Like past immigrants who came from Germany, Ireland and other places around the world. Chinese people in America faced many challenges when migrating. They felt like outcasts. Some experiences for the Chinese were in racist encounters and the feeling the way that Nazli Kibra felt when she came to America. She had always thought of herself as an American when she thought of herself as “the American kid on the block,” (Source F) until she went to school and she felt outcast and that “Whites think they own the world and the rest of us are just here for them.” (Source F) They felt as though they did not fit in in America. For Kibra, the Americans that she noticed at her school were people who were “VERY white, very wealthy. These kids owned sports cars and went to Rio for the weekend.”…
Life as an Immigrant Beginning in the late 19th century and continuing to the early 20th century, many Chinese families struggled to gain social, economic, and educational stature in both China and the United States. In the book, A Transnational History of a Chinese Family, by Haiming Liu, we learn about the Chang family rooted in Kaiping County, China, who unlike many typical Chinese families’ exemplified hard-work and strong cultural values allowing them to pursue an exceptional Chinese-American lifestyle. Even with immigration laws preventing Chinese laborers and citizens to enter unless maintaining merchant status, Yitang and Sam Chang managed to sponsor approximately 40 relatives to the states with their businesses in herbalist medicine and asparagus farming. Though the Chang’s encountered many of the hardships typical of Chinese families for the time, they relied on their outstanding work ethic so that their families would always be supported, receive the best possible education, and preserve family and kinship relationships to get them through the tough times and long periods of separation.…
When the Irish immigrants entered the country, they continued to remain Catholic and embrace their culture, rather than adapting to America’s traditions and customs. Also, Lee Chew emphasizes the fact that Chinese immigrants have good qualities that are envied by American citizens. A positive factor to the Chinese Exclusion Act was that it protect the Chinese immigrants from persecution. As a result, nativism continued to reign the country and affect the everyday lives of Chinese…
The Joy Luck Club, by the Chinese-American author Amy Tan, deals with many different themes. However, the idea from this novel that piqued my interest the most was how the story dealt with the language and cultural barriers that exist between generations in families that have immigrated to the United States. The book deals with four Chinese women who moved to the United States in hopes of finding better lives for their children, and it deals with each of their daughters who have grown up in America, yet were raised by their mothers' traditional Chinese cultural standards. The Joy Luck Club alternates back and forth each chapter, with one of the mothers telling an anecdote of her past and next one of the daughters speaking from her point of…
Traditions, heritage and culture are three of the most important aspects of Chinese culture. Passed down from mother to daughter, these traditions are expected to carry on for years to come. In Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, daughters Waverly, Lena, Rose and June thoughts about their culture are congested by Americanization while on their quests towards self-actualization. Each daughter struggles to find balance between Chinese heritage and American values through marriage and professional careers.…
Overview of the Movie: The Joy Luck club centers on four, middle-aged, Chinese immigrants, Suyuan Woo, An-mei Hsu, Lindo Jong, and Ying-ying St. Clair. Although the relationships that exist between each of the four women are important, it is the exploration into each woman’s relationship with her first generation daughter that is central to the plot line. Through this exploration, the generational and cultural gaps that exist between the each of the women and their daughters are exposed; allowing several interesting connections to course material to be made.…
Most immigrants come to the United States to work, and many native-born Americans worry about the effect on their own jobs with the influx of immigrants (Gerber & Kraut). Scholars have looked at the actual conditions of immigrant workers and explored how immigrants use their social networks to concentrate in certain jobs and industries. Many immigrants find employment through ethnic enclaves and ethnic economies. Scholar Dae Young Kim examined the children of economically successful immigrant parents and found that “the parents were mostly self-employed professionals or small business owners with considerable assets to pass on to their children” (Gerber & Kraut, 113). This finding was also supported by Aekyung’s experiences. She revealed that the reason her parents wanted to immigrate to the United States was because her aunt had immigrated and started a restaurant in Chinatown with her American husband. The restaurant was a huge success and she promised Aekyung’s mother jobs for her family if she had moved as well. Aekyung’s aunt was a small business owner in a small niche. She had found success through the ethnic enclave and wanted to share that with her family. In result, Aekyung and her family shared this economic success, making a good wage working at her aunt’s restaurant until they had to close. Finding work after the closing of the restaurant was “humiliating and tiring.” She described that the promise of jobs in the United States was nothing like the reality. She was told that everyone in the United States had work and did well, which was the truth while she was working in her aunt’s restaurant in Chinatown. Once she and her family were forced to find work outside of the ethnic enclave, she realized the promise of this “new world” was illusionary (Gerber & Kraut, 114). Due to her limited English and limited social capital, she found work…
