"At first they worked in the California gold mines . . . they helped to build the railroads spanning the land, worked in the orchards and farms of the West Coast and then in new manufacturing plants." That is how the earliest generations of Chinese Americans are described in the book We, the Asian Americans by the U.S. Bureau of the Census.
Over the past half century, the economic and social status of Chinese Americans has been constantly changing--from low to high, and also from high back to low.
The composition of the Chinese-American community underwent a sea change after the end of the Second World War. Before that, except for the first generation of workers, there were very few Chinese immigrants, owing to the effect of the Chinese Exclusion Act. But when the mainland fell to Communism in 1949, Chinese citizens living in the U.S., including 4,000 graduate students and 1,000 technical personnel, were granted U.S. residency, providing fresh reinforcements to the ranks of the community.
Nonetheless, they belonged to a completely different world from that of the descendants of earlier Chinese Americans, most of whom spoke Cantonese and lived together in ethnic enclaves, some of them never speaking English and rarely leaving Chinatown all their lives.
With the influx of these high-level new immigrants, the image of Chinese Americans, who had been described as "smelling half of ginger and half of detergent" (because many of them earned a living by running restaurants or laundries), changed completely overnight.
For example: In 1940 just 2.4 percent of employed Chinese males were engaged in professional or technical occupations; that figure jumped to 6.3 percent by 1950 and 28.7 percent by 1970, an increase of more than 45-fold in thirty years. During the same period, the Chinese-Americans population as a whole grew just five and a half times.
Chinese Americans came to be viewed differently in the eyes of other Americans, and their collective achievements were often compared favorably with those of other ethnic groups. In the 1970 census, for instance, Chinese Americans ranked second only to Japanese Americans in terms of median family income (one tenth higher than that of Americans in general), and more than one fourth had a college education or higher, while the figure for Americans in general was only one tenth. Their excellent showing has led the New York Times, Time magazine, U.S. News and World Report and other noted publications to hail Chinese Americans as model immigrants.
Much of that fine report card comes courtesy of Chinese tradition!
Thanks to the ancient adage that "all the rest is second rate, only study ranks on top," Chinese everywhere stress education, no matter where in the world they may find themselves. Educational level and income are directly related, of course, but the reason Chinese families rank high in income is not completely a matter of return on educational investment.
On the contrary, although the educational level of Chinese Americans exceeds the U.S. average, they are lower in individual income. Professor Yuan-li Wu of Stanford University points to two reasons for the discrepancy: "more breadwinners in each family, and the contribution of women."
The children of black and white Americans usually leave home after high school for work or college and form households of their own, but a comparatively high proportion of young Chinese-American men and women continue to live with their parents. In addition, a large percentage of Chinese-American women work, further increasing the number of income earners in the family.
In addition, considering the United States overall, divorced women are a group in rather poor economic circumstances. Holding out against the concept of marriage prevalent in the United States of "marry if you get along together and divorce if you don't," Chinese seem alone in believing husband and wife are bound till death do them part. If the marriage doesn't work out, they prefer separation to divorce, at least in view of the children.
How that thinking works in practice is this: the divorce rate of Chinese-American men is just half the U.S. average, and for women even lower -- just one third. The separation rate runs just the opposite. It's practically zero for the U.S. as a whole, but nearly one percent for Chinese Americans.
As for why individual incomes are comparatively lower, an inescapable limitation is comparatively fewer employment opportunities. There are many reasons for that, including the language barrier, a lack of social connections and racial discrimination, which may be concealed but still exists.
A worker from the Chinese Newcomers Service Center testified before the California Fair Employment Practice Commission in 1970 that because of their lack of job opportunities, many recent immigrants from Hong Kong turned to menial jobs just to survive even though they had held professional and semiprofessional positions before. She cited examples of a Chinese physician working as a laundryman, a first-mate seaman as a kitchen helper, and a newspaper reporter, an accountant and a librarian all as busboys.
Even if they manage to find employment in professional and technical fields thanks to their education, many Chinese Americans seem to receive less pay than their colleagues of other ethnic backgrounds. That might also be ascribed to their preferences in job selection: when it comes to a choice between high security and high pay, they lean toward the first. Because of their "crisis consciousness" as members of a minority, Chinese parents often encourage their children to study medicine or engineering so they won't have to worry about putting bread on the table later.
