Temple University Press Chapter Title: The Chinese Diaspora and International Migration Book Title: Contemporary Chinese America Book Subtitle: Immigration, Ethnicity, and Community Transformation Book Author(s): Min Zhou Published by: Temple University Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt14btf41.7 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Temple University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Contemporary Chinese America This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:02:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms I Historical and Global Contexts This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:02:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:02:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 1 The Chinese Diaspora and International Migration C hinese America is a part of the Greater Chinese Diaspora. International migration among Chinese people is centuries old: long before European colonists set foot on the Asian continent, the Chinese moved across sea and land, seasonally or permanently, to other parts of Asia and the rest of the world to earn a living and support their families. In this chapter I offer a historical overview of Chinese emigration as a basis for understanding contemporary Chinese immigration to the United States. History has witnessed distinct patterns of emigration from China to the outside world and from Chinese diasporic communities to other countries.1 About 35 million overseas Chinese (huaqiao 华侨) and people of Chinese ancestry (huayi 华裔) live outside mainland China (including Hong Kong and Macao) and Taiwan.2 People of Chinese ancestry have spread across the globe to more than 150 countries: over 80 percent in Asia (approximately 75 percent of the total in Southeast Asia) and about 13 percent in the Americas.3 In the mid-1990s, countries with the largest number of people with Chinese ancestry included Indonesia (7.3 million), Thailand (6.4 million), Malaysia (5.5 million), Singapore (2.3 million), and the United States (2.7 million).4 The extent of the Chinese Diaspora is captured in an old saying: “There are Chinese people wherever the ocean waves touch.”5 How do the centuries-old Diaspora and its longstanding migrant networks interact with broader structural factors: colonization, decolonization, nation-state building, and changes in political regimes? In order to map the courses and patterns of international migration, I first provide a historical analysis of Chinese emigration and then discuss the implications of This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:02:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 24 / Chapter 1 contemporary Chinese migration for both countries of origin and countries of destination. I identify distinct streams of emigration from China and remigration from the Chinese Disapora after World War II and demonstrate that each is contingent upon historical factors. As we will see, local and global economies, diasporic communities, and migration networks interact with the states at the origin as well as the destination to shape the direction and nature of international migration. The Chinese Trade Diaspora and Huashang-Dominated Intra-Asian Migration Emigration patterns change over time and space. The Chinese people and the Chinese state have responded to, and influenced, migration differently depending on the circumstances. It is thus important to place migration in historical context, tracing the centuries-old Chinese trade diaspora and the migration networks that have emerged from it. Large-scale international migration across the Asian continent and the globe did not occur until the mid-nineteenth century. Chinese people had always moved from their places of birth in search of means and opportunities for survival and betterment, of course, but in the past they did so selectively and seasonally, usually traveling to neighboring towns and cities. Between the twelfth and the sixteenth centuries, few people, regardless of ethnicity, ventured off shore or traveled long distances from home. One of the significant groups that went overseas in large numbers was the Chinese.6 Huashang (华商) is a Chinese term referring to traders, merchants, and artisans. This group dominated Chinese emigration, particularly to Southeast Asia, prior to the mid-1850s.7 In this section, I examine how Chinese maritime commerce gave rise to the huashang class, and how the emerging huashang class and the resulting Chinese trade diaspora in Southeast Asia affected patterns of international migration in general and intra-Asian migration in particular. Pre-Nineteenth-Century Maritime Commerce Prior to the nineteenth century, international migration largely consisted of tribute missions to the Chinese empire and the trading of indigenous tropical products and Chinese-manufactured commodities. As early as the Tang dynasty (618–907), when China was the largest, richest, most sophisticated state in the world, maritime trade was already well developed and thriving. The Chinese who ventured overseas were referred to as Tangren, “Tang people.”8 During the 1100s, they strengthened and extended their trade routes through the South China Sea to Southeast Asia, a region that the Chinese historically referred to as Nanyang (“southern ocean”).9 During that period, the Chinese empire had formal trade relations with neighboring Korea, Burma, Siam, Vietnam, and the kingdom of Ryukyu (Okinawa), while local officials and private traders conducted informal trade with foreign merchants through key Southeast Asian port-states, such as This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:02:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms The Chinese Diaspora and International Migration / 25 Ayudhya, Malacca, and Brunei.10 The Philippines and Borneo were then ruled by chieftains struggling to turn their territories into states.11 During the heyday of overseas trade, the Southern Song dynasty (1127– 1279), porcelain, textiles, and lacquer production flourished, and printing and publishing technologies were well developed. Depictions of Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean drawn from the perspective of Chinese trading ports appeared in books and other printed materials.12 Trade continued to flourish and expanded into Russia and Persia under the rule of the Mongols, who conquered China and launched the Yuan dynasty (1279–1368). The Yuan imperial court promoted trade with the Arabs, allowed Islam to take root in China, and sponsored numerous expeditions to Japan, Java, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Burma. The court succeeded in pressing Vietnam, Cambodia, and Burma to recognize its suzerainty but failed to persuade Japan and Java.13 After the fall of the Yuan dynasty, however, the succeeding Ming rulers (1368–1644) banned all private overseas trade in an attempt to exert tighter control on maritime commerce and curb foreign influences. Meanwhile, the Ming emperor aggressively sought to incorporate Southeast Asian states into the empire’s tribute system, which defined the hierarchical relationship of imperial China with neighboring states and kingdoms. Long before the arrival of the Europeans in the 1600s, the Chinese dominated trade in most of the Nanyang region, turning many Southeast Asian port-cities into entrepôts for Chinese silk, porcelains, and other manufactured goods. Unlike present-day trade, early trade often required that merchants physically travel from one place to another or even settle temporarily outside the home country.14 As Chinese traders, merchants, and artisans proceeded from site to site, their circular movements from China to Nanyang and back became increasingly frequent and regular, giving rise to the huashang class and more stable overseas Chinese communities. Huashang would also take their workers abroad with them for a short period and then return home to prepare for the next journey. When the Dutch and English arrived in the Nanyang region in 1600, they found large and distinct Chinese resident communities already established in key port-cities such as Brunei, Malacca, Western Java, Batavia, Manila, southern Siam, and Phnom Penh. Thus, pre-colonial Chinese emigration was intertwined with trade and dominated by huashang and their seasonal workers, who were mostly their own relatives or village folk.15 Those who were resettled in the foreign land acted as “middleman minorities,” turning their areas of settlement into bustling marketplaces and dominating internal and international trade with their economic activities.16 In the process, they planted the seeds for increased Chinese trade and subsequent emigration. The Role of the Imperial Chinese State The imperial Chinese state had long been ambivalent about emigration. Sometimes it allowed Chinese to go overseas but discouraged their return; sometimes This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:02:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 26 / Chapter 1 it favored out-migration, taking a keen interest in migrant remittances. At other times it closed off its borders and prohibited international migration altogether.17 In times of prosperity or depression alike, the Chinese state played a paramount role in shaping patterns of international migration and the development of the Chinese Diaspora. In the early Ming dynasty, private trade and any trade outside the tribute system (e.g., trade with Japan) was banned, making it difficult for merchants and traders to move to and from China freely. Later on, the imperial state relaxed restrictions on private and localized maritime commerce but banned overseas residence.18 The succeeding Qing imperial court (1644–1911) inherited this hostile attitude toward emigration and made overseas travel and residence a capital crime punishable by beheading.19 Almost all trade with foreigners during that time was restricted to the port of Guangzhou (Canton). By the time restrictive trade policies were implemented in the late fourteenth century, however, the huashang class had already developed innovative strategies to bypass state regulations. These were later institutionalized to facilitate migration and the formation of diasporic communities overseas. For example, the Ming court’s restriction of overseas trade with Japan drove the Chinese seasonal merchants and traders, mostly Fujianese, to seek permanent refuge in Japan’s port-cities, notably Nagasaki. This Chinese settlement, in turn, established new routes linking Fujian, Taiwan, and Manila.20 Despite the ban, overseas and overland private trade in South and Southeast China boomed and showed little sign of slowing down. An ancient Chinese saying—“the mountain is high and the emperor is far away”—accurately described the attitude of local officials and traders in Guangdong and Fujian provinces. By the early fifteenth century, diasporic trade communities flourished in Nanyang. In 1567 the Ming court relaxed its ban on informal trade overseas, and new Southeast Asian port-cities flourished: Manila in the Philippines, Hoi An in the southern Vietnamese state, Phnom Penh in Cambodia, Patani in Malaya, the pepper port in West Java, and the Dutch port of Batavia.21 Relaxation of the emigration policy led to a boom in the overseas junk trade, which was already rapidly developing, and a tremendous outflow of traders, miners, planters, shipbuilders, mariners, and adventurers of all kinds.22 Most of the bans on private trade abroad were revoked in 1727. In 1754, the Qing imperial court declared for the first time that law-abiding emigrants could safely return home and that their property would be protected.23 At the peak of stability and prosperity, the Chinese empire acted aggressively toward its neighboring states, incorporating Korea into the tribute system during the 1630s (the late Ming dynasty) and invading Burma in 1766 and Vietnam in 1788 (Qing dynasty). In the last decade of the eighteenth century, tribute missions from Korea and Southeast Asian tribute states visited the Chinese emperor two to four times a year.24 Intra-Asian trade and