: Asian American Histories

Prompt #1:  Borders

Using Lee and other class materials, discuss the following question:

“How does the control of borders give us a way to understand how the United States imagines itself as a nation?”

By now, you know the general outline of the expected essay, and you have received feedback during these past two weeks from your teaching assistant.  Please make sure to address the following questions for this prompt and for the following prompts:

1. What was the effect of the Chinese Exclusion laws on Chinese immigrants?
2. What do the Chinese Exclusion laws tells us about the role of race in the United States?
3. How do the Chinese Exclusion laws help us to understand the significance of borders?

Prompt #2:  Communities

How do people make choices about the communities they form? From this week’s readings, discuss two examples that highlight the kinds of strategies that communities utilize to build more resources for themselves.  Be sure to use examples from different communities.

Prompt #3:  US Militarism and War

How does US militarism in the Pacific affect the lives of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders? 

Discuss one example from Niiya’s essay and one example from Baldoz’s essay that demonstrates the impact of US militarism in the Pacific on the lives of Asian Americans.

How does Jetner-Kijilner’s “Annointed” poem help us to see these issues as well?

ANSWER

Prompt #1:  Borders

United States prides itself on being a nation of immigrants. The country has a long history of absorbing people from across the globe. Immigration to the united states was started during the colonial era through the mid-19th century. Since then, the United States had an Open Door for an immigration policy that encouraged immigrants to settle in newly colonized Land in expanding America (Lee & Yung, 2010). In the late 19th century, the United States started getting foreign immigration in and out of their jurisdiction. The federal government began to regulate immigrants by keeping track of them. During this period, the United States started to close doors from the immigrants in that they created Chinese exclusion law in 1882 (Lee & Yung, 2010). The Chinese exclusion law is the first significant law that restricted immigration into the United States. Besides, Congress passed the law to alleviate American workers’ demand and assuage prevalent concerns about maintaining white purity. Most Americans on the West Coast experienced a decline in wages and economic ills to Chinese workers. Hence, United states had to lay off some of the cheap immigrants workers to ensure that it citizens were contented and their needs were meet

The Chinese exclusion act was forced on Chinese laborers as well as prostitutes. The act transformed modern American Immigration policy, detention, and inspection into a threat in the United States (Lee & Yung, 2010). The act ensured that immigrants had proper documentation, such as passports and green cards. In 1854, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Chinese immigrant was not allowed to testify in court, making it impossible for the Chinese immigrant to testify against the mounting violence. Unfortunately, the economic depression of 1930 increased immigration into the United States, and it also increased the number of arrests and deportation of immigrants in the United States (Lee & Yung, 2010). Chinese traveling to the United States were forced into the Detention Facility waiting for the document verification process. The detention facilities were in extremely unsanitary conditions and not fit for human survival. These conditions forced frustration to kick in, causing some immigrants to commit suicide, and others had to risk their lives during the escape.  The Chinese immigrants were supposed to carry unique documents, including the Internal Revenue Service certificate. Immigrants without these certificates were sentenced to hard labor and deportation.

During the economic depression, Chinese immigrants experienced race discrimination. The Chinese offering cheap labor in the United States, causing Americans to lose their job, resulted from racing inequalities and discrimination that contributed to the Chinese exclusion Act. In 1852, the experienced Chinese crop failure to migrate to the United States through the San Francisco customs house. Due to race discrimination, violence broke out between the white – and the Chinese new arrival crossing the United States and imposed a foreign miner’s tax of 3 months to Target the Chinese miners. In favor of race discrimination, the United States’ supreme court ruled that the Chinese, like the African-American and other Native Americans, were not allowed to testify in the court of law. Besides, following the Chinese exclusion law, other immigrants were restricted from crossing the border with proper documentation, such as the Filipino and Mexicans.

Chinese Exclusion law helps us understand the significance of borders in that it establishes social worlds, establishment of social worlds are the key founders to the community formation. Borders can shape residents and affects people’s lives. The national borders brought about the literal reordering of architecture Frames. It also enhances industrialization moves, mostly two days in the plaza area. This did not only signal translation in the political economy of the plaza area town, but it also Marshall an immigrant Workforce in Mexico (Quintana, 2015). In the mid-19th century, the Plaza served as the center of the community and Civic life in spatial arrangements to colonial settlement in the Spanish Empire. The Chinese mostly settled on the Eastern edge of the Plaza in 1860. They lived in Adobe buildings immediately in the Plaza on the Eastern end. However, the extreme massacre and violence mostly caused by men in the Plaza overshadow how the Chinese and Mexican residents created communities while solidifying borders. For example, U.S borders shaped neighborhood geography, that leds to the formation of various community in relation to race, ethics and social background. In United States there are various established community based on race and social background resulting to established neighborhoods such as a black and whites neighborhoods.

References

Lee, E., & Yung, J. (2010). Angel Island: Immigrant gateway to America. Oxford University Press.

Quintana, I. S. L. (2015). Making do, making home: borders and the worlds of Chinatown and Sonoratown in early twentieth-century Los Angeles. Journal of Urban History, 41(1), 47-74.