In addition, "teaching is a highly respected profession in Confucian tradition" points out John T. Ma, author of the book Chinese Americans in the Professions. Along with their rise in education, the number of scholars and academics among Chinese Americans has greatly increased as well. There were just 79 Chinese teaching in American colleges and universities in 1946, a figure which rose in a straight line after that, already reaching 1,124 by 1960.
The trend continues today. If highly educated Chinese don't teach, they engage in research. Nobel Prize winner Yuan T. Lee once stated, "A fourth of the researchers in large experimental agencies around the U.S. are Chinese." All things considered, it's no wonder Chinese Americans are regarded as academically oriented in terms of occupation.
Despite the lag in individual income, viewed overall, the social and economic status of Chinese Americans was greatly improved by the influx of immigrants during the first twenty years after World War Ⅱ. A new wave of immigration began in 1965, but its effects have been much different.
New immigration laws were enacted that year that raised the quota for Chinese immigration to 20,000 a year, similar to that of most European countries. Before it had been just 200 to 500.
The R.O.C. liberalized exit requirements in 1976, and the U.S. gave the mainland a quota of 20,000 of its own when they established formal relations in 1979. Chinese immigration then greatly increased. In the 1980 census, more than 810,000 Americans identified themselves as being of Chinese ancestry, surpassing Japanese Americans to become the nation's second largest immigrant minority, behind Mexican Americans.
The achievements of Chinese Americans revealed in the 1980 census are even more shining than ten years before: median family income is still higher than the U.S. average and pulling farther away, and although individual median income for males is still rather low, the gap has shrunk from 19 to 11 percent (see table 1). What's different is, the ones doing best are no longer first-generation immigrants but Chinese Americans born in the U.S.
The main reason is that the new wave of immigrants is more of a mixed bag than the previous one. That group, for coincidental reasons, was so high in quality that its like has rarely been seen. They not only improved the status of Chinese Americans as a whole, but many of their children have made brilliant accomplishments. As the new generation came of age in the 1980s, the great majority lived up to their family heritage by receiving a good education and engaging in professional occupations. They entered mainstream American society and represented a new force coming to the fore among native-born Chinese Americans.
The speed of the turnabout can be glimpsed from two observations. Almost all the Chinese Americans listed in Who's Who in America, 1974-75 were first-generation immigrants: 45 out of the 48 persons with Chinese surnames beginning with the letter "C," for instance, were born in China. And by 1980 native-born Chinese Americans had a median family income half again as high as that of foreign-born Chinese Americans, and were far ahead in individual income, educational level and employment in professional occupations of (see table 2).
In their thinking about marriage and the family, native-born Chinese Americans are almost the same as other Americans. "My family has been here for five generations. The first four were all big families living together, but my three sons have all moved out and live on their own," the general manager of a bank in Chinatown in Los Angeles says ruefully. The average size of the family for native-born Chinese Americans is 3.21 persons, even smaller than the overall U.S. figure of 3.34, and the marriage breakup rate is two and a half times more than that of foreign-born Chinese Americans and close to that of white Americans.
Even if they are born, raised and educated in the U.S. and enter mainstream American society, Chinese Americans still find it hard to break out of the shadow of discrimination as a minority. According to a report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, the average Chinese male earns five percent less than a white with comparable skills, and the higher the education and position involved, the greater the discrimination. Unlike ten years earlier, discrimination is no longer common in all walks of life and at all levels of work, but is concentrated at higher levels in high-paying occupations.
Another startling change brought about by the new wave of immigration is an increase in the number of impoverished households. The proportion of poor households among first-generation immigrants reached 12 percent in 1980, which was not only far higher than that for native-born Chinese Americans (3.7 percent) but higher than that for the U.S. as a whole (9.6 percent).
"Chinese-American income is tending toward bimodal distribution, and a large quantity of the population is concentrated at the low-income level." The polarization indicated by Yuan-li Wu in analyzing the 1970 census had become even more pronounced by 1980. Chinatowns had become the sole places where new immigrants could exist without learning English and without entering (or being able to enter) American society. Old Chinatowns expanded and new Chinatowns sprang up like mushrooms.
It was the old Chinatowns, in particular, with their concentration of stores and job opportunities, that became a gathering point for the new immigrants swarming in. These places were dirty and crowded to begin with, and the living and working conditions there inevitably went from bad to worse.
