Pre-1965 Asian American Experience: Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino Americans

1. Pre-1965 Asian American Experience: Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino Americans ETHN 100 Week 14 Session 1b

2. “Mother Tongue” • Discuss an aspect of the essay you found fascinating, relatable, or informative.

3. ETHN 100: The Last Two Weeks • Week 14 – Before 1965 • Session 1 (Mon/Tue) – Early API immigration and Settlement • Session 2 (Wed/Thu) – Final Writing Workshop on Wed/Thu. Graded WA3 handed back • Week 15 – After 1965 • Session 1 – No online work or readings due. WA4 due Mon/Tue (2 copies). Blind peer review guidelines handed out. • Session 2 – Return peer reviews • Finals Week • Submit revised WA4 via email 5PM of final day

4. Last Session • Examined conditions surrounding Chinese immigration to and settlement in the United States beginning in the mid-1800s.

5. Today • Discuss the push-pull factors of Japanese and Filipino immigrants to the United States.

6. Immigrant Experiences: Early Chinese vs. European • Similarities: Intended to be sojourners (make money and go back to mother country); mainly men, primarily poor. • Differences: Regional settlement, race, and the first immigrant group to be shut out by the US government. • Chinese Diaspora existed when immigrants to the US began to show in large numbers. • History of indentured servitude • “Coolie trade” from Asian countries to the UK. • Gold Rush attracted Chinese to “Gold Mountain”

7. Structure of Chinese American Community • San Francisco – dai fu (big city) – Cultural, economic and administrative hub of Chinese America. • Key cultural difference between European and Chinese immigrants: Churches (European) and Family (Chinese) as key institutions for organizing communities, transmitting values, customs and traditions.

8. Cultural Characteristics and Community • Family Associations – initially based on blood ties (clans) it was adapted by immigrants. • District Associations • Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association – AKA the Six Chinese Companies or Six Companies • Origins in Guangdong province (primary region of immigration) • Often served as the community’s voice to white America. • American-born Citizen’s groups • Native Sons of the Golden State/Chinese American Citizens Alliance

9. Forms of Labor • Gold Rush – Worked as miners • Agriculture – built the irrigation system in California central valleys • Railroads – Contributed to the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, specifically the Central Pacific Railroad • Eventually low-capital forms of self-employment such as laundries and restaurants. • Women had few options for labor. Many worked as sex workers to pay off indentured servitude.

10. Systematic Discrimination • Direct Referential Racism – discriminatory changes in policy, law, or ordinance that target a group without explicitly naming them. Extreme residential discrimination • California Foreign Miners Tax • Municipal ordinances on living conditions, employment, bodies • Policies aimed at baring Chinese from land ownership and employment

11. Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 • Barred immigration of Chinese laborers for 20 years (two, ten-year periods) • Outwitted immigration laws (resistance): undocumented and documented entry • Undocumented: Entered the country (CA) via Northwestern and southern points of entry. • Extralegal: Misrepresented their status to enter with papers.

12. Japanese Immigration • Modernization, industrialization, and militarization • Immigration mainly to Hawaii (sugar) and California (fruit and produce). • Chinese immigrants vs. Japanese immigrants • From the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to the Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1907 • Picture Brides

13. Hawaii Sugar Plantations • Describe labor conditions among the immigrant ethnic groups on the Hawaiian sugar plantations were often stratified. • Groups were pitted one against the other. • Japanese laborers attempted “blood unionism” • Filipino and Japanese workers strike (1909)

14. Filipino Immigration • Filipinos were uniquely situated in immigration history because they were colonial subjects of the United States due to the Spanish American War (1898) and Philippine-American War (1899-1902) • President McKinley: “Little Brown Brothers.” • Three waves: • Pensionados • Manongs • Post-1965 Professionals and Families

15. First Wave: Pensionados or “Fountain Pen Boys” (early 1900s) • Filipino young men from elite families were brought to the United States to be educated in US colleges and universities. • These students returned to the Philippines. • These students were an integral strategy to US colonization of the Philippines. • The goal was to import US culture, education, and institutions via families of status.

16. Second Wave: Manongs (1900-1965) • Filipino laborers were brought to the United States when Chinese, Japanese, and Mexican laborers were in short supply due to exclusion and discrimination. • Worked mainly in agriculture, food production (canneries, packing houses), and as domestic help (“house boys”). • Hawaii, Pacific Coast (California), Alaska • Almost entirely men. • Anti-miscegenation Laws • The Great Depression • Watsonville Riot

17. Third Wave: Post-1965 Professionals and Family Reunification • Immigration Act of 1965 created a new system of preferences for immigrants to the United States. • Favored forms of labor and family ties. • Despite the assumption that it would mainly benefit European groups, Asian Americans were among the most affected.

18. Next Time • Writing Workshop • From Asian America from World War II to Civil Rights