How Did Asia Influence America

The Influence of Asia in America The lines between the East and the West are a lot less distinct and the East and West are merging. Asian companies are becoming household names, such as Toyota, Mitsubishi, Samsung, Nestle, and Nikon. Asia has influenced America through their involvement in America's development and defense, and also through their beliefs and practices they have carried with them across the Pacific. To see when Asia first began influencing America, we need to start with Marco Polo. Marco Polo went to China and returned with stories about his experiences and in later decades his stories were verified. European explorer, Christopher Columbus, took Marco Polo's book with him on his quest for an all-water route to Asia. (Biography.com).
Trading is how different cultures are introduced to another culture's food or clothes. China was America's leading trading partner during the post Civil War and Spanish-American War era. The U.S. placed high tariffs on imported goods to protect their own growing industries, checking the amount of imported goods and consequently, the influence of Asia as well. During the World War era the U.S. lowered their high tariffs. The discovery of oil in the Middle East and Southeast Asia caught the interest of America and they created the Standard Oil Company in 1933 with Saudi Arabia. They found oil in 1938. Trading stopped for awhile during the Great Depression and America put an oil embargo on Japan in 1941 because it was starting to bother China. World War II officially ended trading with Asia and did not pick up again until the Japanese surrendered on August 2, 1945 (Historybusiness.org). During the Cold War, the U.S. used a lot of embargos to try to force countries to do what the U.S. wanted. They put embargoes on North Korea, China, and North Vietnam in 1950. President Nixon lifted some trade restrictions on China in 1969 but kept the most strategic embargos. However, America re-imposed the embargos on China after the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989. Clinton convinced China to join the World Trade Organization in 1999. The embargoes on North Vietnam spread to South Vietnam when they reunited in 1975 and were not
All Asian became collectively known as a "coolie", meaning hired labor in some Asian languages. They were willing to work for low wages and live in poor conditions. The Chinese contract laborers were crucial in developing the sugar cane industry in Hawaii. They found better ways to grow sugar cane and made Hawaiian sugar can plantations the best in the world. The Chinese not only helped the sugar industry, they also contributed to the Hawaiian language. Because there were so many cultures: white, Asian, and native, they made a multinational language called Hawaiian pidgin. Japanese, Korean, and Filipino immigrants to Hawaii also contributed to the evolving pidgin. Hawaiian pidgin was used as a code in World War II, stumping the Germans and the Japanese. (Travelwithachallenge.org) In 1865, Chinese played a huge part in constructing the Transcontinental Railroad. 9,000 to 12,000 Chinese worked on the project at a single time and were paid 60% of what their European counterparts received. They were given the most dirty and most dangerous jobs, resulting in around 1,000 Chinese casualties. Some selected few were allowed to attend the famous completion ceremony but all the Chinese were forbidden to appear in the famous photograph where a group of men stood in front of two train engines. After the ceremony, the Chinese were forbidden from riding on the railroad they just built. They had to walk home on foot to California, even