What Are Chinese Immigrants

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“Traditionally we divide ourselves into races by the twin criteria of geographical location and visible physical characteristics. But we could make an equally reasonable and arbitrary division by the presence of absence of a gene, such as the sickle-cell gene, that confers resistance to malaria. By this reckoning. We’d place Yemenites, Greeks, New Guineans, Thai, and Dinkas in one “race,” Norwegian and several black African people in another” a
Quote from Jared Diamond (1994:191) that explains how humans can be characterized in different races by some arbitrary category decided by someone. Other ways to classify humans into different race groups might be by the type of fingerprint left, the existence of a particular gene, a geographical location,
…show more content…
While they have not been treated the same way as African Americans and turned into slaves, they have been denied the right to own property and prosper in the past. The Chinese immigrants have helped to build the backbone of America at the time which was the railroad system, allowing for easier trade. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was used to restrict the immigration of Chinese laborers into America (Chinese Exclusion Act 1882). According to Jane H. Hong (2015) the 1924 Immigration Act severely impacted the immigration of Filipino’s into the United States of America and the Tydings-McDuffie Act placing a quota of fifty people on Filipino immigration annually. Asian Americans, in particular Japanese Americans, have been forced to live in camps after World War II. The Japanese Americans were forced to move into isolated camps where they were treated as prisoners. The Asian community has been robbed from the right to become part of the American society and have been denied citizenship as well as and has been put under repeated sanctions to prevent them from thriving and assimilating. The white people in charge of the country have exploited the Asian Pacific Americans by restricting their immigration with laws and by paying cheaply for their labor. However, with the Asian Pacific population growing rapidly in the country the power relation have changed significantly. Wendell Cox writes (2015) “Asians Americans have emerged as the fastest growing of three major ethnic and minority populations in the United States.” According to C. N. Lee “42% of Asian Americans have at least a college degree, the highest of all major racial/ethnic groups.” This is a really important statical data but if we examine each group that is compounded into the Asian American category it is obvious that not all of the groups share the same success. C. N. Lee writes “Vietnamese Americans only have a college degree of

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