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Chinese Americans (; "American-national Chinese") are residents or citizens of the United States who are of Chinese descent. Chinese Americans constitute one group of overseas Chinese and are a subgroup of Asian Americans. Numbering 2.7 million in 2000, Chinese Americans make up 22.4% of Asian Americans (larger than any other Asian American subgroup), and constitute nearly 1% of the United States as a whole.
Immigration
Main article: Chinese immigration to the United States
Chinese immigration to the United States has come in many waves. Like all the American immigration experiences, the Chinese immigration has seen both hardship and success. This experience has added richness to the American experience and is a triumphant story of the pursuit of the American Dream.
Citizenship
Legally all ethnic Chinese born in the United States are American citizens as a result of the Fourteenth Amendment and the 1898 United States v. Wong Kim Ark Supreme Court decision. Upon naturalization, immigrants are required to renounce their former citizenship. The People's Republic of China does not recognize dual citizenship and considers this a renunciation of PRC citizenship. The Republic of China not only recognizes dual citizenship, but also does not recognize the American naturalization oath as renouncing citizenship.
Life in America
Chinese Americans have made many large strides in American society. Today, Chinese Americans engage in every facet of American life including the military, elected offices, media, academia, and sports. Many Chinese Americans (along with other Asian Americans) have adapted to the American lifestyle over the years and assimilated into the American melting pot. Some, primarily female, even prefer to marry caucasians. Others choose not to inter-marry and associate mainly with fellow Chinese Americans.
Chinese restaurants have become commonplace in the U.S. Chinese heritage is celebrated not only by most Chinese Americans, but also by mainstream America; the most prominent of these is the Chinese New Year celebration. However, not all Chinese Americans celebrate the Chinese New Year or observe other Chinese holidays. Some do not even pass down the traditions to their children.
Chinese American income and social status varies widely. Although many Chinese Americans in Chinatowns of large cities are poor, others are well-educated upper-class people living in affluent suburbs. The upper and lower-class Chinese are also widely separated by social status. In California's San Gabriel Valley, for example, even though the cities of Monterey Park and San Marino are both Chinese American communities lying geographically close to each other, they are separated by a large socio-economic and income gap.
Language
Although Chinese Americans grow up learning English, some of them tend to make their children learn Chinese too, due to a feeling of pride in their cultural ancestry. However, some Chinese Americans make assimilation a priority and prefer not to make their children learn Chinese, instead letting them completely immerse in an English-speaking environment, whilst others make it the top priority for their children to speak both the native tongue and english together.
Major contributions
- Building Western half of the Transcontinental railroad.
- Building levees in the Sacramento River Delta.
- Developing and cultivating much of the Western US farmland.
- Science and technology.
- Education.
Influence on American culture
Demographics
Cities with large Chinese American populations include New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, Seattle and Philadelphia. In these cities, there are often multiple Chinatowns, an older one and a newer one which is populated by immigrants from the 1960s and 1970s. In some areas, Chinese Americans maintain close relationships with other Asian groups, particularly Vietnamese Americans. These relationships are helped by the fact that many Vietnamese Americans are ethnic overseas Chinese, although most ethnic Chinese Vietnamese Americans do not classify themselves as Vietnamese American.
In addition to the big cities, smaller pockets of Chinese Americans are also dispersed in rural towns, often university towns, throughout the United States. Chinese Americans formed nearly three percent of California's population in 2000, and over one percent in the Northeast. Hawaii, with its historically heavily-Asian population, was nearly ten percent Chinese American.
As a whole, Chinese American populations continue to grow at a rapid rate due to immigration. However, they also on average have birth rates lower than those of Caucasian Americans, and as such their population is aging relatively quickly. In recent years, adoption of young children, especially girls, from China has also brought a boost to the numbers of Chinese Americans, although most of the adoptions appear to have been done by white parents.
Different Chinese American identities
The Chinese American identities in the United States are quite varied. There are two main aspects to that identity: ethnicity and culture. A person can claim the Chinese American identity through either his/her ethnic affiliation or cultural affiliation, or both. For example, some Chinese Americans identify themselves as ethnic Chinese, but not cultural Chinese, and some Chinese Americans identify themselves as cultural Chinese but not ethnic Chinese.
Ethnic affiliation
- First generation Chinese Americans (recent immigrants, either residents or naturalized citizens).
- 1.5 generation Chinese Americans.
