Asian Immigrants

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The 1840s and 1850s marked the beginning of Asian immigration to the United States, starting with the arrival of Chinese in Hawaii and on the mainland West Coast. Initially, laborers found work on the sugar plantations and in the gold mines, and later supplied much of the manual labor for the building of the western leg of the transcontinental railway. By the turn of the twentieth century, the same employment opportunities began to draw increasing numbers of immigrants from other parts of Asia, including Japan, the Philippines, Korea, and India. However, successive waves of Asian immigration tended to create corresponding waves of anti-Asian sentiment. Labor leaders, temperance activists, and agricultural interests pressed the government to…show more content…
Census Bureau, 2007). However, Asian Americans are not a homogeneous community. On the contrary, they represent a very diverse population, with regionally and culturally specific language, dialects, traditions, and beliefs. Moreover, each cultural group was drawn (or pushed) to the United States by different motives. Most early immigrants—whether Chinese, Japanese, or Filipino, for example—sought employment as unskilled labor. By the 1960s, this trend began to reverse, as many Chinese and Japanese, in particular, migrated under policies designed to attract skilled laborers and professionals. Those seeking enhanced employment opportunities were later joined by Southeast Asians fleeing the political upheavals in that part of the world. During and after the Korean War (1956–1965), many of those impressed by their view of Americans’ affluence, together with political dissidents, fled to the United States. During the 1970s, nearly 200,000 Vietnamese emigrated to the United States—many of whom were admitted with refugee status. More recent immigration of Asians, including that of Asian Indians, has been motivated by educational and professional opportunities. Very often, Asians who come to this country to pursue a university education will decide to stay and embark on a career in this
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