History of the Chinese in the United States
The history of the Chinese in the United States of America begins around the middle of the 19th century with the establishment of Sino-American maritime trade relations. After initially only merchants and students had traveled to America, the Californian gold rush in the middle of the 19th century led to the first major Sino-American migration surge. Not only did the Chinese come to California as prospectors, they also made contributions to the construction of the first transcontinental railroad and to the development of California's agriculture and fisheries. Right from the start, they were exposed to the racism of the European population, which culminated in massacres and the forced resettlement of Chinese migrants in Chinatowns in the 1870s . From a legal point of view, too, the Chinese in the United States were far worse off than most other ethnic minorities. They had to pay special taxes, were not allowed to marry partners of European descent and could not acquire American citizenship . The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 , which closed American borders to Chinese immigrants for more than 60 years, brought additional suffering . This law, which remained in force until 1943, not only prevented new immigration of Chinese, but also blocked the family reunification of the Chinese already living in the country, most of whom had entered the country without their wives and children.
It was not until the 1940s that the situation of Chinese Americans gradually improved. Naturalization became possible, the ban on mixed marriages fell, and finally the entry restrictions were lifted. Today more than 3.3 million Chinese live in the US, the vast majority of whom belong to the social middle class. The influx continues, hundreds of thousands of people from the People's Republic of China , but also from Taiwan , travel to the USA every year . Sino-American migration is currently only being outstripped by immigration from Mexico .
Discovery expedition of Chinese missionaries in the 5th century AD
A group of Chinese Buddhist missionaries led by priest Hui-Sheng ( Chinese 慧 深 ) embarked on a sea voyage eastwards in the 5th century AD. Hui-Sheng's account of this trip was recorded in 635 in the "History of the Liang Dynasty," which later became part of the chronicle cycle of the 24 dynasty stories . Hui-Sheng describes the discovery of a landmass " Fusang " ( 扶桑 ), which the majority of historians today identify with Japan . However, others have drawn the conclusion from Hui-Sheng's distance information that his journey must have taken him to the west coast of the North American continent. There is no evidence for this thesis.
Sea trade in the Pacific Ocean
It is less doubtful that the Chinese came to North America during the period of Spanish colonial rule over the Philippines (1565–1815). They had settled in the Philippines as shipbuilders and merchants and occasionally sailed on board Spanish galleons that were traveling back from the Philippines to their Mexican home ports. California was part of Mexico until 1845 , and historians believe that a small number of Chinese had settled there by the mid-18th century. With the expeditions of the British navigator and explorer John Meares , who sailed from Canton to Vancouver Island in 1788 and 1789 , some Chinese sailors and craftsmen came to the North American continent.
Shortly after the American War of Independence , the USA began a brisk maritime trade with China, whose foreign trade center was the port city of Guangzhou (old name: Canton). From there, stimulated by contact with American sailors and merchants, the first Chinese travelers came. In the United States, trade with China started out from New England ; since the Panama Canal did not yet exist, the trade route led around Cape Horn . The first Chinese to come to New England were students, merchants and sailors who wanted to get to know the foreign land, but rarely settled there permanently. From 1818 to 1825, five young Chinese studied at a mission school in Cornwall , Connecticut ; three more arrived in 1847, including the future diplomat Yung Wing , who graduated from Yale in 1854 .
Sino-American migration begins
backgrounds
Until around the middle of the 19th century, very few Chinese migrants moved to what is now the US territory. Life in China was mostly adequate; the North American west coast was far away and, with its sparse population, offered little incentive to establish an existence. However, in both China and America, circumstances soon changed dramatically. After losing the First Opium War (1840–1842), China was forced by the victorious powers to give up its economic protectionism and to make concessions to its foreign trade partners, which collapsed the country's economy. The situation was further exacerbated by the Second Opium War (1856–1860) and the Taiping Uprising (1851–1864), in the course of which more than 20 million people were killed. The mass poverty triggered mass emigration, which was initially limited to the Southeast Asian region. When Chinese seamen and merchants who returned home after the start of the California gold rush reported the events to their Cantonese compatriots, initially a few, but from 1849 onwards thousands of Chinese set out for California to seek their fortune.
Departure from China
Leaving China was illegal, and attempting to do so was punishable by death under the Qing Dynasty . When the authority of the Qing government gradually declined from the middle of the 19th century, the travel ban remained in place, but was no longer consistently enforced. To avoid difficulties when leaving the country, Chinese prospectors mostly embarked in the British colony of Hong Kong ; seldom did they leave via the Portuguese colony of Macau , which was a notorious transshipment point for unfree day laborers . Only merchants were able to take their wives and children overseas. The vast majority of Chinese migrants were farmers and artisans: young men who were also mostly married but left their wives and children behind because they mostly only wanted to go to America temporarily. The wives also stayed behind in China because their main job traditionally was to look after their in-laws. Much of the money the men made in America were sent to China. Since it was common for the Chinese at this time to live in extremely tightly knit social networks made up of families, associations and guilds, sometimes entire village communities and even regions ( e.g. in Taishan ) sent their young men to California. From the beginning of the California gold rush to 1882 - after which an American federal law ended the Chinese influx - around 300,000 Chinese came to the United States. Since the earning potential in America was far better than in China, these migrants often stayed considerably longer than they had initially planned, despite the increasing xenophobia.
Arrival in the USA
The Chinese migrants booked their ship passage with the Pacific Mail Steamship Company (founded in 1848) or with the Occidental and Oriental Steamship Company (founded in 1874). They usually borrowed the required money from relatives, district associations or commercial moneylenders. Sometimes American employers also sent agents to China who took workers there under contract and paid out the money for the crossing as advance payment for wages (“credit ticket system”) . The entry of the Chinese into the USA was initially uncomplicated, took place legally and was also given a formal legal basis with the Burlingame Treaty in 1868 . Although their children acquired American citizenship when they were born in the United States, the migrants themselves remained foreigners. Unlike European immigrants, they were denied the option of naturalization.