- Second generation and later generation Chinese Americans, also known as American-born Chinese or ABC.
- Chinese students studying in American universities.
- Chinese children adopted into non-Chinese American families.
Chinese-centric identification
Many Chinese Americans, mostly those who are immigrants, identify mainly as Chinese or Overseas Chinese without much identification as being American, even though in many cases they may have American citizenship or have resided in the U.S. for long periods of time. These Chinese Americans still consider their place of origin to be their homeland, and feel that they are sojourners who are displaced from home, as opposed to considering the U.S. as their home and are ethnic minorities living in their homeland.Cultural affiliation
People who consider themselves as Chinese Americans through their identification with the Chinese culture, but they may or may not identify themselves as ethnic Chinese.
Bicultural identity
Many Chinese Americans claim bicultural identity - affiliating with both Chinese culture and Euro-American culture.
American identity
Some decide that neither Chinese ethnic, nor cultural affliation is appropriate and self-identify as just American.
Politics
Chinese Americans are divided among many subgroups based on factors such as generation, place of origin, socio-economic level, and do not have uniform attitudes about the People's Republic of China, the Republic of China, the United States, or Chinese nationalism, with attitudes varying widely between active support, hostility, or indifference. Different subgroups of Chinese Americans also have radically different and sometimes very conflicting political priorities and goals. It is for this reason that Chinese Americans do not have any unified political groups or any unified political viewpoints.
In recent decades, many Chinese Americans have started pursuing careers in politics, and succeeded in getting elected into political offices. The most prominent is Gary Locke who became the first Chinese American governor in U.S. history. Others include March Fong Eu, Matt Fong, Thomas Tang, Norman Bay, Elaine Chao, and David Wu.
Racial discrimination
Two incidents have energized some Chinese Americans and other Asian Americans, particularly American-born Chinese in recent years -- the murder of Vincent Chin by white automotive workers in 1982 and the unsubstantiated charges of spying against Chinese American nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1999, whom many believe was a victim of racial stereotyping.
During the Cultural Revolution, Chinese Americans, like all overseas Chinese, generally speaking, were viewed as capitalist traitors by the People's Republic of China government. Chinese citizens with relatives in the United States faced extra suspicion and scrutiny. This attitude changed completely in the late 1970s with the reforms of Deng Xiaoping. Increasingly, Chinese Americans were seen as sources of business and technical expertise and capital who could aid in China's development (economic and otherwise).
See also
- American-born Chinese
- British Chinese
- Chinese Australian
- Chinese Canadian
- Chinese New Zealander
- List of Chinese Americans
- List of U.S. cities with large Chinese American populations
- Overseas Chinese
- Model Minority
- Chinese Exclusion Act
- Committee of 100
External links
- Museum of Chinese in the Americas
- Organization of Chinese Americans
- Chinese Historical Society of America
- The Asians in America Project - Chinese American Organizations Directory
- "Paper Son" - one Chinese American's story of coming to America under the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
- Becoming American: The Chinese Experience a PBS Bill Moyers special
- Chinese-American Contribution to Transcontinental Railroad - Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum
- Emerging Information Technology Conference (EITC), organized by several Chinese American organizations
- Famous Chinese Americans Comprehensive list of famous Chinese Americans organized by professions. Includes short biographical notes and Chinese names.
- Chinese Information and Networking Association (CINA)
- Northwest Chinese Professionals Association
Further reading
- Chinese Americans and Their Immigrant Parents: Conflict, Identity, and Values, May Pao-May Tung, Haworth Press, 2000, paperback, 112 pages, ISBN 0789010569
- Chinese Americans: The Immigrant Experience, Dusanka Miscevic and Peter Kwong, Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, 2000, hardcover, 240 pages, ISBN 0-88363-128-8
- Compelled To Excel: Immigration, Education, And Opportunity Among Chinese Americans, Vivian S. Louie, Stanford University Press, 2004, paperback, 272 pages, ISBN 080474985x
- The Chinese in America: A Narrative History, Iris Chang, Viking, 2003, hardcover, 496 pages, ISBN 0-670-03123-2
- Being Chinese, Becoming Chinese American, Shehong Chen, University of Illinois Press, 2002 ISBN 0252027361 electronic book
- On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family, Lisa See, 1996. ISBN 0679768521. See also the website for an exhibition based on this book * from the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program.
Chinese American history | Chinese Americans | Ethnic groups in the United States | Overseas Chinese groups
"Chinese American"