Chinese Americans

SIGNIFICANCE: Chinese immigrants first came to the United States as laborers in the early to mid-1800s, finding considerable prejudice and discrimination, which diminished after World War II.

Chinese immigrants began to arrive in the United States in 1820, but their numbers remained small until the late 1840s, when the decaying empire of China was defeated in 1842 by Britain in the First Opium War. In 1849, gold was discovered in California, and the gold rush began. When word of the gold rush reached Canton (Guangzhou), in the southeastern province of Kwangtung (Guangdong), many Cantonese peasants, who had made their living as laborers, farmers, and fishermen for centuries, began to leave their homeland for the chance of riches just across the Pacific. Immigrants from China—including Hong Kong and Macau—constitute the third-largest immigrant group in the United States, accounting for about 5 percent of the 47.8 million foreign-born residents as of 2023. After decades of growth that peaked at nearly 2.5 million in 2019, the Chinese immigrant population declined at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic but rebounded to slightly over 2.4 million by 2023.

Most of these early Chinese immigrants worked with exceptional diligence, industry, and enterprise and led a reticent existence in the mining camps and cities. These positive qualities earned the early Chinese immigrants acceptance among the California business community. Although their appearance set them apart from the rest of the townspeople, they were welcomed as a valuable and respected segment of the citizenry. That goodwill wore thin as increasing numbers of Chinese immigrants arrived. In 1852 alone, more than 20,000 Chinese landed at San Francisco, bringing the total number of Chinese on the coast to approximately 25,000. The flood of new arrivals severely taxed the city’s resources, particularly in Chinatown, where most settled, at least temporarily. The White settlers’ attitudes toward the Chinese immigrants and their established community, called Chinatown, began to shift from curiosity to contempt.

Under the slogan “California for Americans,” anti-Chinese activists began demanding legislation to restrict Chinese laborers and miners. In 1852, the California legislature responded by passing the state’s first discriminatory tax law, the Foreign Miners’ Tax. This law required all miners who were not United States citizens to pay a monthly license fee. Because the Chinese immigrants were the largest recognizable group of international miners and already were concentrated in easily accessible mining camps, they constituted the majority of those taxed. California governor John Bigler also began a crusade against Chinese immigration on the grounds that it constituted a danger to the welfare of the state. The efforts of California anti-Chinese activists culminated in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, one of the earliest federal laws restricting immigration to the United States. Other legislation followed, including the alien land laws (1913–23), the Cable Act (1922), and the National Origins Act (1924). As a result of the exclusion, and because males far outnumbered females, the American Chinese population remained stable until the 1950s.

Chinese American Experience, 1942–1965

The image of Chinese Americans improved during this period, which ranges from 1942, the first full year of the US war against Japan during World War II (1939-1945), to the enactment of the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1965. This improvement was in part the result of China being an important ally of the United States in World War II. A public awareness of the difference between Chinese Americans and Japanese Americans began to develop, at the expense of the latter. The attitude shift was eventually reflected in the legislature, for in 1943 Congress repealed the Exclusion Act. However, the quota on Chinese immigrants remained in place, allowing only 105 Chinese immigrants per year. Chinese immigrants won another victory during World War II in that they were finally given the right to seek naturalization—the legal process by which immigrants become citizens.

Chinese American literature of this period emphasizes two dominant themes: a diplomatic impulse that explains the values and virtues of Chinese heritage to a broader readership, and an assertion of belonging that claims the United States as home. These themes express Chinese Americans’ evolving relationship with their adopted country.

Chinese American Experience Since 1965

After 1965, the Chinese population of the United States rose from 250,000 in 1966 to 1.6 million in 1990. This gave rise to a debate over what, if any, distinctions should be drawn between the native-born and the foreign-born. Frank Chin and the other editors of Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian-American Writers (1974) and The Big Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Chinese American and Japanese American Literature (1991) attempted to differentiate between the American-born and the international-born, implying that Chinese American identity should be determined on the basis of an American, rather than Chinese, mindset. Newcomers—sometimes derided as "fresh off the boat"—brought with them significant resources and skills. These conditions render moot the American-centered definition of Chinese American identity. The increased diversity of the Chinese American community has made the issue of identity complex. In 2020, the US Census Bureau reported that more than five million Asian Americans living in the United States identified as having Chinese heritage.

A common theme in twentieth century Chinese American literature is the critical representation of social issues. Cultural conflicts, generation gaps, and gender troubles are common to the experiences of many Chinese Americans from diverse backgrounds. This literature, including Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior (1976) and Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book (1989), is essential to Chinese American identity and tends to problematize rather than resolve its dualities. This exploration of social issues has given rise to critiques of the American Dream (for example, Gish Jen’s Typical American, 1991), of Western ideology regarding Asia (Hwang’s M. Butterfly, 1988), and of the intricate complicities between American and Chinese ideologies. These thoughtful works epitomize the complex maturity of the Chinese American identity.

In the early twenty-first century and into the 2020s, Chinese Americans continued to occupy a prominent and complex position within the social, cultural, and political life of the United States. While the community has grown in size, diversity, and socioeconomic influence, it has also faced renewed challenges, including heightened geopolitical tensions between the United States and China, a rise in anti-Asian discrimination, and public debates over immigration, national security, and belonging. At the same time, Chinese American writers, scholars, and activists also expanded discussions of identity to include transnational experience, intersectionality, and diasporic consciousness, reflective of the evolving realities of a global society.

Bibliography

Barth, Gunther. Bitter Strength: A History of the Chinese in the United States, 1850–1870. Harvard UP, 1964.

Chin, Frank, et al., editors. Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian-American Writers. Howard UP, 1974.

Chin, Frank, et al., editors. The Big Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Chinese American and Japanese American Literature. Meridian, 1991.

Greene, Madeleine, and Jeanna Batalova. "Chinese Immigrants in the United States." Migration Policy Institute, 15 Jan. 2026, www.migrationpolicy.org/article/chinese-immigrants-united-states. Accessed 29 Jan. 2026.

Miller, Stuart Creighton. The Unwelcome Immigrant: The American Image of the Chinese, 1795–1882. U of California P, 1969.

Rico, Brittany, Joyce Key Hahn, and Cody Spence. “Chinese, Except Taiwanese, Was The Largest Asian Alone or in Any Combination Group; Nepalese Population Grew Fastest.” U.S. Census Bureau, 21 Sep. 2023, www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/09/2020-census-dhc-a-asian-population.htm. Accessed 15 Nov. 2024.

Takaki, Ronald. Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans. Penguin, 1989.