Although the newcomers ended up in a community of compatriots after arriving in San Francisco , the arrival and settling in the foreign country were often associated with a culture shock . Most Chinese immigrants neither spoke nor understood English , nor were they familiar with Western culture and way of life; often they came from the country and had never had to find their way in a big city like San Francisco. The racism that they encountered among Americans of European descent from the very beginning and that steadily increased up to the turn of the century prevented them from assimilating in the long term ; The cohesion of their country team remained a vital necessity for the Chinese in the USA well into the 20th century. In their origin were reasons that hindered the assimilation of immigrants: Under the rule of the Qing Dynasty were the Chinese men forced under threat of death, their loyalty to the authorities by wearing a pigtail (ger .: queue , pigtail ) expression to rent. Since the Chinese migrants traveled back to China as often as possible to see their wives and children, they could not cut off their often hated braids in the USA either, since without them they would not have been able to legally enter China.
The Chinese mostly remained true to tradition in their beliefs, adhering to either Confucianism , the ancestral cult , Buddhism or Daoism or an eclectic combination of different beliefs. The number of Chinese migrants who converted to Christianity initially remained small. These converts had often already turned to Protestantism in China, which foreign missionaries had sought to Christianize for centuries with little success. Christian missionaries also worked in the Chinese settlements in America, but their message of faith was only heard by a few. It is estimated that initially only around 20% of Chinese migrants adopted Christian beliefs. Until the middle of the 20th century, only a minority of the Chinese living in the United States spoke English.
The early Sino-American community was a male society. In 1850, the Chinese population of San Francisco was 4,018 men and 7 women. In 1855 the proportion of women nationwide was only 2 percent, even in 1890 it was only 4.8%. Some of these already few women were barely visible in public because, as merchants, they had a high social rank, had bound feet and did not leave the house. The prostitution flourished and formed for Chinese smugglers and tugs a profitable business. US census records from 1870 show that 61 percent of the 3,536 California Chinese women were prostitutes. California law and the missionary work of the Methodist and Presbyterian churches, which sheltered hundreds of women, reduced the proportion of prostitutes to 24 percent by 1880. Many of these women married Chinese men who had converted to Christianity and with them they started some of the earliest Sino-American families. However, the American legislature used prostitution as an opportunity to make the influx of Chinese women more difficult overall. The Page Law , passed in Washington on March 3, 1875, prohibited women from entering the United States for the purpose of prostitution. Often, however, the immigration officials also classified women as prostitutes who actually weren't.
Development of the Sino-American facilities
Society in pre-revolutionary China was characterized by a dense network of extended families, associations and guilds, which held every individual accountable but also protected. Soon after the establishment of the Chinese settlement core in San Francisco, respected Chinese merchants - the community did not yet have other respected persons - made their first efforts to establish corresponding institutions on American soil. Initially, these organizations only ensured that the newcomers could be provided with interpreting services , accommodation and work. The first Chinese merchants' association was established in San Francisco in 1849, and over the course of a few years it developed into a network of district associations , in which Chinese people from different home regions were organized; the country teams split up in turn into family associations (clan associations) , in which people were brought together who were related by family relationships. After multiple reorganization it became the "Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association" (CCBA), which under the name " Six Companies (German:" Six companies ) outside the Chinese community became a household name. Similar networks emerged in other large Sino-American communities.
The Chinese associations arbitrated disputes and soon also organized parts of the hotel industry, loan brokerage, health care, education and funeral services; the latter was particularly important for the Chinese community, as many of the migrants, for religious reasons, wanted to have their bones or ashes buried in China. In the 1880s, the associations merged to form a national CCBA, which stood up for the political and legal interests of the Sino-American community during the time of anti-Chinese repression and brought many legal cases to the US Supreme Court . In the Chinatown of San Francisco, the CCBA later assumed the rank of an unofficial local government, which among other things deployed a private police force to protect the residents at the height of the anti-Chinese riots.
A minority of Chinese migrants did not join the CCBA, but organized themselves into tongs : secret societies that were originally created to provide mutual support for their members, but whose members later often engaged in criminal activities and engaged in people smuggling , extortion, prostitution or gambling.
Fields of work
Chinese in the California gold rush
For most Chinese migrants of the 1850s, San Francisco was just a stopover on the way to the gold fields in the Sierra Nevada . It is estimated that 15,000 Chinese miners were working in the "Mountains of Gold" (German: Goldberge , Cantonese : Gam Saan , 金山 ) in the late 1850s . Since the anarchic conditions prevailed in the gold fields , the theft of claims was hardly pursued and the Chinese gold prospectors fell victim to violent attacks particularly often, these men developed a way of working that was fundamentally different from that of gold prospectors of European descent: while the Europeans mostly as individuals or in Working in small groups, the Chinese first formed large teams in which they were not only protected against attacks, but which, due to their high level of organization, often also achieved a considerable yield. Second, in order to further protect themselves against attacks, they preferably turned to claims that other gold prospectors had previously judged to be unproductive and abandoned. Since the claims were only exhausted at the beginning of the 20th century, many of them stayed much longer than the European gold prospectors; In 1870, one third of the men in California's goldfields were Chinese. Their displacement had already begun in 1850, when the Californian legislature imposed a tax on foreign gold seekers that was actually aimed at expelling Hispanic miners, but affected the Chinese equally. This Foreign Miner's Tax existed until 1870. The situation of the Chinese prospectors was made more difficult by a ruling by the California Supreme Court, which ruled in the legal case “The People Vs. Hall “ruled in 1854 that the Chinese should not be admitted as witnesses in California courts. With this decision, the Chinese living in California were practically placed in a legal vacuum, as they no longer had the opportunity to assert legal claims - for example in the event of a claim theft or a breach of contract - in court. The ruling remained in force until 1873.
