Wikipedia

Chinese Americans

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A Chinese-American is a resident of the United States who is of Chinese descent who make up one group of overseas Chinese. Chinese immigration to the United States has come in several waves. During the mid-19th century many Chinese emmigrated from Guangdong province to the United States in order to work on the railroads and several Western states had large populations of Chinese. These Chinese tended to cluster in Chinatowns, the largest population was in San Franscisco. This immgiration was stopped by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1883 which made Chinese immigration illegal until 1946.

With the loosening of American immigration laws in 1952 and 1965, a second wave of Chinese immigration began, which consisted of professionals from Taiwan who arrived in the United States on student visas. With the improving economy in Taiwan, immigration from the island began to decrease in the 1970's and was accompanied by an increase in immigration from professionals from Mainland China, which began to allow for emmigration in 1977. 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.

Many Chinese people feel strongly about their root (probably due to Confucius teaching), they observe Chinese tradition even after becoming American citizen. Being loyal to the Chinese ethnicity and heritage is often mistaken as loyality to China the country. For example, Chinese American nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee at Los Alamos national laboratory was wrongly accused of spying for China in 2000, mostly based on racial stereotyping.

Many non-caucasian American citizens suffer similar mistreatment simply because of the color of their skin or their religion. For example, Japanese American were locked up in internment camps despite they were American citizens sworn to be loyal to the USA. Many Islamic American citizens were attacked by other Americans after the September 11 terrorist attack. Despite anti-discrimination laws in the USA, racial inequality still goes on everyday. The only comforting thought is that the victims can sue in the court of law if they survive.

Chinese Americans in the news or famed:


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