tribute missions to China reached a peak in 1790, despite Western colonization in Southeast Asia, and remained high until the decline of the Chinese empire in the mid-1840s. Trade and tribute missions, in turn, stimulated further emigration from, rather than immigration into, China. This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:02:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms The Chinese Diaspora and International Migration / 27 During what the historian Anthony Reid calls the “Chinese century” (1740– 1840), nearly one million Chinese were resettled in Southeast Asia, representing 3 percent of the region’s population.25 The ethnic Chinese population was estimated at around 30,000 in Bangka in the mid-1700s.26 In Batavia, ethnic Chinese accounted for 10 percent of the total population in the early 1810s.27 Siam, Java, and Borneo each had about 100,000 Chinese, representing 46 to 65 percent of the total population in the early 1820s.28 Diasporic communities took root overseas, dominated by merchants and traders, who were both sojourners and settlers.29 For example, almost all of the 11,500 seamen who were engaged in Bangkok’s maritime trade were of Chinese descent.30 But not all early Chinese emigrants were huashang. As the settling huashang started to invest in agriculture, mining, and other land-based ventures, they brought in workers from their ancestral villages to work on these new enterprises. During this period, most of the emigrants were Chaozhounese (Teochiu) from southeast Guangdong province or Fujianese from coastal regions of Fujian province. These pioneer emigrants were primarily involved in cash-crop farming, developing such goods as sugar, pepper, gambier, and rubber, as well as in tin and gold mining. Many of the products were developed by the Chinese merchant class and produced mainly for the Chinese and international markets.31 The diasporic communities served to strengthen both formal and informal trade connections and facilitate subsequent emigration from China. Semi-Colonialism and Huagong-Dominated International Migration European colonists arrived in Southeast Asian continental and island states in the early sixteenth century.32 The Spanish occupied the central Philippine archipelago in 1521, captured Manila in 1571, and extended their control to Cebu and other islands in the Philippines.33 The Dutch East Indies Company turned the scattered forts and trading posts in the archipelago into a colonial empire.34 In the nineteenth century, Western colonization and expansion peaked. The Dutch took over Indonesia in 1799. The British occupied and ruled territories on the Malay Peninsula, including Singapore in 1819. In the mid-nineteenth century, the British defeated China in two Opium Wars, forcing it to open its ports and turn over Hong Kong to British control, and making China a semi-colonial state.35 The French annexed Cochin China (three provinces in the southernmost part of Vietnam) in 1864 and the whole of Vietnam in 1885. By 1887 they had formed the Union Indochinoise, which included Cambodia and later Laos.36 Japan, during the same period, rose from a long national seclusion and aggressively pursued industrialization and modernization. In 1894 it defeated China in the Sino-Japanese War, and the Qing dynasty ceded Taiwan and the Liaodong Peninsula in South Manchuria.37 Colonial expansion allowed Western private enterprises to develop plantation agriculture and mining and extract petroleum and other natural resources This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:02:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 28 / Chapter 1 in the newly occupied colonies, while expanding their markets in the region. European colonists began to import Chinese contract laborers—often referred to as “coolies” (literally meaning “bitter strength” in Chinese)—to build infrastructure and work in plantations and mines.38 The changing regional geopolitics significantly altered the nature and course of international migration. The Century of Defeat and Humiliation and the Fall of the Chinese Empire What succeeded the “Chinese century” of stability and prosperity was a century of defeat and humiliation. Two Opium Wars (1840–1842 with Britain; 1856– 1860 with Britain and France), combined with internal turmoil, shook the foundation of the Chinese empire. The first Opium War was ignited in 1839 when the imperial Qing government confiscated opium warehouses in Guangzhou. Britain sent warships to the city in February 1840 and won a quick victory. Consequently, China was forced to sign the Treaty of Nanjing (Nanking) on August 29, 1842, and a supplementary treaty the following year. Under these unequal treaties, China had to pay a large indemnity, open five ports to British trade and residence (Guangzhou to the south, Fuzhou and Xiamen to the southeast, Ningbo and Shanghai to the east), and cede Hong Kong. These same treaties gave British citizens in China the right to be tried in British courts and imposed on China the requirement that any rights granted to one foreign power must also be given to others. The second Opium War further undermined the power of the Chinese empire. In October 1856 Guangzhou police boarded the British ship Arrow and charged its crew with smuggling. Eager to gain more trading rights in China, the British used this incident to launch another offensive. British forces, aided by the French, won another quick military battle in 1857 and presented China with the Treaty of Tianjin (Tientsin), demanding that China open additional trading ports, allow foreign emissaries to reside in the capital, admit Christian missionaries, and open travel to the interior. When China refused to ratify the treaty, fighting resumed. In 1860 British and French troops occupied Beijing and burned the imperial Summer Palace. The Qing government was forced to ratify the treaty. Later negotiations compelled it to legalize the importation of opium.39 During this period of attacks and defeats by foreign powers, the Taiping Rebellion in the south and a series of peasant uprisings elsewhere in the country weakened the power of the state and accelerated the empire’s decline. The Taiping Rebellion (1851–1864), led by the Kejia (Hakka) “God worshipper” Hong Xiuquan (Hung Hsiu-ch’uan), was a popular uprising aimed at overthrowing the Qing regime and building an egalitarian society. Starting from Guangxi province, Hong proclaimed himself king of the Heavenly Kingdom, led his forces through Hunan and Hebei provinces and along the Yangtze River, and finally captured Nanjing in 1853. He declared it the capital of the Heavenly Kingdom and instituted an authoritarian government based on Christian beliefs This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:02:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms The Chinese Diaspora and International Migration / 29 and an ancient Chinese egalitarian ideal of dividing land equally among the peasants. In 1864 a new imperial Qing army, aided by foreign powers, put down the rebellion.40 Hong committed suicide upon the fall of Nanjing. The 11-year revolt, which cost the lives of approximately 20 million people, had almost toppled the Qing dynasty.41 The declining Chinese empire was soon challenged and defeated by a rising Asian power. When Japan launched a war with the empire in 1894, China had little strength to resist and had to recognize Japan’s control over Korea and give it the island of Taiwan. Britain, France, Germany, and Russia soon forced the crumbling Chinese empire to grant more trading rights and territories. It appeared likely that China would eventually be divided into colonies by Japan and the Western powers. However, a growing nationalism among the Chinese and rivalry among foreign powers prevented full colonization.42 Grassroots rebels, nationalist intellectuals, and members of the government-backed secret societies rose up against foreign, particularly Christian, influence and subjugation. The best-known of these were the Boxers, whose 1900 rebellion attacked Western missionaries, “east ocean devils” (Japanese), “west ocean devils” (other westerners), and Chinese Christians. The Boxer Rebellion was soon suppressed by an allied force drawn from eight foreign nations. Afterward, a segment of the Qing government promoted Japanese Meiji-type reform to rebuild the regime, the economy, and a Western-style army, but the reform came too late. The last dynasty fell in 1911. The decline of the Chinese empire into a semi-colonial state after the two Opium Wars coincided with rapid Western colonization and Japan’s rise in the region. These trends had a profound impact on Chinese emigration. In particular, Western expansion into China and Southeast Asia broke the Chinese dominance of intra-Asian trade by transforming Asia’s export economy and making East-West trade an arm of the world market for manufactured goods, food products, and industrial raw materials. On the one hand, the new East-West trade opportunities beyond Asia turned the huashang class, who had dominated intraAsian trade for centuries, into agents for, or partners of, the European traders and colonists. The huashang class later played an important role in contract labor recruitment.43 On the other hand, agricultural and industrial developments in new colonies opened new opportunities for Chinese diasporic communities to expand beyond trade into the plantation economy and mining, creating a tremendous demand for labor.44 China’s vast population became a limitless source of labor, and its centuries-old migration networks were in place to facilitate Chinese labor, or huagong (华工), migration. Huagong-Dominated Emigration In the century between the mid-1840s and World War II, there were two distinct types of Chinese emigration. The huashang-dominated migration stream was more or less a continuation of pre-colonial emigration; the higher-volume This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:02:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 30 / Chapter 1 huagong-dominated stream largely involved contract labor.45 Most of the latter headed for Southeast Asia, while much smaller numbers went to Hawaii, the South Pacific, and the Americas. Most Chinese contract laborers in Southeast Asia worked for Western colonists, but some worked for other overseas Chinese who owned plantations and mines in Western colonies.46 Those heading elsewhere worked entirely for Western colonialists. Huagong-dominated emigration during the second half of the nineteenth century and the first four decades of the twentieth shared some remarkable similarities to earlier streams in terms of origins and destinations. First, huagong-dominated emigration was based on dialect groups and originated in the same regions as the migration in the heyday of the maritime trade. These similarities indicate an intrinsic linkage between emigration and earlier trade diasporas. As I have noted, most of the earlier Chinese migrants were from Guangdong and Fujian provinces.47 A small proportion was from areas bordering Vietnam in Guangxi province and from areas bordering Burma and Laos in Yunan province. Laborers who went to Korea and Japan during the 1920s and 1930s were mostly recruited by the Japanese colonial government from Shandong province on the east coast.48 According to surveys conducted in the mid1950s, there were approximately 20 million overseas Chinese spread around the world, 60 percent of them (12 million) in Southeast Asia. Among the Southeast Asian Chinese, 68 percent (8.2 million) were of Chaozhounese or Cantonese origin, and 31 percent (3.7 million) of Fujianese origin. These emigrants were not evenly distributed across destinations, however.49 In the Philippines, the Chinese population was almost entirely Fujianese in 1800; a hundred years later, between 85 and 90 percent of the people of Chinese descent there were Fujianese, and the rest were Cantonese.50 In Cambodia, the people of Chinese descent were dominated by two dialect groups from Guangdong—the Cantonese and Chaozhounese.51 In Malaysia, Kejia (Hakka) was the dominant dialect group among the Chinese