong - Canada

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In the 1980s, there was widespread concern by the PRC over a brain drain as graduate students were not returning to the PRC. This exodus worsened after the Tiananmen protests of 1989.

Related Topics:
1980s - PRC - Brain drain - Tiananmen protests of 1989

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Many immigrants from the PRC benefited from the Chinese Student Protection Act of 1992 which granted permanent residency status to immigrants from the PRC. One unintended side effect of the law was that the primary beneficiaries of the law were undocumented Fujianese immigrants, who unlike the Chinese graduate students, would have had no chance to gain permanent residency through normal means.

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In the late 1990s, large numbers of professional Chinese Americans began to return to the PRC, creating a brain gain. In a typical career pattern, a Chinese graduate student would emigrate to the United States and enter the job market and return to the PRC after encountering the glass ceiling; Chinese students had once been favored under affirmative action programs, but that was no longer the case after 1990. The number of Chinese graduate students returning to the PRC increased dramatically after 2000 and the dot-com bust resulted in worsening job prospects in the United States.

Related Topics:
1990s - Brain gain - Glass ceiling - Affirmative action - Dot-com bust

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