Railway construction
In the 1860s, the Union Pacific Railroad and Central Pacific Railroad jointly built the United States' first transcontinental railroad. Construction began in 1863 at the endpoints of the route - Omaha , Nebraska , and Sacramento , California ; At the Promontory Summit in Utah , the two sections were merged on May 10, 1869. Since there was a shortage of construction workers of European origin, Chinese workers were hired in large numbers from 1865; they were first recruited from the gold fields, but then also brought from China as contract workers. The idea of using Chinese came from the director of the Central Pacific Railroad, Charles Crocker , who initially struggled to convince his business partners that the mostly slender-looking Chinese workers, some contemptuously referred to as "Crocker's pets" (German: Crocker's pets ) for which heavy physical work was suitable. The route led not only over rivers and canyons that had to be bridged, but also through the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains , in which tunnels had to be built. Many Chinese were killed in the blasting. The construction work had to be carried out partly in great heat, partly in bitter winter cold. The camps were occasionally buried under avalanches . Still, the well-organized Chinese teams turned out to be extremely efficient; at the height of construction, shortly before the line was completed, more than 11,000 Chinese were involved in the project. The proportion of the workforce of European descent who was paid higher and worked under better conditions was less than ten percent at that time. After 1869, Southern Pacific Railroad and Northwest Pacific Railroad continued to expand the railroad network in the American west. Many of the Chinese who built the transcontinental route continued to build railways.
Agriculture
Wheat was mainly grown in California until the mid-19th century . The favorable climate also suggested the cultivation of fruits, vegetables and flowers. There was strong demand for these products in the American East. However, it was only possible to supply these markets with the completion of the transcontinental railroad. As with railroad construction, California's expanding agriculture was also short of labor, so landowners began employing thousands of Chinese migrants on their large farms in the 1860s. These were mostly not unskilled seasonal workers, but experienced Chinese farmers, whose know-how the California fruit, vegetable and wine industry owes a lot to this day. Many of these men came from the estuary of the Pearl River , where they had also learned how to reclaims inaccessible river valleys fertile soil: expertise, which they are now for the reclamation of the vast valleys of the Sacramento River and San Joaquin River used. Farming their own land was not possible for Chinese migrants due to California law. Often, however, they operated agriculture on lease or under profit-sharing agreements that they concluded with their employers.
When the US got into a prolonged economic crisis in the 1870s and many Americans lost their jobs, an anti-Chinese movement sprang up across the American West, the main mouthpiece of which was the California workers' organization Workingmen's Party , led by Dennis Kearney . Their propaganda branded the Chinese migrants as foreigners who worked for dumping wages and thus stole work from American men. After the economic downturn in 1893 took on the severity of depression, anti-Chinese uprisings broke out across the West, resulting in violence and massacres. Most of the Chinese agricultural workers - 75 percent of California's agricultural workers in 1890 - were displaced. They found refuge in the Chinatowns of the big cities. The agricultural jobs that became vacant subsequently turned out to be so unattractive that the unemployed of European descent avoided them; The positions were mostly filled with Japanese workers, who were later followed by Filipinos and finally Mexicans .
fishing
Countless experienced Chinese fishermen came from the region around the mouth of the Pearl River. In the 1850s they established a fishing industry off the California coast that grew steadily and in the 1880s stretched across the entire west coast of the United States from Canada to Mexico. The Chinese fishermen went out to sea with entire fleets of small boats ( sampans ) to catch herring , sole , smelt , cod , sturgeon and shark . To catch larger fish like barracudas , they used junks , which were also built in large numbers on the American west coast. The yield of the Sino-American fishery also included crabs, mussels, abalone , salmon and seaweed , which, like sharks, is a staple food in Chinese cuisine. The products were then sold locally or shipped salt-dried to East Asia and Hawaii.
Since the end of the 1850s, European migrants - especially Greeks , Italians and Dalmats - were pushing into the fisheries on the American west coast and putting pressure on the Californian legislature, the Chinese fishermen were eventually driven out by a whole range of taxes, requirements and laws . They had to pay special duties (Chinese Fisherman's Tax) and were not allowed to fish with traditional Chinese nets or with junks. The most devastating effect was the Scott Act , passed in 1888, which practically linked the right of residence of the Chinese living in the United States to the fact that they remained in the country. Once they left American territory, they were not allowed to re-enter. The Chinese fishermen could no longer leave the 3-mile zone with their fishing boats. Their work became unprofitable and they gradually gave up fishing. Their position remained unchallenged only in those areas in which they were not in competition with Americans of European descent, such as shark fishing. Many former fishermen found work in the salmon canning factories, which were among the most important employers for Chinese migrants until the 1930s, as "white" workers were hardly interested in such tough, seasonal jobs.
Other pursuits
Since the time of the California gold rush, many Chinese migrants have made their livelihoods as domestic servants or by running restaurants, laundries, opium dens, and a wide range of businesses such as grocery stores, antique stores, jewelry stores, and import stores. In addition, they often worked in borax or mercury mines , as seamen on board the ships of American shipping companies or in the consumer goods industry , especially in the manufacture of cigars, boots, shoes and textiles. During the economic crisis of the 1870s, factory owners liked to hire migrants because they were content with low wages. The Chinese endured the poor wages as their wives and children continued to live in China, where the cost of living was low. Since they were excluded from the American trade unions as foreigners , they formed their own organizations ("guilds") based on the Chinese model , which represented their interests with employers. The American trade unionists, however, constantly suspected the Chinese industrial workers because they assumed they were willing to work for dumping wages and, as strikebreakers, thwart the struggle of American workers' interests. In this context, the headlines hit the strike at a shoe factory in North Adams , Massachusetts in 1870, the management of which replaced the strikers with 75 Chinese workers. However, these young men had been brought in from San Francisco by the company's management and had absolutely no idea that they were going to be used as scabs at their destination. Nevertheless, this incident has been cited time and again later in the union propaganda, the Chinese workers then keep its authors declared. The controversy died down when, as the economic crisis worsened in 1875, the majority of cigar or boot manufacturing companies went under. Only the sewing shops survived and continued to employ large numbers of Chinese workers.