from Fujian and Guangdong. In contrast, almost all (99 percent) of the Chinese immigrants in North and South America and the West Indies in that period were from Guangdong.52 Within a particular province, emigrants tended to come from just a few places. For example, most of the emigrants who went to Southeast Asia were from eastern Guangdong—particularly the Chaozhou-Shantou (Swatow) region—while the emigrants who went to the Philippines and the Americas were mostly from southwest Guangdong, and particularly the Si Yi (Sze Yap) and San Yi (Sam Yap) regions.53 In Thailand (Siam before 1939), 95 percent of the Chinese immigrants or Sino-Thais could trace their origin to the Chaozhou-Shantou region.54 In the Philippines, almost all the Cantonese emigrants were from the Si Yi region. As for the United States, close to 75 percent of the Chinese immigrants in San Francisco in the Chinese Exclusion era were from Taishan (Toishan—a part of Si Yi). Second, huagong-dominated emigration disproportionately flowed toward established diasporic communities in Southeast Asia. Relatively small but fluctuating numbers went to Hawaii, North America, the West Indies, and South This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:02:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms The Chinese Diaspora and International Migration / 31 America. It was estimated that 320,000 Chinese emigrated between 1801 and 1850: 63 percent of them went to Southeast Asian destinations, 6 percent to Hawaii and the United States, 5 percent to the West Indies, and 8 percent to Cuba and Peru. The next 25 years (1851–1875) saw record-high Chinese immigration to Hawaii, the United States, and Canada (17 percent), Cuba (11 percent), and Peru (9 percent).55 But the volume pouring into Southeast Asia was still quite substantial: about 27 percent of the Chinese emigrants went to the Malay Peninsula, 20 percent to the East Indies, and 4 percent to the Philippines. Between 1876 and 1900, the period of Chinese exclusion in America, the figure for the Malay Peninsula rose to 48 percent and for the East Indies to 43 percent, while the total heading for Hawaii, the United States, and Canada dropped below 3 percent.56 Third, huagong-dominated emigration was circular, accompanied by high rates of return migration. Emigrant Chinese, merchants, traders, and laborers alike, were predominantly sojourning males. The patriarchal family system facilitated the formation of the bachelor society abroad, since sons, regardless of birth order, could claim an equal share of the patrimony upon their return, but daughters were forbidden to leave home. The male sojourner typically left his family behind; often he returned home to get married and then left his bride behind to take care of his parents and raise his children. He routinely sent remittances home and hoped to return in the not-so-distant future. Merchants and traders, who usually spent a considerable amount of time in an overseas location that served as a temporary home, traveled frequently between their homes in China and their places of business overseas. Laborers, especially those who worked on plantations and in mines and lived in camps near their work sites, were more constrained; many could not afford frequent home visits. Nonetheless, the overall return rates were high. The return rate in Thailand, for example, was 57 percent between 1882 and 1905, 78 percent between 1906 and 1917, and 68 percent between 1918 and 1945; it dropped to 40 percent between 1946 and 1955.57 Pre-colonial and Colonial Migrations Compared Huagong-dominated emigration during the colonial period highlighted the significance of the historical relationship between the centuries-old Chinese trade diaspora and emigration. It was distinct from pre-colonial huashang-dominated migration in several remarkable respects. First, even though huagong migrants came from roughly the same regions (i.e., Guangdong and Fujian provinces), they were mostly contract laborers working for Western colonists rather than for the Chinese. In the pre-colonial era, a typical worker was a relative or a fellow villager working for a coethnic merchant or trader who ran a shop, a farm, or a mine. In the colonial era, a typical worker was a contract laborer. Moreover, even though most huagong migrants headed for the same destinations as laborers in the pre-colonial era, they were more responsive to labor demand. In the pre-colonial era, trade and local investment by the Chinese created This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:02:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 32 / Chapter 1 labor demands that were easily met by a single extended family or by a clan from the home village, and labor migration routes followed the old diasporic trade routes. In the colonial era, large-scale developments in the plantation economy, mining, and infrastructure building demanded a disproportionately large amount of labor. Contract laborers were mostly recruited through diasporic Chinese family or clan networks, but were not evenly distributed to all Western colonies, or to places where Chinese diasporic communities were well established. For example, the Philippines, East Indies, and Malay Peninsula attracted over 95 percent of all contract labor to Southeast Asia. At the peak years (1851–1875), 350,000 laborers arrived in British colonies in the Malay Peninsula, 250,000 in the Dutch East Indies, and 45,000 in the Spanish-ruled Philippines.58 Vietnam also attracted a considerable number; between 1923 and 1951, 1.2 million Chinese arrived in Vietnam to work as contract laborers (of whom 850,000 returned to China).59 In contrast, few contract laborers went to French-ruled Cambodia and Laos. Third, the financing of huagong emigration was distinct.60 In the past, the huashang class themselves established home-village-based networks to sponsor migration. Colonial-era huagong migration was facilitated by two main means: the credit ticket system and labor contracts. Merchants and traders acted as labor brokers and agents to recruit prospective workers, not only from their own villages but also from similar dialect groups in the sending regions. Most of the laborers were poor and uneducated peasants who could not afford the journey. Either money was advanced by their labor brokers (their village kin or other overseas Chinese) or they signed labor contracts to pay the cost of the journey from wages earned at their destinations. Only those with direct connections to centuries-old diasporic communities or to labor migrant networks were likely to leave. Fourth, huagong migration was highly organized and controlled, and emigrants were shipped off in large numbers from selected ports. For example, Chinese labor migrants to Malaysia were assembled in Macao and then shipped overseas. Once in the Malay Peninsula, they were often referred to as “Macaos” by the locals, even though they were Cantonese, Chaoshanese, Fujianese, Kejias (Hakkas), or Hainanese.61 The British labor recruitment agencies also ran operations in Hong Kong, Guangzhou, and Shantou in consultation with Chinese authorities.62 Those headed for Hawaii and the Americas during the same period primarily assembled in Macao and Hong Kong before sailing across the Pacific.63 Fifth, even when huagong migrants arrived in places with longstanding Chinese diasporic communities, many had to stay on plantations or in work camps, isolated in sojourning quarters away from the established Chinese communities. Those who were unable to send money home or could not afford to go home to find someone to marry often ended up marrying indigenous women and resettling permanently. Intermarriage thus became increasingly common in certain destinations. Many descendents of these marriages (e.g., mestizos in the Philippines, jeks in Thailand, peranakan in Indonesia, babas or nyonya in the Malay Peninsula, and sino-Viets in Vietnam) were assimilated into the local cultures; others were accepted as Chinese, becoming members of the overseas Chinese communities.64 This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:02:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms The Chinese Diaspora and International Migration / 33 In sum, during the colonial period, China was the largest labor-export country in Asia. Nearly two-thirds of Chinese emigrants went to Asian destinations, and most were contract laborers. Most of those who went to Southeast Asia returned home after their contracts ended, but some stayed and were integrated into the local Chinese communities. The countries in Southeast Asia that simultaneously received and sent out migrants were those ruled by Western colonists. For example, the Dutch East Indies received over 300,000 Chinese labor migrants, while the colonial government sponsored the resettlement of 30,000 natives of Java to the sparsely populated outer islands during the same period.65 The Philippines under Spanish rule received over 65,000 Chinese laborers between 1850 and 1900 and continued to receive Chinese immigrants even after the country changed its colonial masters in 1898 and implemented restrictive and antiChinese immigration legislation. Meanwhile, thousands of Filipino laborers were shipped to Hawaii and the U.S. west coast to replace Chinese and Japanese labor: 45,000 in the 1920s.66 During World War II, emigration from China ebbed; thereafter, intra-Asian migration took a crucial turn. Large-scale emigration from China to Southeast Asia testified to the weakness of the Chinese state as well as the resilience of the Chinese Diaspora. Even though China was not colonized by any single nation, it had only limited control over the contract labor demands of Western colonists in Southeast Asia and the Americas, and little power to protect its nationals from harsh exploitation and mistreatment.67 The apathy and incompetence of the Chinese government indirectly strengthened the cohesion and organization of diasporic Chinese communities overseas. These communities were initially established to provide aid to the sojourning workers, protect them from external competition and threats such as anti-Chinese violence and legislation, and enhance profits and economic opportunities for ethnic elite groups. The overseas huashang elite in diasporic communities played a more active role in labor migration than the state. Chinese Emigration in the Post–World War II Era Decolonization, Nation-State Building, and Restrictive Migration From the late Ming dynasty to the end of World War II, more than 10 million Chinese emigrated to various parts of the world, with about two-thirds settling in Southeast Asia.68 World War II shattered colonial dominance over Asia, causing Western colonists to struggle to regain colonial mastery. The Japanese lost the war along with their Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere and all their colonies. The British gave up the Indian subcontinent but resumed control over Malaya and Hong Kong; the French regained control over Indochina; and the Dutch attempted to take back the East Indies with British support.69 However, inspired by Marxist ideologies, grassroots nationalist movements for independence sprang up everywhere in former colonies in Asia. Within one decade after This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:02:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 34 / Chapter 1 the war, nearly all the Western colonies in Southeast Asia—the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaya, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos—collapsed.70 With colonists gone, indigenous nationalist and socialist fractions in many newly independent nations competed for power and struggled to rebuild their countries while exercising stricter control over their borders, which had a profoundly negative effect on postwar Chinese emigration. The slowdown of Chinese emigration can also be attributed to geopolitical developments in East Asia during the three decades following World War II. The surrender and departure of the Japanese in 1945 left China deeply divided between the ruling