Asian Americans Part 5

5. The Chinese American Community, 1880-1945 (October 6)

Chinese American (population, factors, distribution, urbanization, economy, business, associations and function, families and the status of women)

• 1880s - 1920s - Chinese population grows

• Foreign born males still outnumbered citizen males until WWII

• urbanization: Chinese people gradually start to rather live in Cities instead of CA and the West Coast

Bachelor society

• Sex ratio: predominantly bachelor society until WWII

  • 1860 → 18 Chinese men to every Chinese woman

  • 1940 → ratio of 2.9 to 1

• age median: women: 19, men: 42

Dai fou (“big city”)

• San Francisco

• due to urbanization - Chinese people moving into cities

• By 1940, 32.3% of Chinese Americans lived in San Francisco; ≈17,782 of the 55,030 large-city Chinese

• political center for the Overseas Chinese

Chinatowns (‘outpost’ Chinatowns)

• As the Chinese population declined, especially in outpost Chinatowns, Chinese entrepreneurs shifted from serving Chinese customers to serving non-Chinese customers, using strong business networks and treaty-merchant status to survive economically despite discrimination.

• smaller Chinatowns

• Noodle parlors (since the late 19th c., takeout businesses), and Chinese restaurants

• Laundry businesses (symbol of Chinese American enterprise)

• Businesses that required little capital or education, easily learned and easy to buy or sell

Clan system

• village-oriented

• 1 clan for 1 Chinatown

  • Pittsburgh → Yee clan

  • Chicago → Moy clan

  • Denver → Chin clan

Family associations

• sending money to China

• writing letters in Chinatown shops

Four-clan association

• there was no dominant clan - > extended family groups

• The four-clan association headquarters was in San Francisco

• “Invisible government”, council of respected elders (upper class judges); favored the well-to-do

• Children of rival associations did not speak to one another, women did not exchange visits

Chinese Six Companies

• If the clan associations could not agree the case was referred to the Chinese Six Companies in San Francisco

  • Functions: protection, mutual aid to members, dispute-settling organization, contribute to law and order, provide welfare service (funds for widows, orphans, the old, burial, passage money for the old or ill), maintain communication between the U.S. and China, biannual grave visitation ritual, transfer remains for burial in China…etc.

Angel Island

• immigration facility established in 1910 in San Francisco Bay

• Immigrants were often detained there for weeks, if not months, at the facility

• Immigrants were examined, reexamined, and humiliated

• The facility was abandoned in 1940 → 100,000 Chinese arrived by this time

“Paper sons” (and daughters)

• The great San Francisco earthquake of 1906 destroyed the immigration records

• A significant number of Chinese were able to fraudulently claim American citizenship

• Commerce of documents → Chinese immigrants were able to enter the U.S. as other men’s children

• Between 1882 and 1943, around 90% to 95% of Chinese immigrants entered with false papers

“Mutilated” (broken) families

• 4x as many married Chinese men than women

• Segregated school established by the San Francisco School Board for Chinese students

• Separated families

• Term used by sociologist Charles Frederick Marsden

• “Mutilated” (broken) families outnumbered “normal” (united) families in Chinese America unt

Immigration Act of 1924

U.S. law that almost completely stopped immigration from Asia and heavily limited immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe, based on race and nationality.

• Long detention, raids, deportations, Angel Island interrogations

• Long interrogation sessions by officials to examine entrants: merchants, students, and those who claimed citizenship

• national origin system

  • 1906 – 1924 → 150 wives / year were admitted legally

  • 1924 – 1930 → none were admitted, impossible to bring in alien Chinese wives ❖1931 – 1941 → 60 wives / year

  • Act of 1930 allowed the entry of alien wives, if the marriage took place before May 26, 1924.