Early Chinese Americans

[flyingfox2002]

I think we (Chinese-Americans) owe a lot to the Chinese pioneers who first set foot here. Despite inhuman working and living conditions in the US, they still came to make money because life back home was even crappier. They faced systematic discrimination and oppression from not only racist whites, but the US Government. Not even counting the Chinese laborers who were murdered by whities, Chinese laborers were not allowed to bring wives and children so that they could not start a family here. They were denied all type of services, including medical and police. For sixty years, Chinese limmigrants were not allowed to enter the country, the only immigrant group who has ever been denied entry. It was only until Chinese Americans fought alongside whites and contributed to the war effort that the US Govt was shamed to finally repeal the exclusion act - Chinese Americans were allowed to go to China and marry and bring family here. (In fact, that is directly how I am able to be in the US today)

It's incredible the amount of injustice that the first Chinese Americans faced and the amount of spirit they showed to not only not give up but to continue to sneak into the country in innovative ways.

I don't think many Chinese Americans today are aware that their ancestors were treated the same or worse than blacks, whose suffering has at least been widely acknowledged. Not so for the Chinese Americans.

[JamesG]

I think we (Chinese-Americans) owe a lot to the Chinese pioneers who first set foot here. Despite inhuman working and living conditions in the US, they still came to make money because life back home was even crappier. They faced systematic discrimination and oppression from not only racist whites, but the US Government. Not even counting the Chinese laborers who were murdered by whities, Chinese laborers were not allowed to bring wives and children so that they could not start a family here. They were denied all type of services, including medical and police. For sixty years, Chinese immigrants were not allowed to enter the country, the only immigrant group who has ever been denied entry. It was only until Chinese Americans fought alongside whites and contributed to the war effort that the US Govt was shamed to finally repeal the exclusion act - Chinese Americans were allowed to go to China and marry and bring family here. (In fact, that is directly how I am able to be in the US today)

It's incredible the amount of injustice that the first Chinese Americans faced and the amount of spirit they showed to not only not give up but to continue to sneak into the country in innovative ways.

I don't think many Chinese Americans today are aware that their ancestors were treated the same or worse than blacks, whose suffering has at least been widely acknowledged. Not so for the Chinese Americans.

The situation was nearly the same in Canada at that time. The Chinese provided much of the cheap labor for the building of the mountain portion of the Canadian Pacific Railway. We also had the infamous 'Head Tax' which severely limited the re-uniting of the Chinese men here with their families.

[Trien Chieu]

Leave the past behind and look toward the future. What had happened in the past was wrong and the government had acknowledge it. Life needs to move on and there is no need to keep bringing back the old wound and use it as an excuse for personal failure.

[dictionary]

Yes, it's good to reflect on our parents' and ancestors' efforts to come here. I wish more children of my people think about this and realize how good they have it here in America. For some of them, their parents had to go through hell just to bring them here and then having to adjust to a new environment and the challenges it brings. Instead of embracing opportunities opening to them, these children mess up their life, get deported back and struggle all over again, unnecessarily.

[pannonian]

Rewriting of American History: Maxine Hong Kingston's 'China Men'

Following the success of The Woman Warrior (1976) which tells the stories of her female predecessors, Chinese American writer Maxine Hong Kingston’s second memoir, China Men (1980), is a saga of the author's family history and pays tribute to her male ancestors who are the early Chinese immigrants in America. It illustrates the obstacles these Chinese men have surmounted, the mental battle they have engaged in, and the journey they have gone through as sojourners, labourers, and finally legal citizens of the Gold Mountain.

Initiated by the father’s silence and the mother’s ‘talk-stories’ about the men in the family, Kingston reconstructs a mythic family history as she gives voice to her immigrant ancestors, who are obliterated from the family history or official record. Through an intertwining of fantasy, myth, stories, history, and memories, Kingston imaginatively weaves her family history as part of the American history, hence mythically rewriting it as she credits the early Chinese immigrants’ contribution in the establishment of America.