Time of exclusion
The anti-Chinese movement is forming
The rejection of Chinese migrants by large parts of the American population grew into anti-Chinese hysteria during the economic crisis of the 1870s. On October 24, 1871, a racist uprising broke out in Los Angeles in the course of which a mob of more than 500 people of European descent invaded Chinatown and killed at least 20 of the residents. On July 23, 1877, an uprising began in San Francisco, in which about 10,000 people participated. Chinese were attacked all over the city and many of their shops were burned down. The Army , Navy and local vigilante groups took three days to end the riot. In Truckee , a mountain town on the edge of the gold fields of the Sierra Nevada, a mob rioted on October 28, 1878, burned down Chinatown and expelled the entire Chinese population (almost 2,000 people). Race rioting began in Denver , Colorado on October 31, 1880, culminating in the murder of a Chinese man and the destruction of Chinatown. There were further riots on September 2, 1885 in Rock Springs , Wyoming , in which around 500 Chinese miners were attacked and 28 of them were killed . These are just five examples; By the 20th century, hundreds of organized attacks on the body and property of Chinese migrants took place in the American West.
The most prominent agitators of the anti-Chinese movement were the politicians and labor leaders Dennis Kearney (1847–1907) and Samuel Gompers (1850–1924). Gompers founded one of the first American trade unions, the American Federation of Labor , in Columbus , Ohio in 1886 , and in 1901 published an essay “Meat Vs. Rice. American Manhood against Coolieism ” , which received a lot of attention from the xenophobes of the time. The anti-Chinese movement became so influential across the country that the US government finally no longer resisted the pressure and renegotiated the Burlingame Treaty with China in 1880 . The result was an immediate ban on entry for new migrants from China. The revision of the treaty became a turning point in American Chinese policy, however, when the US Supreme Court , the highest court in the United States, was deprived of the reasoning with which it had recognized many individual anti-Chinese laws as injustices and repealed them in the past would have. The result was the start of a great emigration movement. Over the next few decades tens of thousands of Chinese returned to China, while others moved to the American East, such as New York , Boston or Chicago .
Opium smoking as a stigma
The custom of opium smoking, introduced by Chinese immigrants, was practiced mainly in San Francisco , but also in New York City , New Orleans and Albany . The opium dens ("opium dens"), which are mostly operated by Chinese, were used by Americans of various origins, especially Chinese immigrants. At the center of anti-Chinese resentment came the custom of smoking opium, which was used as evidence of the “dangerousness” of the Chinese. This resentment was heightened by the tabloid press, which portrayed the Chinese as opium-smoking criminals. When white Americans also adopted the opium smoking habit after 1870, the foundations of white America were seen threatened. Politicians then addressed the “Chinese question” by enacting numerous anti-Chinese laws that severely impaired and restricted the culture and living conditions of Chinese immigrants (e.g. ban on traditional hairstyle in 1873, immigration restrictions, only taking up residence in certain parts of San Francisco in 1865). The first criminal law of the western world against opium consumption ("City Ordinance"), which was enacted in San Francisco in 1875 and banned opium smoking in the event of fines and / or imprisonment, was one of the series of these discriminatory laws. This law was promptly implemented, with arrests and convictions. With an estimated 3000-4000 "opium addicts" in San Francisco in 1885, there were 38 arrests of owners of the smoke houses and 220 arrests of visitors to these establishments.
Chinese Exclusion Act
With the Chinese Exclusion Act passed in 1882 , the suspension of Chinese immigration was also made federal law. The regulations were tightened by supplementary laws (Chinese Exclusion Act, 1884 Amendments) and also extended to ethnic Chinese , regardless of their citizenship. In this way, the provisions of the Chinese Exclusion Act could even be applied to Chinese people who were American citizens by birth. In 1888 the Scott Act followed, which abolished the so-called exit visa . Chinese people who lived legally in the US lost the right to return to the US after traveling to non-US countries. The Geary Act , passed in 1892 , extended the provisions of the Chinese Exclusion Act by 10 years; In 1902 a further extension of 10 years followed, which in 1904 was converted into an extension for an indefinite period.
Angel Island
The Chinese Exclusion Act drastically reduced Sino-US migration, but did not end it entirely. Chinese merchants, teachers, students, diplomats and tourists did not fall under the regulation and were still allowed to enter - at least according to the legal text. In fact, applicants were often arbitrarily and unjustifiably classified as workers. Later, the applicants were joined by many people - especially business people and Chinese born in the USA - who had fought for themselves and their relatives to enter the country in court. The Chinese Six Companies brought hundreds of lawsuits from their members to court during this period, many of which were found in favor of the Chinese migrants. The restrictive American immigration policy also led to the emergence of a lively trade in birth papers in the Sino-American community, which produced paper sons : young men who entered the United States to live with their supposed fathers - Chinese with American citizenship. The “fathers” of these “paper sons” had reported to the American authorities years before the birth of a son or daughter in China (and often fictitious) so that they could later sell the papers to young people of the appropriate age. Since the authorities were very well aware of this procedure, sons and daughters arriving in the United States were interrogated in detail after they had been prepared in detail with falsified life stories before their departure.
