After learning about the European immigrants from Thomas Sowell in Ethnic America, it's time for the East Asians.
The Chinese
Chinese people started migrating away from China during the decline of the Ming dynasty. Migration to the US started with the discovery of gold in 1849. But nearly all the migrants were from one province, Kwantung, and even one area, Toishan. The immigrants worked as contract laborers in agriculture, railroad building, and worked in gangs under the supervision of a fellow Chinese. But they worked so hard, and for so little wages, that they provoked the fear and hatred of white workers. As in attacks and murders.
Things got so bad that the US passed a Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. This created great hardship for the mostly single male workers, because they could not bring wives over -- especially given how family-centric Chinese culture is. There were special fees and taxes placed upon Chinese businesses like laundries. Because of these impositions, the Chinese kept themselves apart in "Chinatowns" and did not use the legal system to resolve disputes. So local Chinese leaders and the secret society "tongs" kept the peace.
The Chinatowns became notorious as centers of vice: prostitution, drugs, and gambling, and that attracted white "ruffians and hoodlums." But eventually they developed into tourist attractions and needed to keep the vice down to a dull roar.
The Chinese Exclusion Act was not relaxed until 1945, when a predominantly female immigration allowed husbands and wives to be reunited and provide partners to a predominantly male community. Many of the new wives were selected by matchmakers.
Although the economic rise of Chinese Americans was mostly in Chinatown business -- financed by Chinese credit associations -- by World War II there was a labor shortage and Chinese were able to move into the general economy. It didn't hurt that Americans felt sorry for China being invaded by Japan.
In education, Chinese American children did well, whether in segregated schools or not. And the Chinese sent their children to college, so the Chinese moved into the professions. By 1959 the average income of Chinese Americans was above that of other Americans.
After the Maoist revolution, the Toishan Chinese in America were invaded by refugees from Communism that came through Hong Kong. They did not speak the Chinese dialect spoken by the Toishaners, but neither did they speak much English. On the other hand the new immigrants had been partially westernized in Hong Kong and did not have the strict family culture of the Toishaners. Conflict ensued.
Today Chinese Americans have higher incomes than the average and "higher occupational status." A quarter of Chinese Americans work in "scientific and professional fields." But mostly their prosperity issues from the fact that Chinese Americans work more than the average American.
The Japanese
Migration from Japan to the US began after the Meiji Restoration of 1868, in a culture that admired the US. The first migrants were contract laborers to Hawaii and did not work out. But later migrants, as sugarcane workers in Hawaii and mainland US laborers "on railroad and in mines, lumber mills, canneries, meat-packing plants," were so efficient that they were "feared and hated by American workers and American labor unions." As they moved up from agricultural laborers to tenant farmers they provoked hostility from white farmers. Thus the Alien Land Law of 1913 that forbade California land ownership by aliens -- Asians in general and Japanese in particular.
But, because of the rise of Japan, there was no Exclusion Act. Only the "Gentlemen's Agreement of 1908."
Under the terms of this agreement, Japan itself severely limited the number of immigrants to the United States, and the American government allowed the wives of of existing Japanese in the United States to join their husbands and for parents and children to be reunited here.
Thus the extreme sex imbalance of Chinese immigrants was avoided. And the immigrants and their children became Japanese Americans.
The first generation of immigrants, the Issei, had been selected by the Japanese government "for their health, character, and willingness to work." They were predisposed to "accept and emulate the American way of life."
The second generation, the Nisei, were significantly different. They spoke English, and very little Japanese, and the values they learned from school and American culture were in conflict with the values of the Issei.
But then came World War II and the internment of the Japanese Americans. Rising hysteria against the Japanese encouraged President Roosevelt, by Executive Order, to remove Japanese Americans from "military areas" into internment camps in the middle of nowhere. The impact of the mass internment was devastating, as the victims had to liquidate their property in hasty sales -- to the tune of $400 million in 1942 prices. And also devastating culturally, as the family-oriented Japanese Americans were forced to live in military-style barracks.
But the US needed labor. So in the spring of 1942 "some seasonal agricultural laborers were allowed furloughs to help ease farm labor shortages" and the furloughs were eventually changed to "permanent relocations." Then it was hundreds of railroad workers, then 4,000 Nisei college students -- to safe Eastern and Midwestern colleges. And in January 1943, the US started to recruit Nisei into the armed forces. Despite their bitterness, many Japanese American youth "seized the opportunity to prove their loyalty in combat." Then there were the Nisei in every military formation translating often un-coded Japanese military communications into English.
The internments proved a turning point for Japanese Americans.
Never had a group so proved their loyalty under impossible conditions.
In 1946 in California, an anti-Japanese initiative was defeated overwhelmingly by the voters.
After the war, the Issei returned to their former lives and tried to rebuild their businesses. But the Nisei, educated and English speaking, were able to enter the mainstream. Their college degrees enabled them to build careers in "engineering, optometry, or business administration." By 1980 Japanese Americans were earning 11 percent more than ordinary Americans.
Japanese American success is partly because they work more, and partly because they are educated more. But the Issei generation got its start in occupations with little education: "farming, contract gardening, small-business ownership." The new generation is assimilating, and intermarrying, reaching 50 percent in Los Angeles County in 1970. However, among the youth, grade point averages are declining towards the norm, and social problems are on the rise.
Next: The Blacks
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