Oriental Immigration: The Experience of the Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino Populations in the United States

Abstract

The first large-scale Oriental immigration into the United States occurred between 1850 and 1860 with the active recruitment of Chinese laborers for the development of the trans-Mississippi frontier. Although nearly half of the early Chinese immigrants did not stay a total of 408493 persons born in China were admitted into the mainland United States as visitors students immigrants and returning aliens between 1850 and 1960. The majority of the immigrants prior to 1940 were males and tended to reside near Western ports of entry. The reaction initially was favorable to the Chinese who provided badly needed manpower. However opposition to their presence and continued immigration soon developed in the Western states in response to the economic competition of the Chinese with white workers for wage levels and jobs and the distrust of the different cultural ways of the Chinese. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 by the United States Congress was the culmination of nearly three decades of anti- Chinese agitation at local state and federal levels. The Act did not stop immigration but did upgrade the socioeconomic status of new immigrants by refusing entrance of unskilled laborers. The Act was renewed after the stipulated 10 year period expired in 1892 and was made a permanent enactment in 1904. It was followed by the Immigration Act of 1924 which stopped large-scale Oriental immigration. In comparison with their cousins residing on the United States mainland early Oriental immigrants to Hawaii had little de jure and de facto opposition to their entry and modes of employment. The lack of opposition reflected both the pattern of racial equality established by early trading contacts between Polynesians and Caucasians and high rates of intermarriage which resulted in the presence of a considerable group of people with mixed racial ancestry. (excerpt)