After the Chinese Exclusion Act came into force, many Chinese migrants entered the country illegally via the Mexican or Canadian border. The rest of them usually entered via San Francisco, where the immigration authorities operated a special reception center. First-time travelers were always brought here, and foreigners who came back often. The station was initially housed in a dilapidated port building, which was called "The Shed" (German: The Shed ). Allegedly for hearings, those entering the country were detained there for months under unspeakable sanitary conditions and with insufficient food. In 1910, the station moved to Angel Island , an island on San Francisco Bay . The accommodation on Angel Island was slightly better than in the Shed , but the function of the facility remained the same: to keep the number of Chinese immigrants as low as possible. While non-Chinese applicants were processed quickly, the Chinese had to accept long waiting times before the "inspection": 3 to 4 weeks were the norm; they were often detained for months, in individual cases for up to two years if the matter went to court. About 10 percent of the applicants were rejected. As a result of the poor housing conditions, there were repeated uprisings on Angel Island in 1919 and 1920. The island has often been compared to the immigration station on Ellis Island in New York City: a comparison that is, however, lagging because the New York applicants were usually able to enter the country without any problems after a cursory questioning and health examination. Those entering Angel Island, however, were often detained on suspicion of contagious diseases or forged papers. The Chinese women found the medical examinations, which required them to completely undress, particularly humiliating; in China, doctors never asked their patients to undress. The INS station on Angel Island was closed in 1940, but that in no way meant an end to the "inspections"; these were merely relocated to the departure countries.
Life in isolation
After the Chinese Exclusion Act came into force, the Chinese who remained in the country also came under increasing pressure. They were ousted from many professions that they had exercised up to then; they often worked as operators of restaurants and laundries or as domestic helpers. At the same time, it was pushed back into the Chinatowns. In San Francisco, where 24,613 Chinese lived in 1890, they were only allowed to settle in an area of 12 blocks. The living conditions in this Chinatown became unbearable and brought - promoted by the Tongs - a significant crime rate with gambling, drugs, prostitution and gang wars, which reached its peak in the 1920s. Thousands of residents migrated, often back to China. By 1900 the number of Chinese in San Francisco had dropped to 13,954; In 1920 there were only 7,774. When large parts of San Francisco caught fire as a result of the earthquake of 1906 , Chinatown was also completely destroyed. Until the reconstruction, most of the residents found refuge in the Chinese community in Oakland . The destruction of the City Hall and the Hall of Records , which burned countless files, was a godsend for many Chinese residents of the city, as it allowed them to claim to be merchants or American citizens. During this time, the Chinese also moved in large numbers to the American East, where many Chinatowns had now also sprung up.
The Sino-American community has had its own press since its early days . The “Golden Hill News” ( Chinese 金山 新闻 , Pinyin Jīnshān Xīnwén ), printed in Chinese script, had been published in San Francisco since 1854 . Many other newspapers followed, among which the bilingual “Chinese World” became the most traditional; it was published from 1891 to 1969. The "China West Daily" ( Chinese 中西 日報 , Cantonese Chung Sai Yat Po , 1900–1951) and the pro-revolutionary "Young China Morning Paper" founded by Sun Yat-sen ( Chinese 少年 中国 晨报 , Pinyin Shǎonián Zhōngguó Chén Bào ). In the eyes of Americans of European descent, whose perceptions were dominated by ethnic stereotypes and who didn't know much about China, all Chinese were equal. In reality, however, the Sino-American community was made up of representatives from a variety of ethnic groups: Cantonese , Hakka , Mongol , Manchu , Korean , Tibetan , Thai , Fujian , North Chinese , Taiwanese , and so on. Linguistically and culturally, these groups were so diverse that their representatives - as long as they lived in China - viewed each other as "foreigners" rather than compatriots. After emigration, however, these opposites became less important. The unifying element came to the fore: the common writing , which made communication possible even across the barriers of the different Chinese languages . The Sino-American press played a key role in building the group self-image of Chinese immigrants. In addition to disseminating the latest news, these newspapers also served as cultural forums , bringing the public into contact with the emerging Sino-American literature, pioneered by Sui Sin Far (1865–1914). By the Second World War , only a few Chinese Americans achieved the rank of public figures , including the cameraman James Wong Howe (1899–1976) and the actress Anna May Wong (1905–1961). Since the early silent film era, many films have been made in New York since the 1910s and in Hollywood that showed Chinese scenes or used the Chinatowns of American cities as exotic backdrops; these films were as popular with Chinese audiences as they were with non-Chinese moviegoers. Of course, the Chinese theater was even more important to the Sino-American community . The first Chinese theater troupe was formed in San Francisco as early as 1852; countless others followed wherever Chinatowns were established.
After the end of the Chinese Empire (1912–1943)
China becomes a republic
The political situation in China deteriorated further. In the Sino -Japanese War of 1894/95, not only was the Chinese fleet destroyed, but Formosa and Korea were also lost. Europe and Japan divided China into spheres of influence, the Qing dynasty was in ruins. For long periods of time since 1861, the affairs of state were in the hands of the Dowager Empress Cixi , who opposed reforms when they questioned her power. Resistance to the Qing rule was organized abroad, for example in the British crown colony of Hong Kong and in Hawaii , where Chinese exiles came together in dissident groups, from which Sun Yat-sen founded the Kuomintang in 1912 . The dissidents also found broad support in the Chinese community on the American mainland, which Sun Yat-sen repeatedly toured between 1904 and 1910 to raise money for the revolution. The triad organization was particularly at his side in the USA . The overthrow of Chinese Emperor Pu Yi and the proclamation of the Republic of China on January 1, 1912 were widely welcomed by the American public. After China had to pay substantial reparations after the Boxer Rebellion (1900) , President Theodore Roosevelt used a large part of these payments to fund scholarships that enabled thousands of young Chinese to study at American universities in the years that followed. Many of them contributed to the building of the young Chinese republic after 1912. B. Charlie Soong , whose daughters Qingling and Meiling married two of the most powerful Chinese statesmen.
Beginning assimilation
Despite their enthusiasm for the political change in China, the Chinese living in the USA rarely saw any reason to give up their lives in America and return to China. However, the men cut off their braids and from then on wore their hair in a western fashion. The young Chinese women changed even more, many of whom distanced themselves from the traditional life of their parents, turned into flappers and adopted an American lifestyle. As Americanized young Chinese grew up, Americanized political organizations such as the Chinese American Citizens Alliance (1895) emerged. Since there were strong anti-Chinese forces in the Democratic Party , these organizations were initially close to the Republican Party . This only changed when President Franklin D. Roosevelt united the country's minorities and the workers' coalition in an alliance ( New Deal ) in the 1930s . After that, Chinese Americans joined the Democrats in large numbers for the first time; In 1957, the nationwide Chinese American Democratic Club was founded in San Francisco .