Kuomintang Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). After the United State failed to mediate and build a twoparty coalition, civil war broke out. The CCP forces fought well, with firm discipline and broad-based support from the peasants and the urban working class. The crumbling economy, record-high inflation, and rampant corruption in the KMT government and army alienated every social class, even the capitalists of Shanghai.71 In 1949 the Communists won, despite massive U.S. arms supplies to the KMT and the latter’s vastly superior numbers and full control of the air. The KMT retreated to Taiwan with about two million soldiers, officers, and their families, starting a bitter standoff and controversy summed up in two competing slogans: “one China, two systems” (the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and Chinese Taiwan) versus “one Chinese ethnicity, two nation-states” (the PRC and the Republic of China [ROC]). Soon after the founding of the PRC came the Korean War and the lengthy Cold War, which isolated it from the West and from the Chinese diasporic communities until the late 1970s. Migration to and from China was strictly prohibited by the state. Border crossing became a crime, and overseas connections were viewed as evidence of espionage and treason, subject to punishment in a labor camp or jail. While Hong Kong remained a British colony, Taiwan had been returned to the KMT-ruled ROC after the Japanese defeat in World War II. Driven by the CCP to Taiwan, the ruling KMT, with massive U.S. aid and military protection, successfully implemented a series of critical programs, including land reform, industrialization, and an educational system offering nine years of state-sponsored schooling. Yet the fear of a Communist takeover loomed large in Taiwan. During the 1950s, a large group who had fled to Taiwan with the KMT from mainland China migrated again, this time to the United States. In the 1960s, children of ex-mainlanders, along with a smaller number of the children of islanders, having grown up in Taiwan and benefited from the reformed secondary educational system, began to arrive by the thousands in U.S. colleges and universities. For almost three decades Taiwanese students constituted one of the largest groups of international students in the United States. Most students of the 1960s and 1970s remained upon completion of their studies. The removal of the ROC from the United Nations in 1972 and the normalization of SinoU.S. diplomatic relations in 1978 accelerated the brain and capital drain from the island to the United States, Canada, and Australia. In some sense Taiwan has This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:02:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms The Chinese Diaspora and International Migration / 35 been a skilled labor-export nation (with the United State as primary destination) since the mid-1960s.72 Economic Developments and Contemporary Trends in International Migration Nation-state building in Southeast and East Asia since the end of World War II has significantly realigned the region’s political economy. Nation-states attempted to protect their sovereignty by erecting entry and exit barriers and instituting control over internal and international population flows.73 At the same time, they pursued agricultural reforms and industrial development.74 After two decades of wartime recuperation, many Asian nations rapidly rose to integrate themselves not merely into the world economy centered in Western developed economies, but also into a newly formed Asian core. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was founded in 1967, allying Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines into an integral system for economic development. Brunei joined in 1984, Vietnam in 1995, and Myanmar (Burma until 1989) and Laos in 1997.75 Japan emerged as Asia’s industrial and financial superpower in the 1970s, and South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore won a reputation as Asia’s “four little dragons” for their impressive economic growth and prosperity a decade later. Meanwhile, Malaysia and Thailand rapidly rose to Newly Industrialized Countries (NIC) status. The new Asian alliance, led by Japan and composed of Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and the ASEAN countries, challenged the single-core world system and brought about unprecedented economic growth in the region. The development of regional interdependence through trade and investment set off massive state-sponsored intra-Asian labor migration in the 1980s. Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Brunei became typical labor-import nationstates, while the Philippines, Indonesia, and China became major labor exporters.76 South Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand witnessed equally significant labor inflows and outflows because of domestic labor market segmentation.77 Japan had the largest pool of foreign workers in absolute numbers, but they amounted to only 2 percent of the total labor force. This was slightly lower than their proportion in South Korea, but Japan’s economy was 5 times larger.78 In contrast, foreign workers made up 5 percent of the employed labor force in Taiwan, 13 percent in Hong Kong, and 18 percent in Singapore.79 The prospect of high wages made Hong Kong and Taiwan attractive to workers from other Asian countries. But Hong Kong and Taiwan differed from each other (and from labor-short Japan, South Korea, and Singapore) in the type, number, and origin of the workers they allowed to enter. In the 1980s the rapid growth in construction and in labor-intensive manufacturing (apparel, toys, and home electronics), coupled with low fertility, created a severe labor shortage in Hong Kong.80 Not long afterward, the exodus of the middle class to Australia and North America accelerated because of uncertainties surrounding the 1997 return of the colony to Chinese sovereignty. This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:02:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 36 / Chapter 1 Two streams of Hong Kong–bound migrant workers were highly noticeable. One stream responded to demands for labor-intensive domestic services, manufacturing, and construction. Filipinos formed the largest group of foreign workers (37 percent of the total), and most were educated (even professional) females, who worked uniformly as maids.81 Recently, Indonesian women have begun to replace Filipinas in domestic service. The other stream consisted of skilled workers filling the technical and managerial jobs left vacant because of the middleclass exodus. Almost a third of the foreign workers in Hong Kong were educated professionals from Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, and Australia.82 More recently, two groups from the PRC—highly skilled professionals trained in the mainland and students with advanced training and degrees abroad—have become increasingly visible. Taiwan, with laws strictly controlling immigration, received low-skilled workers from Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia. Filipinas and Indonesian women typically worked as maids, while their male counterparts worked in construction.83 In the 1970s and early 1980s, Taiwan also experienced a middle-class exodus and a capital outflow to the United States, Australia, and Canada, due to political uncertainty surrounding Taiwan’s removal from the United Nations and the normalization of China-U.S. diplomatic relations. But the trend of U.S.-bound migration reversed during the mid-1980s and 1990s. Many migrants returned to the island, and a new transnational migration eased the brain drain.84 Several concurrent demographic and economic trends affected migration patterns in Taiwan despite strict immigration controls: decreasing fertility, economic restructuring from labor-intensive manufacturing to capital-intensive high-tech and financial services, and public investment in highway construction.85 These trends prompted a huge demand for domestic workers and construction workers. In the late 1980s and the 1990s, Taiwan imported workers mainly from Malaysia and the Philippines to work in manufacturing and construction (more than 70 percent of the foreign labor force).86 No permits were issued for services, except for nurses’ aides and private household maids (there were 13,007 maids in Taiwan as of the mid-1990s). Once China implemented the open-door reform policy in 1979, Taiwan also invested heavily in the mainland, and trans-Strait commerce flourished. Offshore fishing employed many mainland Chinese workers, but they were not allowed to come on shore.87 Singapore is a city-state. Its small land area (641 square kilometers) and population necessitated carefully managed strategies for development and globalization.88 As the city-state rapidly rose to NIC status in the 1970s, it began to suffer from a severe labor shortage, rising labor costs, and declining population growth, like most Asian NICs. Importation of foreign labor, both high- and lowskilled, thus became a government priority. The government created two guestlabor categories, defined respectively by work permits and professional passes. Those holding work permits were barred from bringing in dependents (or, in the case of female migrants, from giving birth in Singapore), and their contract terms This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:02:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms The Chinese Diaspora and International Migration / 37 were strictly enforced. Holders of professional passes were more favorably received. Between 1985 and 1994, the number of foreign workers admitted into the country increased from 100,000 to 300,000 (or from 8 percent of the work force to 18 percent). Most were recruited from Malaysia and Thailand, with a smaller number from the Philippines.89 In the 1990s, highly skilled workers from mainland China and Taiwan became increasing visible.90 Compared with the Philippines and Indonesia, the two major labor-export countries, China appeared to have no large-scale international labor migration. As long as the country was cut off from the rest of the world by the Cold War, migration to and from China was insignificant relative to the vast size of the domestic work force, but the potential for labor export was huge.91 Beginning in the late 1970s and continuing through the Asian boom of the 1980s, China launched nationwide economic development programs: first agricultural reform, then market reform, and then industrial restructuring aiming at export manufacturing and the privatization of state enterprises. China’s drive for modernization and industrialization, coupled with its population and the centuries-old “bamboo network,” has tipped the balance in the regional politico-economic alignment.92 These developments and trends have heralded a new “Pacific century,”93 bringing tremendous changes in the pace, extent, direction, and nature of human movements. Much of the labor migration from China to other parts of Asia in the late 1970s and the 1980s was more or less clandestine, following centuries-old diasporic networks and, to a lesser extent, guided by government sponsored and privately funded exchange-student programs. The Chinese government continued, encouraged by the West and neighboring countries, to exert tight control over emigration. Chinese workers in Korea and Japan were largely irregulars who entered as students or visitors and overstayed their visas. Relatively few Chinese workers were present in other Asian NICs. International migration from China to North America, however, has become massive since the United States and Canada relaxed their respective immigration policies. Because of accelerated immigration, the ethnic Chinese population in the United States increased from 237,292 in 1960 to 1,645,472 in 1990, and to nearly 3.6 million (including some 450,000 mixedrace persons) in 2006, making up more than one percent of the total U.S. population.94 In Canada, the ethnic Chinese population surged from 58,197 in 1961 to 633,933 in 1991 to more than one million in 2001, forming