__ March 2013
Racial discrimination has become an important social issue over the years as more and more people have been subjected to it. Of particular note are Asian immigrants in the United States, who are often victims of unfair treatment and other forms of prejudice. The occurrence of widespread racial discrimination in the U.S. brought Sucheng Chan to explore the meaning of race. If discrimination stems from extreme differences in color, then why are the Chinese, like the Japanese, Koreans and Filipinos who are not exactly dark-skinned, still discriminated? In the case of Takao Ozawa vs. United States (1902-1922), the US Supreme Court did not grant a Japanese national, Takao Ozawa, citizenship naturalization because he was not a white person or a person of African descent or nativity as stated in the Naturalization Act of 1996. The court held that all Caucasians were not really “white.” Though Ozawa did not challenge the validity of the discriminating decision, he attempted to classify the Japanese as “white” (Chan 47-50, 93).
Like in the case of Ozawa vs. US, the Chinese who migrated to California in the 19th century suffered extreme discrimination for being not white enough. In the mid 1850’s, the California Supreme Court refused to admit the testimony of a Chinese man who witnessed a white man who committed murder. California continued to discriminate the American Chinese population by imposing a tax of $2.50 per month to each of them (Chan 82-105).
Timothy Fong traces the beginning of an anti-Chinese movement which sprung decades following the entrance of Chinese gold-hunters in the 1850’s. There was a series of economic crises which left many Americans jobless. Anti-Chinese sentiments were so strong in California. Led by Denis Kearney, leader of a labor organization, they called for the exclusion of the Chinese into many public affairs. They blamed Chinese immigrants for the loss of their jobs and for competing with them in the employment sector. The Chinese Exclusion Act was born from this anti-Chinese movement and they expelled a great number of Chinese labourers who composed majority of California’s agricultural workers. Violent riots ensued and several Chinese immigrants were massacred or violently treated. To get away from this chain of violence, the Chinese hid in Chinatowns of large cities. Eventually, California’s agricultural areas fell so short of workers and many other immigrants like the white Europeans did not pursue these vacant positions anymore as they proved to be unsavory. The vacant agricultural positions were later filled up by the Japanese, Filipinos and other Asian immigrants, while the Chinese’ began to take up other roles in American society (Fong 10-35).
For instance, there were a number of Chinese who were drafted to the Union or to the Confederacy and joined in the American Civil War. They were also involved in mining, fisheries, and other blue collar jobs. Most of them, however, opened up groceries in neighbors where the white population is not the majority. They gradually carved out their own role in society and were able to send their families into public institutions such as schools and churches for the white man. Others began to build their own schools. A new, more educated wave of Chinese began to integrate with the rest of American society. Racial discrimination is still there but these are more tolerable now and no longer as violent and degrading to the Chinese as before.
Works Cited
Chan, Sucheng. Asian Americans: An Interpretive History. CT: Twayne Publishers, 1991. Print.
Fong, Timothy. The Contemporary Asian American Experience: Beyond the Model Minority. 3rd ed. New Jersey: Pearson-Prentice Hall, 2007. Print.
