History of Chinese Americans

The history of Chinese Americans or the history of ethnic Chinese in the United States includes three major waves of Chinese immigration to the United States, beginning in the 19th century. Chinese immigrants in the 19th century worked in the California Gold Rush of the 1850s and the Central Pacific Railroad in the 1860s. They also worked as laborers in Western mines. They suffered racial discrimination at every level of White society. Many Americans were stirred to anger by the "Yellow Peril" rhetoric. Despite provisions for equal treatment of Chinese immigrants in the 1868 Burlingame Treaty between the U.S. and China, political and labor organizations rallied against "cheap Chinese labor".

Newspapers condemned employers who were initially pro-Chinese. When clergy ministering to the Chinese immigrants in California supported the Chinese, they were severely criticized by the local press and populace. So hostile was the opposition that in 1882, the U.S. Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act prohibiting immigration from China for the following ten years. This law was then extended by the Geary Act in 1892. The Chinese Exclusion Act was the only U.S. law ever to prevent immigration and naturalization on the basis of race. These laws not only prevented new immigration but also the reunion of the families of thousands of Chinese men already living in the United States who had left China without their wives and children. Anti-miscegenation laws in many Western states also prohibited the Chinese men from marrying white women.

In 1924, the law barred further entries of Chinese. Those already in the United States had been ineligible for citizenship since the previous year. Also by 1924, all Asian immigrants (except people from the Philippines, which had been annexed by the United States in 1898) were utterly excluded by law, denied citizenship and naturalization, and prevented from owning land. In many Western states, Asian immigrants were even prevented from marrying Caucasians.

Only since the 1940s, when the United States and China became allies during World War II, did the situation for Chinese Americans begin to improve, as restrictions on entry into the country, naturalization, and mixed marriage were lessened. In 1943, Chinese immigration to the United States was once again permitted—by way of the Chinese Exclusion Repeal Act—thereby repealing 61 years of official racial discrimination against the Chinese. Large-scale Chinese immigration did not occur until 1965 when the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 lifted national origin quotas. After World War II, anti-Asian prejudice began to decrease, and Chinese immigrants, along with other Asians (such as Japanese, Koreans, Indians and Vietnamese), have adapted and advanced. Currently, the Chinese constitute the largest ethnic group of Asian Americans (about 22%).

As of the 2020 U.S. census^[update], there are more than 4.2 million Chinese in the United States, above 1.2% of the total population. The influx continues, where each year ethnic Chinese people from the People's Republic of China, Taiwan, and to a lesser extent Southeast Asia move to the United States, surpassing Hispanic and Latino immigration in 2012.

The Chinese reached North America during the era of Spanish colonial rule over the Philippines (1565–1815), during which they had established themselves as fishermen, sailors, and merchants on Spanish galleons that sailed between the Philippines and Mexican ports (Manila galleons). California belonged to Mexico until 1848, and historians have asserted that a small number of Chinese had already settled there by the mid-18th century. Also later, as part of expeditions in 1788 and 1789 by the explorer and fur trader John Meares from Canton to Vancouver Island, several Chinese sailors and craftsmen contributed to building the first European-designed boat that was launched in Vancouver.

Shortly after the American Revolutionary War, as the United States had recently begun transpacific maritime trade with Qing, Chinese came into contact with American sailors and merchants at the commercial port of Canton (Guangzhou). There, local individuals heard about opportunities and became curious about America. The main trade route between the United States and China then was between Canton and New England, where the first Chinese arrived via Cape Horn (the only route as the Panama Canal did not exist). These Chinese were mainly merchants, sailors, seamen, and students who wanted to see and acquaint themselves with a strange foreign land they had only heard about. However, their presence was mostly temporary and only a few settled permanently.

American missionaries in China also sent small numbers of Chinese boys to the United States for schooling. From 1818 to 1825, five students stayed at the Foreign Mission School in Cornwall, Connecticut. In 1854, Yung Wing became the first Chinese graduate from an American college, Yale University. The Chinese Educational Mission of the 1870s-'80s continued this tradition, sending some 120 boys to be educated in New England schools.