the largest nonEuropean ethnic group in the country, 3 percent of the total.95 In fact, Chinese has become the third most commonly used language in Canada, next to English and French.96 New patterns of intra-Asian and trans-Atlantic migration have in turn prompted a new challenge for Asian nations: managing migration.97 Undocumented and Clandestine Chinese Immigration Postwar intra-Asian migration was typically short-term and circular labor migration, with few possibilities for long-term settlement and integration. Both sending This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:02:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 38 / Chapter 1 and receiving nation-states played a paramount role in negotiating and managing international labor flows.98 However, globalization and integration of national economies into the world system over the past four decades have profoundly undermined any state’s capacity to control emigrant and immigrant flows. In the process of regulating labor migration, both sending and receiving states have inadvertently created loopholes for undocumented or clandestine migration. China is a case in point. Emigration from China was strictly controlled between 1949 (the founding of the PRC) and 1976 (the end of the Cultural Revolution).99 Since China opened its doors to the outside world and implemented economic reform in the late 1970s, it has experienced unprecedented economic growth. In its drive to build a market economy, China has unintentionally set off massive internal migration and facilitated international migration without the kind of sophisticated system to manage or sponsor migrations that many Asian sending countries had developed.100 Starting in the late 1980s, accelerating in the 1990s, and continuing into the twenty-first century, Chinese immigrants have become highly visible in Asian NICs as well as in Australia, Canada, the United States, and many European countries. As many as 10 percent are undocumented, having either overstayed their visas or been smuggled into the destination countries.101 Total emigration from China was roughly 180,000 annually in the 1990s. Undocumented emigration is estimated to have grown by a factor of six in the early 1990s, and by a factor of 10 between 1995 and 2005, which would translate into a net of 200,000 to 300,000 annually.102 Even a quarter of this outflow would have put tremendous pressure on the Asian NICs. For many Chinese emigrants, the preferred destinations are developed countries in the West: the United States, Canada, Australia, and Great Britain. Japan is also a desirable destination. However, the less developed countries have been affected by undocumented Chinese immigration because of the multiple smuggling routes employed by international crime organizations and tactics including “high seas transfer.”103 Hong Kong and Macao have traditionally served as entrepôts for Chinese immigration, and Thailand and Cambodia have recently emerged as both destinations and staging posts for Australia, Canada, the United States, and Europe.104 Latin America, particularly Mexico, has also served as a staging post for illegal entry into the United States. This rapidly rising and highly publicized undocumented emigration is linked to economic reform and structural changes in China’s reconstructed political economy, especially since the early 1990s. First, rapid and uneven economic development increases the demand for labor in areas of growth, pulling surplus and idle labor from areas of stagnation. Second, the erosion of the welfare state, including the dissolution of food rationing and state-provided housing and healthcare, diminishes the incentive to stay in one place. When this powerful link is broken, urban workers feel free to consider migration, both internal and international, as a way to achieve a better life.105 Third, market-style development greatly weakens the political and economic power of the central government while strengthening the powers of provincial and local officials. Corruption at the local level then makes it easier for well-connected and resourceful individuals This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:02:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms The Chinese Diaspora and International Migration / 39 and smuggling syndicates to function effectively. Fourth, centuries-old diasporic communities all over the world, now reconnected to the ancestral homeland, facilitate chain migrations initiated and sponsored by families, kin, and friends by serving as key sites of reception and meeting the survival and employment needs of undocumented immigrants, many of whom overstay tourist, student, or business visas. Fifth, Chinese syndicates and organized crime gangs use longstanding ethnic or kinship networks to ship their human cargo from China or from Chinese diasporic communities to various destination points via other countries with loose border controls, such as Russia’s eastern region and various Eastern European countries.106 Governments in destination countries all have strict regulations to control or manage international migration, but attitudes and ways of dealing with undocumented immigration vary. Malaysia and Taiwan believe that undocumented emigration from China is part of that country’s long-term plan for “nonviolent absorption” of the region, making it a national security concern.107 Other countries, such as Singapore, fear that the continued pressure from human rights groups and democratization may break down order and control, flooding the city-state with refugees and work-seekers.108 In reality, however, the capacity for repatriation and control hinges on the state’s capacity for enforcement, on labor market conditions and access to migrant networks in sending countries, and on the state’s labor-export policies at both origin and destination.109 Curbing undocumented migration may not be in the best interests of receiving countries either, especially when the demand for migrant labor is high. Thus, while receiving countries are constrained in curbing undocumented immigration, given the demands of the local economy, labor market segmentation, and informal migrant networks, sending countries are also constrained, since repatriation would worsen domestic unemployment and reduce remittances and foreign exchange income.110 Conclusion Intra-Asian and international migration from China has been deeply affected by the centuries-old Chinese Diaspora and a wide range of geopolitical, economic, and social factors: colonization and decolonization, nation-state building, changing political regimes, and state-sponsored economic development programs. During the pre-colonial era, thanks to the dominance of the Chinese empire and the proliferation of Chinese trade to Southeast Asia, migrant flows within Asia were primarily defined by tribute missions and maritime trade centered on China. Other peoples might move beyond the boundaries of their native homelands to search for new land, fishing waters, or a better living, but they rarely ventured far off shore in large numbers. It was the Chinese, huashang in particular, who first developed and dominated trade entrepôts in port cities all over Southeast Asia, leading to the establishment of overseas Chinese communities and ethnic institutions. State control of trade and emigration gave rise to sophisticated migration networks and linkages between home villages and the Chinese This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:02:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 40 / Chapter 1 Diaspora, resulting in a unique pattern of emigration from China and permanent settlement at various destinations in Southeast Asia. Western colonization overturned the dominance of Chinese trade and capsized the geopolitical centrality of the Chinese empire in the region. With the intricate networks of the trade diasporas already in place, Chinese merchants and traders turned brokers and agents of labor migration, bypassing the state to facilitate mass huagong-dominated emigration to Western colonies in and beyond Asia. Post–World War II nation-state building and economic development realigned the geopolitical order in East and Southeast Asia, and the Cold War severed China’s ties to most parts of the world. During this time, newly founded nation-states aggressively pursued development and modernization strategies while also establishing entry and exit barriers, tight border controls, and strict emigration/immigration policies. As international migration became institutionalized bilaterally at the government level, diasporic communities, informal networks, and migrant syndicates also emerged or were revived in origin and destination states. These informal networks and institutions sometimes worked in tandem with the state to facilitate migration in response to economic changes, but sometimes functioned quite independently to facilitate migration without much state sponsorship or intervention. When pre-existing coethnic communities were well established in destination countries, individual emigrants could easily reactivate longstanding ethnic or kinship connections to evade state regulations and migrate on their own. Once this process was set in motion, migrants, networks, and diasporic communities undercut the power of the state to structure and manage international migration.111 Since China opened its door to the outside world and implemented economic reforms, tremendous pressures for international migration have built up. As the patterns of contemporary intra-Asian and international migration from China have shown, a direct, but unintended, consequence of China’s economic reform is network-driven migration, along with undocumented or clandestine migrations. Migrant flows driven by social networks have a tendency to grow out of state control and the adjustment mechanisms of the free market. In the next 10 or 20 years, contemporary patterns of intra-Asian and international migration are likely to persist, with one exception: China, with the largest population and the most expansive (and best-developed) diasporic communities in the world, is potentially a huge labor-export country. As it has become increasingly integrated into the world system, as its marketization has continued to undermine the power of the state, and as the Chinese people have reconnected with their overseas diasporic communities, emigration, both legal and undocumented, may define a new “Chinese century” on a much greater scale than that of 1740–1840.112 The potential for Chinese emigration has already been likened to a “Tsunami on the horizon.”113 This is a mixed blessing for China, Asia, and the world. The challenge for China and immigrant-receiving countries may be how to negotiate and manage it, given that the power of the state is severely constrained not only by the economy, but also by migration networks and ethnic institutions. This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:02:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Temple University Press Chapter Title: Demographic Trends and Characteristics of Contemporary Chinese America Book Title: Contemporary Chinese America Book Subtitle: Immigration, Ethnicity, and Community Transformation Book Author(s): Min Zhou Published by: Temple University Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt14btf41.8 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Temple University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Contemporary Chinese America This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:03:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms II Immigration, Demographic Trends, and Community Dynamics This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:03:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:03:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 2 Demographic Trends and Characteristics of Contemporary Chinese America T he United States has the largest ethnic Chinese population outside Asia. Chinese Americans are also the oldest and largest Asian-origin group in the United States. Their long history of migration