Between the wars and the Second World War
With the establishment of the Chinese Republic, the image of the Chinese people began to improve in the American public. With “ The Good Earth ” in February 1937 , Hollywood produced a major film epic for the first time with sympathetically drawn Chinese main characters. When the Japanese invaded China six months later ( Second Sino-Japanese War ), the pro-Chinese mood intensified further. When, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (1941), a campaign began against the Japanese living in the USA, which culminated in mass internment in 1942 , many Chinese were involuntarily affected because they were mistaken for Japanese by non-Asian Americans on the streets.
opening
Magnuson Act
Since China was an American ally during the Second World War, the US came under pressure to repeal the provisions of the Chinese Exclusion Act. On December 17, 1943, the Magnuson Act was passed, which for the first time since 1882 allowed the arrival of Chinese. The law also stipulated that Chinese who were already living in the United States could acquire American citizenship. However, after the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act, Chinese immigration was not simply cleared, but now fell under the provisions of the Immigration Act of 1924 , which provided for a quota system for the influx of foreigners. The number of Chinese who were allowed to enter the country after the Magnuson Act came into force was limited to 105 people per year until further notice.
Structural Change in Sino-American Society
The Magnuson Act marks the starting point for a small but steady influx of wives and children of Chinese Americans. More Chinese women came to the United States as soldiers' wives after the end of World War II . More than 13,000 Chinese-Americans took part in the war as soldiers, many of whom had been deployed to locations in the Pacific War , where they met and married Chinese women. Due to the War Brides Act in 1945 around 6,000 Chinese "war brides" were allowed to follow their husbands to the USA. The Immigration and Nationality Act passed in 1952 brought further improvements, which did not abolish the quota system, but allowed women and children of American citizens to enter the country without taking the quotas into account. The gender balance in the Sino-American community, which until then had been a purely male society, gradually came into equilibrium. Gradually there was also a qualitative structural change, similar to that which took place in China: the unconditional authority of men over women wavered, as did that of the elderly over the young, marriages were no longer arranged by the family , Instead, large families were replaced by modern small families out of affection . Though many of the traditional structures persisted into the 1950s, they were abandoned to the extent that young American-born generations were introduced. Since the mid-20th century, these found their way into college education and modern professions.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China
During the Chinese Civil War in 1949 the Kuomintang were defeated by the Communist Party , which proclaimed the People's Republic of China on October 1st . At the time, there were thousands of Chinese students, academics, teachers, and business people in the United States, many of whom were unable to return to China because they were closely associated with the defeated regime. Some of them went to Taiwan , Hong Kong or Singapore . Approx. 5,000 people - mostly students - remained in the United States and formed the basis of a new type of Chinese immigrants, highly educated and gifted young people from all regions of China, who also aspired to professional positions in the USA and who assimilated more easily than previous Chinese migrants . Well-known representatives of this generation are z. B. the later Nobel Prize winners in physics, Chen Ning Yang (* 1922) and Tsung-Dao Lee (* 1926). Other Chinese were able to enter under the Displaced Persons Act (1948) and the Refugee Relief Act (1953). Many of the Chinese intellectuals came under unexpected pressure in the US when the " McCarthy Era " (1948–1956) dawned. Under the impression of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Berlin blockade , the Korean War and the Vietnam War , intense anti-communism arose in the USA , which was linked to a new image of the Chinese enemy . The Chinese intellectuals who could actually therefore not return to China because they had been persecuted as anti-communists, fell during the campaign, the keywords "Red Scare" ( Red Scare ) and "Yellow Peril" ( Yellow Peril ) denominated, under the Suspicion that they brought communism to the USA. Chinese migrants who failed the mind test faced internment, deportation, and loss of American citizenship. A Chinese Confession Program , which has existed since 1957 and in which 30,000 people participated and under the guise of an amnesty for illegal migrants who admitted to deceiving the authorities, had even more serious effects within the Chinese-American community established a comprehensive system of mutual spying and denunciation through which human relationships in this community were severely strained for decades.
Recent developments
Since the mid-1950s, the American civil rights movement , whose best-known protagonist was Martin Luther King , campaigned for the implementation of constitutionally guaranteed human and civil rights for the hitherto disadvantaged sections of the population. For the Americans of color , this struggle, the main successes of which were the Civil Rights Act (1964) and the Voting Rights Act (1965), was just as significant as it was for the Chinese migrants. In 1969 the civil rights organization Chinese for Affirmative Action was founded . As early as 1962, President John F. Kennedy had used existing immigration laws to allow 15,000 Chinese to enter on the basis of temporary visas. Most of them stayed and became American citizens. On July 1, 1968, with the INS Act passed in 1965, a new immigration law came into effect, which largely liberalized American immigration law. The quotas were abolished; henceforth up to 20,000 Chinese could get a visa annually.
The poverty that was typical of Chinese Americans until the mid-20th century is still to be found today among many Chinese elderly, who often live in miserable conditions in the Chinatowns and are dependent on state welfare. However, the vast majority of US-born Chinese today belong to the middle class and are fully assimilated. 49.2% of the Chinese living in the USA have at least a Bachelor's degree (USA overall: 27.0%; only people over 24 years of age). The median income of Sino-American households is $ 57,015 (US total: $ 44,684). 57.1% of the Chinese living in the USA speak English at least “very well”, 23.8% only speak English. In contrast to the earlier Chinese immigrants, whose mother tongue was mostly Cantonese , the majority of today's Chinese US migrants speak standard Chinese ; their children often learn the written Chinese language in privately organized Sunday courses. It is estimated that about a third of Chinese Americans profess the Christian faith , although the Sino-American churches often teach Confucian values as well. Regardless of their beliefs, most Chinese Americans also celebrate traditional festivals such as Chinese New Year , the Moon Festival, and Qingming Festival . The last decades of the 20th century are characterized by an increasingly intensive preoccupation with the Chinese-American community with its cultural heritage. Sino-American historiography, literature and art are flourishing, their protagonists are artists such as the writers Iris Chang , David Henry Hwang , Ha Jin , Elizabeth Wong and Anchee Min , the architect Ieoh Ming Pei and the film director Wayne Wang . Through film actors like Bruce Lee , Jackie Chan , John Lone , Joan Chen , Gong Li and Lucy Liu, and through musicians like the songwriter Vienna Teng , Chinese and Sino-American personalities have also found their way into popular culture.