Marilyn Chin’s “How I Got That Name” is a poem that serves as a criticism on how Asian-Americans in their efforts to fit into western society have lost part of their cultural identity. Lines 36 through 57 compose the second stanza of this poem. The second stanza of this poem has an overriding tone of outrage. Chin begins the second stanza with the use of an ironical device “Oh, how trustworthy our daughters, / how thrifty our sons!” (lines 36-37). Chin then proceeds by telling us how Asian-Americans have fooled the experts that analyze minorities (keyword fooled). With the use of this ironical device as an illustration of her outrage towards the illusion of fitting in they have create. Immediately she continues to support her argument by stating…
Acceptance is an important step to communication. The prejudiceness of people can push acceptance away lacking the communication that could bring them together. In Amy Tan's essay, "Mother Tongue,"� she tells about her mother's immigrant experience and her feelings towards her mother's struggles with the English language.…
Asian American women have gone a long way to get to America. They have faced many tribulations ranging from racism, gender issues, to familial issues. Those who experienced these problems back in their home town still faced them when they first immigrated to America. Even though they experienced hostility, life in America was still a luxury that they were willing to work hard for. It was because of this that deemed Asian Americans, particularly Asian American women, to be the model hard workers. Also, because of their hard work, they were able to indirectly achieve the “American Dream.” The three experiences in Louise’s life that corroborated her to be a hard working model minority are: growing up, life after marriage, and coming to America.…
In The Lucky Ones written by Mae Ngai the author narrates the story of two Chinese-Americans as they are living in San Francisco during the 19th century. In China, California was known as Jinshan “the mountain of gold”, the California gold rush was legendary across the world and it drew many immigrants to the West Coast for a chance to gain riches. However, like Joseph Tape by the time many of these immigrants reached California the gold rush was over. Mining still provided many jobs for Chinese immigrants however, it was now the transportation industry that was developing. The construction of the transcontinental railroad created job opportunities for immigrants as they were willing to work in higher risk jobs for less money. As more immigrants arrived to California either from the East coast or overseas, nativism became prominent amongst white…
American Born Chinese- The Need to Belong The book starts out with three seemingly different tales, and then merges them all together.…
Chinese Immigrants in Flushing, Queens I would like to research Chinese immigrants living in my home-town of Flushing, New York. The reason why I’ve chosen to research this particular culture is because I have been a part of it for as long as I can remember, and I wish to gain further knowledge from my studies. Some concepts that I would like to discuss are, acculturation of Chinese immigrants in to American culture, reasons for immigrating, how Chinese immigrants choose to identify themselves, and how Chinese immigrants have economically adapted through the use of personal resources.…
Yuting Gan 910745321 AAS 322 09-22-14 Early Life of Chinese American Immigrants After I read the book “Songs of Gold Mountain”, I learned more about the early life of American Chinese in SF Gold Mountain, and the book covers various aspects of the life of first-generation Chinese immigrants, from longing for home to dealing with abusive immigration officials. There are three chapters in this book that impresses me a lot. They are Chapter 1“Immigration Blues”, Chapter 3 “Lamentations of Estranged Wives” and Chapter 5 “Rhapsodies on Gold”. There three chapters both talk about the hardship of first-generation Chinese immigrants. In 19th century, China’s economy went down, other powerful countries curved up China. There is widespread…
Asian Immigrant Families in America The United States of America is a country founded and built by immigrants. Many people from all over the world has migrated to this country in hopes of building a brighter future for themselves and their children. America has always been viewed as the land of opportunity, and this is the reason why so many people have moved to this country. While all immigrants are faced with similar problems, some immigrant groups are faced with more difficult problems than others. Asian immigrant families are faced with many challenges upon their arrival in the United States of America.…