and settlement dates back to the late 1840s and includes more than 60 years of legal exclusion. With the lifting of legal barriers to Chinese immigration after World War II and the enactment of liberal immigration legislation beginning with the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965 (the Hart-Celler Act), the Chinese American community has increased 13-fold: from 237,000 in 1960 to 1.6 million in 1990 and to 3.6 million in 2006 (including half a million mixed-race persons), according to the official census.1 Post-1965 immigration accounts for much of this growth. According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, nearly 1.8 million immigrants were admitted to the United States from China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan as permanent residents between 1960 and 2006, more than four times the total admitted from 1850 to 1959.2 China has been on USCIS’s list of the top 10 immigrant-origin countries since 1980. The U.S. Census also attests to the important role of immigration. As of 2006, foreign-born Chinese accounted for nearly two-thirds of the Chinese American population, and more than half (56 percent) of the foreign-born arrived after 1990 (59 percent of the foreign-born were naturalized U.S. citizens).3 What is the current state of Chinese America? This chapter offers a demographic profile of Chinese Americans and discusses some of the implications of drastic demographic change for community development in the United States. This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:03:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 44 / Chapter 2 A Historical Look at Demographic Trends The Chinese American community remains an immigrant-dominant community, even though this ethnic group arrived in the United States earlier than many groups of southern or eastern European origin and earlier than any other Asianorigin group. While the majority of Italian, Jewish, and Japanese Americans are maturing into third and fourth-plus generations, Chinese Americans at the dawn of the twenty-first century are primarily of the first generation (i.e., foreign-born: 63 percent) or the second (the U.S.-born children of foreign-born parents: 27 percent). The third generation accounts for only 10 percent. Legal exclusion largely explains the stifled growth prior to World War II, while post-1965 immigration policies explain the later surge of Chinese immigration. In the mid-nineteenth century, most Chinese immigrants came to Hawaii and the U.S. mainland as contract labor, working at first in the plantation economy in Hawaii and in the mining industry on the west coast and later on the transcontinental railroads west of the Rocky Mountains. These earlier immigrants were almost entirely from the Guangzhou (Canton) region of South China, and most intended to “sojourn” for only a short time and return home with gold and glory.4 But few had much luck in the Gold Mountain, as they called America; many found little gold but plenty of unjust treatment and exclusion. In the 1870s, white workers’ frustration with economic distress, labor market uncertainty, and capitalist exploitation turned into anti-Chinese sentiment and racist attacks. Whites accused the Chinese of building “a filthy nest of iniquity and rottenness” in the midst of American society and driving away white labor by “stealthy” competition. They also stigmatized the Chinese as the “yellow peril,” the “Chinese menace,” and the “indispensable enemy.”5 In 1882 Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which was renewed in 1892 and later extended to exclude all Asian immigrants. The act was in force until World War II. Legal exclusion, augmented by extralegal persecution and anti-Chinese violence, effectively drove the Chinese out of the mines, farms, woolen mills, and factories and forced them to cluster in urban enclaves on the west coast that would evolve into Chinatowns.6 Many laborers lost hope and returned permanently to China. Those who could not afford the return journey or were ashamed to return home penniless gravitated toward San Francisco’s Chinatown for selfprotection.7 Still others traveled east to look for alternative means of earning a living. The number of new immigrants from China dwindled from 123,000 in the 1870s to 14,800 in the 1890s, and fell to a historical low of 5,000 in the 1930s. This trend did not change significantly until the 1960s—two decades after Congress repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943 (Fig. 2.1). Chinatowns in the Northeast, particularly New York, and the Midwest, particularly Chicago, grew as they absorbed those fleeing the extreme persecution in California.8 Consequently, the proportion of Chinese living in California decreased in the first half of the twentieth century, and the ethnic Chinese population in the United States grew slowly, with a gradual relaxation of the severely This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:03:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Characteristics of Contemporary Chinese America / 45 2000–2006 1990–1999 1980–1989 1970–1979 1960–1969 1950–1959 1940–1949 1930–1939 1920–1929 1910–1919 1900–1909 1890–1899 1880–1889 1870–1879 1860–1869 1850–1859 0 100,000 200,000 300,000 400,000 500,000 600,000 700,000 FIGURE 2.1 Chinese Immigrants Admitted to the United States, 1850–2006. (Source: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, 2007 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, table 2.) skewed sex ratio. As Table 2.1 illustrates, the population fluctuated by decade but basically remained stagnant in the half-century from 1890 to 1940. The 1890 sex ratio of 2,679 males per 100 females dropped steadily over time, but males still outnumbered females by more than two to one in the 1940s. The shortage of women, combined with the “paper son” phenomenon and the illegal entry of male laborers during the Exclusion era, distorted the natural development of the Chinese American family.9 In 1900, less than 10 percent of the Chinese American population was U.S.-born. Since then, the proportion of U.S.-born has increased significantly in each succeeding decade until 1960. Likewise, the proportion of children under 14 years of age increased substantially from a low of 3 percent in 1900 to a high of 33 percent in 1960. After the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943, more women than men were admitted to the United States, mostly as war brides, but the annual quota of immigrant visas for the Chinese remained 105 for the next two decades.10 At the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, hundreds of refugees fled the Communist regime and arrived in the United States either directly or via Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other countries. These demographic trends led to the appearance of visible second and third generations between the 1940s and 1960s, when the U.S.-born began to outnumber the foreign-born (see Table 2.1). In 1960, more than 60 percent of the Chinese American population was U.S.-born. However, the absolute number of U.S.born was relatively small, and they were much younger (a third were under age 14) than the U.S. population as a whole.11 In 2006, the proportion of U.S.-born This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:03:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 46 / Chapter 2 TABLE 2.1 CHINESE AMERICAN POPULATION: NUMBER, SEX RATIO, NATIVITY, AND STATE OF RESIDENCE, 1890–2000 Year Number Sex Ratio (Males per 100 females) % U.S.-Born % In California 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2006 107,475 118,746 94,414 85,202 102,159 106,334 150,005 237,292 435,062 812,178 1,645,472 2,879,636 3,565,458 2,679 1,385 926 466 296 224 168 133 110 102 99 94 93 0.7 9.3 20.7 30.1 41.2 51.9 53.0 60.5 53.1 36.7 30.7 31.0 37.0 67.4 38.5 38.4 33.8 36.6 37.2 38.9 40.3 39.1 40.1 42.9 40.0 33.3 Source: U.S. Census of the Population 1890–2000; 2006 figures from 2006 American Community Survey. dropped to 37 percent. Even today, members of the second and third generations are young and have not yet come of age in significant numbers. The 2000 U.S. Current Population Survey indicates that 44 percent of second-generation Chinese Americans are 17 or younger, and 10 percent are between 18 and 24, compared with 8 percent in each of these younger age groups among the first generation. Intragroup Diversity For much of the pre–World War II era, the Chinese American community was essentially an isolated bachelor society consisting of a small merchant class and a vast working class of sojourners whose lives were oriented toward an eventual return to their homeland. Most were from villages of the Si Yi (Sze Yap) region and spoke Taishanese (a local dialect incomprehensible even to the Cantonese); others came from the Pearl River Delta area in the greater Canton region, including Si Yi and San Yi.12 Most left their families behind in China and came to America with the aim of making a “golden” fortune and returning home. And most were poor and uneducated and had to work at jobs that few Americans wanted: laundrymen, cooks or waiters, and household servants. They spoke very little English and seemed unassimilable in the eyes of Americans. In fact, the Chinese were not allowed to naturalize: they were “aliens ineligible for citizenship.” Since World War II, and particularly since the Hart-Celler Act of 1965, this bachelor society has experienced unprecedented demographic and social transformation into a family community. The 13-fold growth of the Chinese American population from 1960 to 2006 is not merely a matter of quantitative change; it marks a turning point. This new ethnic community is characterized by tremen- This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:03:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Characteristics of Contemporary Chinese America / 47 dous intragroup diversity in terms of place of origin, socioeconomic background, patterns of geographic settlement, and trajectories of social mobility. In contrast to their earlier counterparts, contemporary Chinese immigrants have arrived not only from mainland China but also from the greater Chinese Diaspora—Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, the Americas, and other parts of the world. In Los Angeles as of 1990, for example, 23 percent of the Chinese American population was born in the United States, 27 percent in mainland China, 20 percent in Taiwan, 8 percent in Hong Kong, and 22 percent in other countries. Linguistically, Chinese immigrants come from a much wider variety of dialect groups than in the past: Mandarin, Cantonese, Fujianese, Kejia (Hakka), Chaozhounese, and Shanghainese; these are not always mutually intelligible. About 83 percent of Chinese Americans speak Chinese or a regional Chinese dialect at home. In the United States today, Chinese is second only to Spanish as the foreign language most commonly spoken at home.13 Contemporary Chinese immigrants also come from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. Some arrive with little money, minimal education, and few job skills, forcing them to take low-wage jobs and settle in deteriorating urban neighborhoods. Others come with family savings, education, and skills far above the level of average Americans. Nationwide, levels of educational achievement among Chinese Americans have since 1980 been significantly higher than those of the general population. The 2004 American Community Survey reports that half of adult Chinese Americans (25 years or older) have attained four or more years of college education, compared with 30 percent of non-Hispanic whites. Immigrants from Taiwan display the highest educational levels, with nearly two-thirds having completed at least four years of college, followed by those from Hong Kong (just shy of 50 percent) and from the mainland (about a third). Professional occupations were also more common among Chinese American workers (16 years or older) than among non-Hispanic white workers (52 percent versus 38 percent). The annual median household income for Chinese Americans was $57,000 in 2003 dollars, compared with $49,000 for non-Hispanic whites. Yet the poverty rate for Chinese Americans was also higher (13 percent versus 9 percent for non-Hispanic whites); and their homeownership rate was lower (63 percent versus 74 percent).14 The settlement patterns of Chinese Americans at the dawn of the twenty-first century are characterized by concentration as well as dispersion. To some extent they follow a historical pattern: Chinese Americans continue to concentrate in the West and in urban areas. For example, over half of the ethnic Chinese population lives in just three metropolitan regions: New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.15 Table 2.2 provides descriptive statistics for the Chinese American population by state. As of 2000, California by itself accounted for 40 percent of all Chinese Americans (1.1 million); New York for 16 percent, second only to California; and Hawaii for 6 percent. However, other states that historically received fewer Chinese immigrants have witnessed phenomenal growth: Texas, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois, Washington, Pennsylvania, Florida, and This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:03:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 48 / Chapter 2 TABLE 2.2 CHINESE AMERICAN POPULATION BY STATE,* 2000 State Number of Chinese % Of Total Population Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware District of Columbia Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri 7,358 2,459 26,419 3,816 1,114,047 20,204 21,893 4,520 4,291 59,031 31,797 170,684 3,016 85,840 14,618 7,256 8,977 6,259 8,895 2,452 54,889 92,123 37,966 19,309 3,713 15,808 0.17 0.39 0.51 0.14 3.29 0.47 0.64 0.58 0.75 0.37 0.39 14.09 0.23 0.69 0.24 0.25 0.33 0.15 0.20 0.19 1.04 1.45 0.38 0.39 0.13 0.28 State Number of Chinese % Of Total Population Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming 1,204 3,774 18,950 4,774 109,640 5,327 450,910 22,077 756 34,848 8,693 27,021 56,665 5,730 7,094 1,034 10,951 120,776 10,691 1,631 43,320 75,464 2,138 13,322 802 0.13 0.22 0.95 0.39 1.30 0.29 2.38 0.27 0.12 0.31 0.25 0.79 0.46 0.55 0.18 0.14 0.19 0.58 0.48 0.27 0.61 1.28 0.12 0.25 0.16 *States with the largest Chinese populations are shown in boldface type. Source: U.S. Census Bureau website: http://factfinder.census.gov/home/saff/main.html?_lang=en/, accessed September 7, 2007. Maryland. Among cities with populations over 100,000, New York City (with 365,000), San Francisco (161,000), Los Angeles (74,000), Honolulu (69,000), and San Jose (58,000) have the largest numbers of Chinese Americans. Within each of these metropolitan regions, however, the settlement pattern tends to be bimodal, with ethnic concentration and dispersion equally significant. Traditional urban enclaves, such as the Chinatowns in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Boston, continue to receive immigrants, but they no longer serve as primary centers of initial settlement for many newcomers, especially members of the educated and professional middle class, who are bypassing inner cities to settle into suburbs immediately after arrival.16 Currently, only 14 percent of the Chinese in New York, 8 percent of the Chinese in San Francisco, and less than 3 percent of the Chinese in Los Angeles live in old Chinatowns. The majority of the Chinese American population is spreading into outlying metropolitan areas or suburbs of traditional gateway cities as well as new urban centers of Asian settlement across the country. Half of all Chinese Americans live in suburbs. Mandarin-speaking coethnics from mainland China This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:03:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Characteristics of Contemporary Chinese America / 49 TABLE 2.3 CITIES WITH THE HIGHEST PROPORTIONS OF CHINESE AMERICANS, 2000 City* Monterey Park San Marino San Gabriel Arcadia Alhambra Rosemead Rowland Heights Walnut City Temple City Hacienda Heights Cupertino San Francisco Diamond Bar Number of Chinese Americans % Of Total City Population 26,582 5,616 14,581 19,676 31,099 17,441 15,740 9,309 10,269 13,551 12,777 160,947 11,396 44.3 43.4 37.3 37.1 36.2 32.6 32.4 31.0 30.8 25.5 25.3 20.7 20.2 *All cities are in California and have populations over 10,000. Source: U.S. Census Bureau website: http://factfinder.census.gov/home/saff/main.html?_lang=en/, accessed September 7, 2007. or Taiwan and those of higher socioeconomic status tend to stay away from Cantonese-dominant old Chinatowns. Once settled, they tend to establish new ethnic communities, often in more affluent urban neighborhoods and suburbs, such as the “second Chinatown” in Flushing, New York, and “Little Taipei” in Monterey Park, California.17 Meanwhile, the influx of contemporary Chinese immigrants is transforming the old Chinatowns in the United States in previously unimaginable ways. The transplanted village of shared origins and culture has evolved into a full-fledged family-based community with a new cosmopolitan vibrancy transcending territorial and national boundaries. There are 13 U.S. cities with 10,000 people or more in which Chinese Americans make up over 20 percent of the population (Table 2.3). All but two are in the sprawling suburbs of Los Angeles. Except for San Francisco, all are suburban cities that emerged as identifiable middle-class immigrant ethnoburbs only after 1980.18 Recent residential movements of affluent Chinese Americans into white middle-class suburban communities have tipped the balance of power, raising nativist anxiety about an ethnic “invasion” along with some anti-immigrant sentiment.19 Trajectories of social mobility among Chinese Americans also differ from those of the past because of the tremendous diversity in migrants’ socioeconomic backgrounds. Three predominant trajectories are noteworthy. The first one is the familiar, time-honored path of starting at the bottom and moving up through hard work. This route is particularly relevant to those with limited education and English-language ability, few marketable job skills, and little familiarity with the mainstream labor market. However, in a post-industrial era and a globalized economy restructured in a way that has removed most of the This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:03:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 50 / Chapter 2 middle rungs of the mobility ladder, low-skilled workers starting at the bottom often find themselves trapped there with little chance of upward mobility however hard they work. A majority of such low-skilled immigrants nevertheless consider their initial downward mobility or lack of mobility a necessary first step in their quest for the American dream or a means of paving the way for their children to do better.20 The second trajectory involves incorporation into professional occupations in the mainstream economy through extraordinary educational achievement. As noted above, more than a third of contemporary immigrants have attained college educations and advanced professional training either in their homeland or in the United States. Those who are equipped with U.S. degrees or professional credentials generally face fewer labor market barriers, especially in science and engineering fields, than those who have completed their education and training abroad.21 It is worth noting that the influx of highly educated and highly skilled immigrants from mainland China into the United States in early 1990s was in part a direct result of the Tiananmen Square incident of June 4, 1989. The U.S. government passed legislation to grant permanent residency status to Chinese students, visiting scholars, and others who were in the country during that time. More than 60,000 Chinese on nonimmigrant visas (mostly J-1, for official exchange visitors, or F-1, for students) were granted permanent residency via the so-called June Fourth green cards.22 This has led to a more diverse immigration from the mainland in terms of places of origin and a new trend of transnational movement as immigrants return to the homeland to seek better economic opportunities. It has also had profound implications for the development of ethnoburbs and suburban ethnic economies. The effects are evident, as well, in the enrollment of Chinese American youths in colleges and universities, from which they graduate with bachelor’s and advanced degrees in disproportionate numbers. Such graduates may find labor market entry easier, but they often encounter a glass ceiling as they move up into managerial and executive positions. The third trajectory is ethnic entrepreneurship. Since the 1970s, unprecedented Chinese immigration, accompanied by drastic economic marketization in China and rapid economic growth in Asia, has set off a tremendous influx of human capital and financial capital. This is a new stage of economic development in the Chinese American community as well as in the mainstream American economy. From 1977 to 1987, the U.S. Census reported that the number of Chineseowned firms grew by 286 percent, compared with 238 percent for Asian-owned firms, 93 percent for black-owned firms, and 93 percent for Hispanic-owned firms.23 From 1987 to 2002, the number of Chinese-owned businesses continued to grow by another 218 percent (from fewer than 90,000 to 286,000). As of 2002, there was approximately one ethnic firm for every 9 Chinese and for every 10 Asians, but only one ethnic firm for every 28 blacks and one for every 22 Hispanics. Chinese American–owned business enterprises made up 7 percent of the total minority-owned nonfarm business enterprises nationwide (and more than a This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:03:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Characteristics of Contemporary Chinese America / 51 quarter of all Asian-owned businesses), but accounted for 17 percent of the total gross receipts.24 Ethnic entrepreneurship creates numerous employment opportunities for both entrepreneurs and coethnic workers.25 However, problems also arise that leave some workers behind, such as abusive labor practices and overconcentration of jobs offering low wages, poor working conditions, few fringe benefits, and lack of prospects for mobility.26 The Salience of Ethnicity and the Paradox of Assimilation Contemporary Chinese immigration has heightened the salience of ethnicity, as the community continues to be dominated by first-generation immigrants. It has also created new challenges for assimilation. In the past, Chinese immigrants were concentrated in ethnic enclaves and had to rely on ethnic organizations and ethnic social networks for their daily survival because of pervasive racism, discrimination, and exclusion in the larger society and ethnic members’ own lack of English-language proficiency, marketable or transferable skills, and information about their new homeland. But these immigrants, like their European counterparts, were expected to assimilate into mainstream American society as they achieved socioeconomic mobility. Classical assimilation theories posit that the ethnic community and its ethnic institutions are initially instrumental in reorganizing immigrants’ economic and social lives and alleviating social problems arising from migration and ghetto living. In the long run, however, ethnic communities either dissolve or fade into merely symbolic significance, since there are no newcomers to support them and no institutional roadblocks to inhibit assimilation. Institutional completeness— a situation in which an ethnic community’s formal institutions satisfy all its members’ needs—is said to create disincentives for learning the English language and American ways, decrease contacts with outsiders and mainstream institutions, and ultimately trap ethnic group members in permanent isolation.27 In the case of Chinese Americans, we have witnessed trends of upward social mobility that are predictable under classical assimilation theories. Members of the second or later generations are unlikely to live in ethnic enclaves or get involved in immigrant organizations.28 Even many of today’s