The Chinese & Japanese Immigrants
The Chinese immigrants began entering California in 1850’s hoping to find gold. They had heard that California was the new frontier, a new frontier that would give them the opportunity for economic riches. Many of these Chinese immigrants were young, and got married in their homeland to hurry and set out for the gold rush, promising their wives and family that they would return home with wealth. Likewise, in the 1880s the Japanese had the same dream. Young and ambitious Japanese immigrants set out for America where they had heard the streets were “paved with gold” (Chan,1991). Little did the Chinese and Japanese immigrants know, they would discover California wasn’t full of gold and riches, nor wealth and opportunity, but a hostile land that would accept them as half-humans and treat them as slaves (Chan,1991).
By coming to California in search of the California dream, both the Chinese and Japanese immigrants gave up far more than they gained (Chan,1991). The Chinese lost their lives at the hands of the railroad and in the hazardous sweatshops and factories of San Francisco (Chan, 1991). The Japanese immigrants relinquished their identity, their heritage, and their chance of owning land (Chan,1991). But more importantly, both groups of immigrants had to give up their chance to have a family and community, living out the rest of their days as laundrymen, dishwashers, restaurant owners, tenant farmers, and factory workers. Eventually, some Chinese immigrants married what few prostitutes remained in the heart of Chinatown, while Japanese farm workers sent over for picture-brides, brides that were ordered by mail; these women would go through wedding ceremonies with the grooms absent, enter their names into their spouses’ family registers, apply for passports, and then sail for America to join their husbands whom they had never met (Lukes,1985). But this land, which had once promised them gold and riches, opportunity and wealth, would continue to take from them. California would eventually attempt to move San Francisco’s Chinatown outside the city limits, curb further immigration, place the children in segregated schools, and ultimately, remove everything including Japanese Americans all together by incarcerating them during World War II. This shows how far the Chinese and Japanese immigrants come, from the Californian dream of wealth and well-being Asian immigrants to outcast in a foreign land and society they dramatically help shape (Chan,1991).
By coming to California in search of the California dream, both the Chinese and Japanese immigrants gave up far more than they gained (Chan,1991). The Chinese lost their lives at the hands of the railroad and in the hazardous sweatshops and factories of San Francisco (Chan, 1991). The Japanese immigrants relinquished their identity, their heritage, and their chance of owning land (Chan,1991). But more importantly, both groups of immigrants had to give up their chance to have a family and community, living out the rest of their days as laundrymen, dishwashers, restaurant owners, tenant farmers, and factory workers. Eventually, some Chinese immigrants married what few prostitutes remained in the heart of Chinatown, while Japanese farm workers sent over for picture-brides, brides that were ordered by mail; these women would go through wedding ceremonies with the grooms absent, enter their names into their spouses’ family registers, apply for passports, and then sail for America to join their husbands whom they had never met (Lukes,1985). But this land, which had once promised them gold and riches, opportunity and wealth, would continue to take from them. California would eventually attempt to move San Francisco’s Chinatown outside the city limits, curb further immigration, place the children in segregated schools, and ultimately, remove everything including Japanese Americans all together by incarcerating them during World War II. This shows how far the Chinese and Japanese immigrants come, from the Californian dream of wealth and well-being Asian immigrants to outcast in a foreign land and society they dramatically help shape (Chan,1991).