Chinese Americans In The 1800s

In the 1800s, people from across the globe left their homeland to come to the United States. They fled crop failure, rising taxes, oppression, and hunger to seek out a new settlement in the U.S., as it was thought to be a land of opportunity and economic success. People with different religion, language, and appearance were enticed to the United States; however, because of their physical differences, ethnic groups from across the globe faced discrimination and were subject to racialization. Such phenomenon engendered the idea of racial formation: a complex intertwining of social, economic, and political force that structuralize how each individual group views one another. It is a social construct that evolves, circulate, and repeats over time
Amongst the many groups affected were the Chinese and Irish, who both through the process of racial formation, have found a social standing we see in present society.
Chinese Americans began to face widespread discrimination and racialization from the moment they set foot on “Golden Mountains” They migrated to America seeking sanctuary from harsh conditions in China caused by the Opium War, the Taiping Rebellion, and the rising taxes imposed by the Qing government. (expand push and pull factors a bit more) The increase of Chinese immigrants outraged the white population, as they were afraid of them “stealing jobs”, thus racializing them as “heathen, morally inferior, savage, childlike, and lustful.” (Takaki 188). Specifically, a foreign miners’ tax was placed upon to structurally prohibit their integration into society. This tax, along with the 1790 law prohibited their naturalization for citizenship and further aided in the distaste and discrimination of the Chinese within factories and mines. Because of such structural limitations, the men were forced to resort to self-employment such as laundrymen. Men were forced to learn how to perform a women’s occupation, which, subsequently degraded
From “a race of savages” the Irish were able to integrate and achieve whiteness with an “Irish ethic” To make clear distinction from the other minorities, the Irish lashed out to attack the black and used them to facilitate their integration into society. In addition, through structural emergence in politic, they were able to organize entrance for opportunities and jobs. They actively pursued their political voice and emerged through Democratic party. Through leadership and rise of unions, there was a shift in representation. They went from a poor serving class to a skilled middle class laborers. Ironically, to obtain their acceptance within society, they excluded the other minorities and essentially stepped on them to climb up in the social