ASAM 40 - The Chinese American Community

  Inspired by a friend’s father from the 1980s/1990s 1) Were you sponsored by family, work, or here as a result of war/US government sponsorship? When did you come and under which category did you fall under? (Professional, family reunification, or refugee). I was a lawyer in Korea. I came to try giving my children a better future, assuming that I would be able to maintain my professional standing here.   2) What is your current occupation, and what was your occupation in your home country? (professional, student, unskilled worker, housewife, shop owner, waiter, grocery store clerk, etc). What socioeconomic class do you fall into? However, I had to open a small Korean restaurant in order to support my family in the US. I became the working class.   3) What was your experience like in the US in your first six months here? (Difficulties, immediate needs etc). I tried to get a job as a lawyer, but I was told that I did not have the pape...

1) What are the main differences between the first wave Chinese and the post 1965 Chinese immigrants? (Lists are fine) Second Wave vs First Wave - Post 1965 immigrants, had better gender balance as they were past the days of the exclusion laws.   - Many immigrants were better educated, not exploited for entry to meet burgeoning pre-industrial revolution high demands of cheap labor.   - They were also more ready to take on urban civilization, being already accustomed to cities, rather than rural environments.   - Came from all areas of China, rather than just the impacted areas in first wave.   - Finally, the numbers. Not mere thousands or hundreds, but millions. 1 million in 1965 to 14 million in 2010   2) What are the main differences between an ethnic enclave and an ethnoburb? a)How do they function differently?  b) Why would one choose to live in one over the other? (Who lives in each location).  An ethnic encl...

Hazel Ying Lee helped the airforce during WW2 through their WASP program and became the first Asian American woman in the Airforce. When doing her job, a midwestern farmer thought he Japanese had invaded - but she had the balls to set him right! I’m going to propose an Asians prefer the establishment and deny conspiracies perspective as to why  we’ve never heard of her. Her death was due to an airforce dispatcher error who gave the same directions to land to her as another of her colleague.  Imagine this scenario in a movie.  Ominous music. You feel that bitter taste in your mouth and want to cringe as a grave injustice is about to happen. A general (or maybe petty officer) who received the command from above to issue this deadly command masked as an error, because someone wanted her dead. Of course, they knew their system, and this would just be accounted for as an error and not a murder...

1) What impact did the 1906 earthquake make on both the physical and cultural feel of Chinatown? (How were the living spaces impacted? How did the feel of the community change now that it was no longer a men's society in terms of sights, sounds, demographics?  Who were invited in to increase revenue?).   The 1906 earthquake would mark a breakpoint in the architecture and family-structure of Chinatown. Though it killed hundreds or thousands of denizens of Chinatown, it would enable the mass migration of thousands more Chinese. Because all the city documents were destroyed, no one could tell how many children a particular Chinese-American had in China - thus, “paper sons” were born, where the “right” to go to America could be bought “on paper” (though you would have to memorize long 200+page documents to pass a stringent interrogation on Angel Island or elsewhere, so that immigration officers could be convinced you are actually this alleged son). Because most of o...

1)   How   was the immigration experience for the first wave Chinese woman   more difficult   than their male counterparts? What obstacles/hurdles did the women face   that the men did not , what similarities did they share? (This can be shown socially/culturally and politically).   2) The Chinese women were victims of both political and social control/restrictions, yet the Lee article speaks to their ability to take matters into their own hands. What were the various ways that these women were "active" in their immigration process? (What tactics did they use to prove both their proper character and class status to ease their immigration process)? 1) The women, like the men, were seen as foreigners likely if nefarious nature. As exemplified by Eva May's stereotyped Hollywood roles, the women were seen as villains - who though they did not get the job-stealing opportunities (from the white man's POV) that the men got - had other deadlier roles such ...

1) What were the various reasons for high anti-Asian sentiment?   (Remember to use your own words).   2) What were the various tactics used to rid of the Chinese communities? (Choose   one town   and illustrate their method/methods ) 3) What were the forms of resistance that the Chinese exemplified?   4) What was the main reasoning behind the strong Chinese resistance? (Why not just go away?) 1) What were the various reasons for high anti-Asian sentiment?  To the lower class/working class non-Asians, the primary reason seemed to be that of job security. Asians were cheaper and more efficient — more employable. They might even be seen as the human embodiment of the industrialization factory machines they fear are taking over their traditional trades. To the ruling class, as Tataki would quote, the founding fathers wanted a homogenous race, essentially a “white America” - and the Chinese looked different. While the African-Americans also don’t fit t...

Part 1 1) What do the Chinese agricultural worker and the agricultural workers of today have in common? (Think in terms of contributions, need for labor, and treatment of laborers). 2) What do Asian owned businesses of today such as: nail shops, convenient stores, gas stations, and dry cleaning businesses all have in common with the laundrymen of the past? (Think about how/why would they enter into these types of businesses? Is it a skillset brought over from the homeland? A "trend"/niche that a couple people learned and trained their fellow countryment to do?) Part 2 In the Choy, Takaki and Kwong texts, the role of associations within the Chinatowns were discussed. Membership depended on surname, village, district, and sometimes through initiation. Kwong's text provided a deeper examination of the internal conflicts that these associations face amongst members, as well as with the Chinatown community whereas Choy allowed for examination of specific associations within S...

1) Takaki makes it a point to illustrate that these Chinese men came to the United States as sojourners. What is a sojourner/what is their goal? How likely was it to obtain that goal? Why or why not? What were their motivations to stay in the United States as well as to return to China? 2) One of the first experiences of working in the United States for the Chinese was in the mining industry. There they gained a sense of what type of environment they were entering in terms of discrimination. What were some of the major obstacle(s) that they faced in the mining industry? (Think socially, politically, economically). 3) Besides the difficulties that were imposed by their peers and employers, the Chinese also had to deal with aspects such as terrain and weather. Takaki spoke specifically of one of the worse winters they would face while working on the rails. What happened during the winter of 1866-1867? How did the Chinese respond? Why would the actions of the Chinese during...

1) List at least three major   differences   between the five Asian immigrant groups? (For this question I am looking more of generalizations, not specifics to each ethnic group-that's #3.  Also, this is from the course materials, not generalizations like language, culture, point of emigration). 2) What three   similarities   do they share? (What commonalities do you see that run through 3 or more ethnic groups if we are talking about their experiences?)   3) Illustrate   ONE   specific trait that belongs to   each   ethnic group (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipinos and Asian Indians). Something that is distinctly part of their own experience. (push or pull factor, demographic difference, immigrant status, immigration period).  Differences. The numbers varied quite a lot among the first five Asian immigrant groups - from only about 6400 Asian Indians to over 380,000 Chinese. Also, the times in which each group came also diffe...