first-generation immigrants, especially the educated, highly skilled, and middle class, are bypassing ethnic enclaves to assimilate residentially in suburban middle-class white communities. And yet we have also witnessed trends of ethnic revival. On the one hand, the growing presence and power of the first generation reinforce the sense of ethnicity. Many immigrants from mainland China, Hong Kong, or Taiwan never thought of themselves in ethnic terms until they arrived in the United States, because they were members of the majority group in their homelands. They have become Chinese as they strive to become American. On the other hand, many new immigrants who have acculturated into American ways and residentially assimilated into white middle-class suburbs—as well This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:03:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 52 / Chapter 2 as members of the second or later generations—are now returning to their own ethnic community to organize among their coethnics, culturally, socially, and politically. Some of the emerging ethnic organizations include suburban Chinese schools, alumni and professional associations, and ethnically based civil rights organizations, such as the Organization for Chinese Americans and the Committee of 100. New religious organizations, mostly nondenominational Christian groups, also tend to be coethnic. Some of these new organizations are located in Chinatowns or ethnoburbs; others are geographically dispersed, and some have members from the highly skilled, highly assimilated segment of the Chinese American population. While most have clearly stated religious missions, they often serve important social functions similar to those of professional and alumni associations. Some specify secular goals, mainly networking and information exchange to enhance the mobility prospects of Chinese immigrants.29 These trends point to a paradoxical outcome of immigrant adaptation. They imply that becoming American while maintaining Chinese ethnicity is not just a possibility but an increasingly preferred choice among Chinese Americans.30 In the past, immigration, Chinese exclusion, and structural constraints created opportunities for ethnic organizing, prompted the revalorization of the symbols of a common ethnicity, and consolidated a unified, though internally conflictual and fractional, ethnic community. Today’s Chinese American community has become more diverse but less geographically bounded and less cohesive. Ethnic solidarity no longer necessarily inheres in the moral convictions of individuals or the traditional value orientations of the group. In my view, the very fact that Chinese immigrants are allowed to assimilate and that they then return to their own ethnic community indicates that a fixed notion of the ethnic community as an isolated entity no longer applies. Community transformation has been prompted by two internal forces: one from the immigrants, especially those lacking English-language proficiency, job skills, and employment networks linking them to the mainstream economy; the other from the highly assimilated coethnics. New immigrants are primarily concerned with three urgent issues of settlement: employment, homeownership, and children’s education. In many cases, an immigrant would consider himself (or herself) successful if he runs his own business or becomes a laoban (boss), if he lives his own home (even if he has to cram his family into the basement and rent out the rest of the building), and if he sends his child to an Ivy League or equally prestigious college. The ethnic community and ethnic organizations must respond to and address these issues of immediate concern. In contrast, the more established and assimilated immigrants, and members of the second and later generations, tend to be morally committed to community work and are primarily concerned with addressing social justice issues through involvement in new ethnic or panethnic organizations or electoral politics. Progressive and assimilated coethnics run new social service agencies and other ethnic organizations in Chinatowns and put pressure on old ethnic organizations to adapt to changes. This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:03:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Characteristics of Contemporary Chinese America / 53 The injection of new blood not only replenishes the ethnic community’s organizational basis but also changes its mission from survival assistance to socioeconomic incorporation. We should therefore start to look at the Chinese American community of the twenty-first century as integral to, rather than separate from, the mainstream society, and view Chinese cultural heritage, despite its distinct internal dynamics, as essentially contributing to, rather than competing with, the mainstream culture. Developments in the Chinese American community provide some useful insights into the paradox of ethnicization and assimilation. Is the ethnic community inhibiting, or contributing to, the assimilation of Chinese immigrants into American life? To the extent that they feel comfortable leading their own ethnic lives in America, the immigrants may be well adjusted. However, to the extent that their ethnic lives, intentionally or unintentionally, hinder opportunities for interethnic or interracial interactions at the personal and group level, the immigrants may be socially isolated. One of the main constraints on the ethnic community is its group exclusivity. We have seen signs that Chinese immigrants are not mixing well with U.S.-born non-coethnics in ethnic enclaves or ethnoburbs. This lack of primary-level or intimate interpersonal relationships may render Chinese immigrants and their children vulnerable to negative stereotyping and racial discrimination. For example, in communities like Monterey Park, California, and Flushing, New York, many non-Chinese residents feel that they are being pushed out of their own backyards and being un-Americanized by the influx of middle-class Chinese immigrants, with higher-than-average levels of education and household incomes, who move directly into the suburbs upon arrival.31 While Chinese immigrants are perceived as foreign “invaders,” U.S.-born Americans of Chinese or Asian ancestry are also stereotyped as foreigners—receiving praise for speaking “good” English when English is their first language or being told to go back to their own country when the United States is their native country. This perception of Chinese Americans, and other Asian Americans, as perpetual foreigners is deepseated in the American psyche.32 Asian Americans perennially feel compelled to prove their loyalty and patriotism, despite having made impressive inroads into American society largely on the strength of their own ethnic communities. Therefore, ethnic communities need to find innovative ways to collectively counter societal stereotypes and foster greater interethnic and interracial understanding and inclusion. Conclusion The Chinese American community in the United States has gone through enormous changes since Chinese immigration began in the late 1840s. Current demographic trends mirror the linguistic, cultural, and socioeconomic diversity of the Chinese American community and its multifaceted life in the United States. This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:03:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 54 / Chapter 2 These trends suggest a transformation in the twenty-first century from a predominantly immigrant community to a native ethnic community. While issues and challenges directly relevant to immigration and immigrant settlement continue to occupy a central place in community affairs, new issues and challenges concerning citizenship, civil rights, interethnic/interracial coalition, and political incorporation have acquired urgency. The future of Chinese Americans, foreignborn and U.S.-born alike, is intrinsically linked to the diversity of immigration and to the current social stratification system into which today’s immigrants and their children are supposedly assimilating. Learning how to negotiate the culture of diversity and how to navigate through the new racial/ethnic stratification system is not only imperative but also inevitable. This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:03:02 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Temple University Press Chapter Title: In and Out of Chinatown: Residential Segregation and Mobility among Chinese Immigrants in New York City Book Title: Contemporary Chinese America Book Subtitle: Immigration, Ethnicity, and Community Transformation Book Author(s): Min Zhou Published by: Temple University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/j.ctt14btf41.9 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Temple University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Contemporary Chinese America This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:03:34 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 3 In and Out of Chinatown Residential Segregation and Mobility among Chinese Immigrants in New York City N ew York City has the second-largest concentration of Chinese Americans in urban America. Its Chinatown has always been a distinctly contiguous geographic locality in which Chinese immigrants cluster. While other ethnic communities, such as Little Italy across the street, have dwindled, Chinatown has survived for more than a century and a half and has grown into a full-fledged immigrant community based on a solid organizational structure and a thriving enclave economy. Yet even though contemporary Chinese immigrants retain a strong desire to maintain their own language and culture, they are much less likely to live in ethnic enclaves than their predecessors. At the time of the 2000 census, about 451,000 Chinese Americans lived in New York City, making up more than 80 percent of New York State’s Chinese American population. One fifth of the city’s Chinese (91,500) lived in Manhattan, 27 percent in Brooklyn (125,000), and 33 percent in Queens (147,000). It was estimated that a majority of Manhattan’s Chinese lived on the Lower East Side, where Chinatown is located—“Old Chinatown,” as we will call it here. Although the absolute number of Chinese there or elsewhere in the city is much underestimated by official counts, current demographic trends suggest that New York City’s Chinese are rooted in the city but more dispersed than before in relation to Old Chinatown. This chapter examines the residential patterns of Chinese residents in and around New York City, based on 1980 census data and analysis conducted in the late 1980s. This content downloaded from 157.242.56.93 on Tue, 30 Apr 2024 23:03:34 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 56 / Chapter 3 Changes in Old Chinatown and Beyond When Chinese laborers were shipped in large numbers across the Pacific to the west coast in the late 1850s and early 1860s, few Chinese resided in New York. The 1860 U.S. Census shows 120 Chinese in New York, one-fifth of one percent of the total Chinese population in the United States (63,199). New York’s Old Chinatown emerged in a four-block neighborhood across Canal Street from Little Italy in Lower East Manhattan in the 1870s.1 The first significant group of Chinese immigrants settled on Mott, Park, and Doyer Streets.2 During the first decade of official Chinese exclusion, New York City gained a few thousand Chinese. The ethnic population increased by 147 percent in 1890, while in the rest of the country it dropped 16 percent. At the turn of the century, the proportion of Chinese living in California fell to 39 percent, while the proportion in New York increased to 6 percent. New York’s Chinese population was relatively small but experienced steady growth (from 7,170 to 13,731) between 1900 and 1940, while California’s Chinese population sank from 45,753 to 39,556. In the first half of the twentieth century, New York’s Chinese community was fairly stable and experienced modest growth. Prior to th...
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