In New York's Chinatown, for example, 80 percent of the population in 1980 were foreign-born Chinese, and 22 percent had lived there for less than five years. More than half speak English poorly or not at all. With so many immigrants jammed together, housing is more and more crowded and wages are depressed even lower. A waiter may work sixty hours a week for just US$200 a month.
No matter how bad the surroundings may be, it's very hard for a person in Chinatown to make it on the outside. They have no chance to acquire the skills needed in the outside world on the one hand, and that world is changing on the other--the U.S. economy is not what it used to be, and automation is constantly reducing the demand for unskilled labor. Many of the Chinese there know that staying in Chinatown is not the answer, that life there is tougher and tougher, but they can't find a way to pull themselves out. "Chinatown is like a warm bath--even as the water slowly becomes cold," wrote Peter Kwong in his book The New Chinatown.
Because the old Chinatowns, crowded and filthy, with their restaurants and souvenir shops, are located in the heart of city, Peter Kwong calls Chinese Americans living there "downtown Chinese" in distinction to "uptown Chinese," who are professionals, drive nice cars and live in the suburbs.
Another ten-year census is being carried out in the United States this year, and accurate figures won't be available for several years on whether there are more downtown Chinese or uptown Chinese among the latest addition to Chinese Americans.
But certain signs make the general results not hard to guess.
The latest immigrants fall into several general categories. Those from Taiwan are steadily increasing. Their economic situation has changed for the better thanks to the island's economic takeoff and the appreciation of the NT dollar, and some of them even bear bundles of cash for investment and have jacked up real estate prices in places like Monterrey Park in California or Flushing in New York. But their educational level has not kept pace with the bulge in their pocketbooks. Adding to the growth are the large numbers of immigrants from the mainland who have entered under the new quota and immigrants from Hong Kong anxious to beat the 1997 deadline no matter what the cost.
In view of all this, it's hard not to worry that the "downtown Chinese" will come out on top.
Table 1. Median Income of Chinese Americans and U.S. Overall [Picture]
Table 2. Basic Characteristics of Native-born and Foreign-born Chinese Americans, 1980 [Picture]
[Picture Caption]
Shop signs in Chinese and tawny-skinned, black-haired people going by --when overseas Chinese arrive at Chinatown, they feel right at home. Shown here is New York's Chinatown, one of the largest and oldest in the world.
Historical photographs of the life of early Chinese immigrants to the U.S. are displayed at a museum on Angel Island off San Francisco. (photo by Vincent Chang)
Laundries are one of the traditional lines of business for Chinese Americans. This one is in Chinatown in San Francisco.
Newly emerging Chinatowns are often spacious, clean and up to date. This is part of one in Houston. (photo by Vincent Chang)
An immigration amnesty has enabled many illegal residents in the U.S. to come out and go straight. A legal center in San Francisco's Chinatown helps people with applications. (photo by Vincent Chang)
Chinese Americans have a higher median family income than other American s. women are a major reason.
"Uptown Chinese," who have a college education or higher, engage in professional occupations, and live in the suburbs, are the reason why Chinese Americans have been called a model minority. Shown here is Dr. Paul Chu and his family.
An Wang, Hiram Fong and Yuan T. Lee are outstanding Chinese Americans who have made sterling achievements in business, government and academia. (photo by Vincent Chang)
Historical photographs of the life of early Chinese immigrants to the U.S. are displayed at a museum on Angel Island off San Francisco. （photo by Vincent Chang）
Laundries are one of the traditional lines of business for Chinese Americans. This one is in Chinatown in San Francisco.
Newly emerging Chinatowns are often spacious, clean and up to date. This is part of one in Houston. （photo by Vincent Chang）
An immigration amnesty has enabled many illegal residents in the U.S. to come out and go straight. A legal center in San Francisco's Chinatown helps people with applications. （photo by Vincent Chang）
Chinese Americans have a higher median family income than other American s. women are a major reason.
"Uptown Chinese," who have a college education or higher, engage in professional occupations, and live in the suburbs, are the reason why Chinese Americans have been called a model minority. Shown here is Dr. Paul Chu and his family.
An Wang, Hiram Fong and Yuan T. Lee are outstanding Chinese Americans who have made sterling achievements in business, government and academia. （photo by Vincent Chang）
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