The first wave of Chinese immigrants arrived to California
in about early/mid 1800s. It wasn’t a very popular movement and the Chinese
were seen as people that couldn’t assimilate to American society. This made
many republicans angry wanted to rid of them by mass deportation. Here we see
one of the beginning trends that wave after wave of immigrants face. A new
people arrive to this country and are seen with mistrust. Humans don’t like
what they don’t know. This wasn’t any different in America. Wave after wave of
immigrants saw this mistreatment from America. One the biggest reasons why the
Americans believed the Chinese couldn’t assimilate was due to their attire.
Most of them still wore traditional clothing and traditional haircuts. Since
they looked and dressed differently they were seen as outcasts. Also when the
economy began to drop in the late 1800s the Chinese immigrants were used as a
scapegoat
.
Which brought upon the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882; which
prohibited all immigration of Chinese laborers. The Chinese immigrants had it
rough especially since a lot of them didn’t speak English and had a hard time
navigating through the cities. Also they were treated as second class citizens.
After seeing a couple cartoons from the Harpers Weekly website it can be inferred
that the media supported those who wanted the immigrants gone. With many of the
cartoons being racist and depicts Chinese immigrants in a very demeaning
manner.
Also articles such as “Mining Life in California” makes Chinese
culture sound unlikeable. Also it talks about how their way of working is old and
inefficient for using traditional methods. It makes them sound their just a nuisance
for American society. I found this really interesting because we’ve seen this
happen with the Irish, Italian and Latino immigrants too. Once a different wave
of immigrants shows up, the blame, prejudice and negative social stigma goes on
them. Even now we can still see some of this today. Not only in America but
also many European countries there is now a negative view on Muslim immigrants.
The reasons are also the way they dress and different cultural norms. Most of these
is because most societies don’t like what they don’t understand. If they can’t
understand someone else’s culture it’s easier to just say that its wrong they
should just assimilate and forget their heritage.
All my information came from this website
Frankenstein's Monsters (Gama), these observations are very apt, and they're why this class exercise was included.
ReplyDeleteI really like how in this post you guys chose to talk about immigration as a post. It’s an important subject to bring up especially concerning our countries history and roots. I was really intrigued by the fact on how you brought up that the Chinese had it “rough,” because that was indeed the case for most to all immigrants coming to America, especially if they couldn’t speak English. I also really enjoyed the fact how you brought up that Immigrants even these days are treated as second class citizens, because our country is based off of the land of opportunity, yet we still don’t truly always live up to that. I believe you guys brought up some very valuable points and had a great post. Overall, great post and good job. This response was brought to you by TEAM WHY: Joshua Zaborowski & Savanah Atabelo.
ReplyDelete