Blog #3

First I would like to say that this topic was very interesting to me. I have never had the information of so many different ethnicities presented to me in this way. It was so much easier to compare and contrast the different groups of people. I chose for this blog to discuss the differences and similarities among the Chinese and Japanese people. From past teachings these people were just grouped together and I assumed that there wasn’t much difference in how they have been treated and assimilated, but I was completely wrong.
Both the Chinese and the Japanese came to the United States for different reasons. The Chinese were looking for a sanctuary away from the British Opium Wars and a safe place to flee to in time of turmoil and violent rebellions. Also, the harsh economic conditions had many Chinese people looking to the “Gold Mountains” of America for a chance at money or wealth. On the other hand the Japanese were only looking for a way to earn money for their starving families. The harsh burdens of taxes that the Japanese government was placing on farmers forced them to leave Japan and come to the United States. Lastly, another big difference is that the Japanese had a large portion of them that traveled to Hawaii, while the majority of the Chinese traveled to the mainland.
Another difference between the two ethnic groups was how they were treated when they first arrived to the United States. The Chinese who came to America were only planning on staying temporarily. This was made well known, because most Chinese men left their wives at home, promising their return with money for their family. For this reason, the Americans welcomed the Chinese people at first. Although the Japanese also said that they only wanted to stay temporarily, the whites were more easily threatened by them. This may have been due to the fact that the Japanese brought over their wives or married picture brides from Japan, which made it easier to settle down in America permanently.
Similarly, in the end, a good portion of both the Chinese and the Japanese decided to stay in the United States because of the higher wages and greater job opportunities. Also, both of them faced racial discrimination from the whites. However, the Chinese were discriminated against much differently than the Japanese were. The Chinese besides being called the new yellow Calibans, they also faced the enforcement of new Laws. One was the Chinese Exclusion Act, which kept anymore Chinese people from coming into America. Another was the Naturalization Law, which made it very clear that Chinese people could not become citizens, because they were not white. On the other side, the Japanese, who were mostly field hands in Hawaii, were discriminated by the whites in a different manner. The white land owners learned to keep many different ethnic groups on their farms, to be better able to control them and keep them from striking and gaining any sort of power. Also, it was made very clear that the Japanese were not allowed to have skilled jobs, because they were not citizens. Lastly, the Japanese were hit with the Alien Land Law, which took away any land that they had gained and tried to farm for themselves. In the end, both groups had to deal with a lot of discrimination, but never gave up and in the end found their own ways to assimilate into this American society.
The Chinese and Japanese dealt with the discriminations in different ways as well. The Chinese’s luck changed with one major event, known as the San Francisco earthquake, which made way for women and Chinese American families to begin. It became obvious in the next generation of Chinese Americans that they were beginning to assimilate already. The girls were even going as far as wanting an education, which is not a Chinese tradition. But, while assimilating to the American society, many Chinese kept their traditions in places such as china town. The Japanese assimilated in different ways, not only did they start the Hawaii Laborer’s Association and multi ethnic communities, but they also went out of their way to educate their children hoping to give them better job opportunities. Like the Chinese the Japanese wanted to embrace American society while keeping ties to their homeland and create a dual identity. From all of this one can realize that the Chinese and Japanese went through completely different experiences and by no way are the same people.