In contrast to Chinese art and culture, which is still barely noticed by large parts of the non-Chinese population, Chinese cuisine is also extremely popular with non-Chinese Americans, whereby the Chinese-American restaurant cuisine is largely influenced by the Cantonese way of cooking. In cities with a high Chinese population, however, you can also find restaurants with Sichuan or Hunan cuisine.
Sino-American migration extends to the present day, with two groups of migrants being particularly characteristic today. A minority consists of poorly trained, but industrious young people from tugs to high deposits are brought into the country illegally and have to work their debt at low wages. In the San Francisco area, for example, there were many small manufactories (sweatshops) in the early 1990s , in which around 20,000 Chinese textile workers were employed under conditions similar to slavery. Current estimates of the number of Chinese people in the United States without valid entry documents vary widely and range from 39,000 to 500,000. Even if they get to know the authorities, these migrants usually stay in the country, as they cannot be deported to China without papers .
However, the majority of Chinese newcomers continue to enter legally, including academics and highly qualified professionals working for international companies and students who do not return to China after completing their training at an American college . After many Chinese students fled to the USA as a result of the Tian'anmen massacre (1989), the US Congress passed a Chinese Student Protection Act in 1992 , which enabled these refugees to obtain permanent residence permits . Of the estimated 3.3 million Chinese currently living in the US, around 2 million were born in Asia, i.e. first-generation migrants. Only the Mexican-American population recorded even higher growth rates. In the present, Chinese people who have gotten rich in the People's Republic are also coming to buy real estate and are thinking of moving to the USA in order to be able to offer their children a better education.
Statistics of the Chinese Population in the United States (1840-Present)
The Chinese population of the United States (including people of mixed ethnicity):
year | Total population | of which of Chinese origin | proportion of |
---|---|---|---|
1840 | 17,069,453 | ||
1850 | 23,191,876 | 4.018 | 0.02% |
1860 | 31,443,321 | 34,933 | 0.11% |
1870 | 38,558,371 | 64.199 | 0.17% |
1880 | 50.189.209 | 105,465 | 0.21% |
1890 | 62,979,766 | 107,488 | 0.17% |
1900 | 76.212.168 | 118,746 | 0.16% |
1910 | 92.228.496 | 94.414 | 0.10% |
1920 | 106.021.537 | 85.202 | 0.08% |
1930 | 123.202.624 | 102.159 | 0.08% |
1940 | 132.164.569 | 106,334 | 0.08% |
1950 | 151.325.798 | 150.005 | 0.10% |
1960 | 179.323.175 | 237.292 | 0.13% |
1970 | 203.302.031 | 436,062 | 0.21% |
1980 | 226.542.199 | 812.178 | 0.36% |
1990 | 248,709,873 | 1,645,472 | 0.66% |
2000 | 281.421.906 | 2,432,585 | 0.86% |
2010 | 308,745,538 | 3,347,229 | 1.08% |
See also
- History of the United States of America
- History of the Chinese in Hawaii
- History of china
- Chronology of the Racial Laws of the United States
- Chinese -Americans , Overseas Chinese
- List of known Chinese Americans
- Chinese-American literature
literature
Introductions and general presentations:
- David M. Brownstone: The Chinese-American Heritage. Facts on File, New York, Oxford 1988, ISBN 0-8160-1627-5 .
- Iris Chang: The Chinese in America. A Narrative History. Emphasis. Penguin 2004, ISBN 0-14-200417-0 .
- Ruthanne Lum McCunn: An Illustrated History of the Chinese in America. Design Enterprises, San Francisco 1979, ISBN 0-932538-01-0 .
- Lai Him Mark: Becoming Chinese American. A History of Communities and Institutions. AltaMira Press, 2004, ISBN 0-7591-0458-1 .
- Dana Ying-Hui Wu, Jeffrey Dao-Sheng Tung: Coming to America. The Chinese-American Experience. The Millbrook Press, Brookfield, CT 1993, ISBN 1-56294-271-9 .
Individual time periods:
- Erika Lee: At America's Gates: Chinese Immigration during the Exclusion Era. 1882-1943. The University of North Carolina Press, 2006, ISBN 0-8078-5448-4 .
- Xiaojian Zhao: Remaking Chinese America: Immigration, Family, and Community, 1940-1965. Rutgers University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-8135-3011-3 .
Special topics:
- Georg Blume : Far East all over the world. In: The time. No. 40, September 28, 2006, p. 26 (on contemporary trends in Sino-American migration)
- Huping Ling: Surviving on the Gold Mountain. A History of Chinese American Women and Their Lives. State University of New York Press, 1998, ISBN 0-7914-3864-3 .
- Judy Yung: Unbound Feet. A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco. University of California Press, 1995, ISBN 0-520-08867-0 .
Autobiographies and novels
- Maxine Hong Kingston : The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts. Vintage 1989, ISBN 0-679-72188-6 .
- Amy Tan: The Joy Luck Club. Putnam Adult 1989, ISBN 0-399-13420-4 .
- Laurence Yep: Dragonwings. Golden Mountain Chronicles, 1903. HarperTrophy 1977, ISBN 0-06-440085-9 .
- Teresa Le Yung Ryan: Love Made of Heart. Kensington Publishing Corporation, ISBN 0-7582-0217-2
Movie
- Becoming American. The Chinese Experience. - Three-part documentary by Bill Moyers on the history of Chinese immigration to the United States, 2003
- Kung Fu - TV series about the adventures of a Shaolin monk in the USA
Web links
- Chinese American History Timeline ( Memento from July 19, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Chronology (Eng.)
- The Chinese Experience: 1857–1892 (Eng.)
- The Chinese in America (Engl.)
- The Chinese in California (Engl.)
- A History of Chinese Americans in California (Engl.)
- The History of Chinese Immigration ( Memento April 29, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ^ Charles Godfrey Leland, Fusang or the Discovery of America by Chinese Buddhist Priests in the Fifth Century : Kessinger Publishing, 2004, ISBN 1-4179-1920-5 ; Lily Chow, Chasing Their Dreams. Chinese Settlement in the Northwest Region of British Columbia : Caitlin Press, 2001, ISBN 0-920576-83-4
- ↑ a b c d Image source: Library of Congress
- ^ Brownstone, p. 25
- ^ Brownstone, pp. 2, 25f
- ↑ Published in Harper's Weekly in 1876; Image source: Library of Congress (The Bancroft Library)
- ^ Brownstone, pp. 26f
- ↑ Brownstone, pp. 26-35, 57
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Image source: Library of Congress (The Bancroft Library).
- ^ Brownstone, pp. 37-44; en: Pacific Mail Steamship Company
- ↑ Brownstone, pp. 36-45
- ^ Brownstone, p. 91; see also China Mission ; McCunn, p. 109
- ^ Prostitution in the Early Chinese Community, 1850–1900 ; Brownstone, p. 57
- ↑ McCunn, p. 113; Brownstone, pp. 52-56; en: Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association
- ^ Brownstone, p. 56; en: Tong (organization) ; en: Triad
- ↑ The People Vs. Hall Brownstone, pp. 59-64; McCunn, pp. 27f.
- ↑ The Chinese and the Transcontinental Railroad ( March 10, 2009 memento on the Internet Archive ) Brownstone, pp. 65-68; McCunn, p. 32; en: First Transcontinental Railroad , en: Charles Crocker
- ↑ Brownstone, pp. 68-74; en: Bing cherry
- ↑ Brownstone, pp. 68-74; McCunn, p. 39; en: Dennis Kearney ; en: Workingmen's Party of California
- ^ Brownstone, pp. 74f; McCunn, p. 44
- ^ Vessels of Exchange: the Global Shipwright in the Pacific ( Memento of April 10, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Brownstone, pp. 74f; McCunn, p. 47
- ↑ Chinese Workers Arrive in North Adams McCunn, pp. 28, 54-57; Brownstone, pp. 75-79
- ↑ Published in Harper's Weekly in 1885; Image source: Library of Congress (The Bancroft Library)
- ↑ a b Unrest in California Brownstone, p. 82; Los Angeles: en: Chinese Massacre of 1871 ; Denver: Hop Alley / Chinese Riot of 1880 ( December 25, 2009 memento on the Internet Archive ); “To This We Dissented”: The Rock Springs Riot ; other anti-Chinese uprisings: A History of Riots ( September 28, 2007 memento in the Internet Archive ); en: Sinophobia
- ^ Howard Zinn: A People's History of the United States . Harper Perennial, New York 2005, ISBN 0-06-083865-5 , p. 266
- ^ Brownstone, pp. 82-84, 91-93
- ↑ "American Opium Smokers"
- ↑ cf. Peter Selling: The career of the drug problem in the USA - A study of the course and development forms of social problems , Pfaffenweiler 1989, Centaurus-Verlagsgesellschaft: 15f .; Scheerer, Sebastian: The genesis of the narcotics laws in the Federal Republic of Germany and in the Netherlands , Göttingen 1982: 23f .; Manfred Kappler: Drugs and Colonialism - On the Ideological History of Drug Consumption , Frankfurt 1991, 1991: 295 f
- ↑ cf. Selling 1989: 16f., Scheerer 1982: 24
- ^ Brownstone, pp. 86-88; Book Review: Erika Lee, At America's Gates ; Stanley Hom Lau: Paper Son ( Memento from July 23, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Brownstone, pp. 44-49; McCunn, p. 92; Wu, p. 45; Book review: Erika Lee, At America's Gates ( Memento of the original from July 23, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Brownstone, pp. 84-88; San Francisco ; Chinatown Tong Wars in the 1920s ; The Great Quake: 1906-2006 ; Why was the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 significant to Chinese immigration?
- ^ The Voices from the Gold Mountain - Chinese-Language Publications in America ; Introduction: The links and locations of Asian American theater
- ↑ Brownstone, pp. 105-107, 109-111; Sun Yat-sen in the United States ( October 15, 2007 memento on the Internet Archive ); en: Charlie Soong
- ↑ Brownstone, pp. 108-109; en: Chinese American Citizens Alliance ; The Chinese American Democratic Club Archives
- ^ Chinese-Americans in World War II ; Brownstone, pp. 111-116
- ↑ Brownstone, pp. 111-114; en: red scare ; McCunn, p. 118.
- ↑ Brownstone, pp. 114-123; Chinese for Affirmative Action
- ↑ Brownstone, pp. 114-123; ; Immigrants and the Faith They Bring ( Memento of the original from September 29, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ flower; Sweatshop watch ; Growing expectations for Hu Jintao's visit to the United States ( Memento from September 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ flower; en: Chinese Student Protection Act of 1992 ; US Census Bureau, Selected Population Profile, 2004 ( Memento of March 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Announcement , china.org.cn, June 9, 2014, accessed July 9, 2014
- ^ US Census: Race and Hispanic or Latino: 2000 ( Memento of March 30, 2008 in the Internet Archive ); US Census: 1990 ; US Census: Population 1790-1990 (PDF file; 15 kB); Comparison of Asian Populations during the Exclusion Years (PDF file; 174 kB); US Census estimate for 2004 ( Memento from March 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ www.pbs.org