Contributions of the asian immigrants to the u s labour force in the 20th century

The contributions of Asian immigrants to the U.S labour force in the 20th century 37 5.1.2.. The hindrances and the supports for Asian immigrants to enter the U.S labour force in the 20t

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIOAL STUDIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

GRADUATION PAPER

CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE ASIAN IMMIGRANTS

TO THE U.S LABOUR FORCE

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

KHOÁ LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

ĐÓNG GÓP CỦA NGƯỜI NHẬP CƯ CHÂU Á TỚI

RETENTION AND USE OF THESIS

I hereby state that I : Nguyen Thi Mai, K42E20, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts accept the requirements of the university relating to retention and use of Bachelor‟s Graduation Paper deposited in the library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purpose of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for care, loan, or reproduction of the paper

Signature

Nguyen Thi Mai

Hanoi, May – 2012

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First of all, I would like to express my sincere thanks to my supervisor Pham Thi Thanh Thuy, M.A for her continuous helps, stimulating suggestions and great encouragement during the time of writing this graduation paper Without her invaluable guidance and comments, my graduation paper would not have been completed

I would also like to show my gratitude to my parents for their encouragement and support in my study

Finally, I would like to give special thanks to my respectful teachers and my helpful friends for their encouragement and support of collecting materials for this study

ABSTRACT

Immigration has long been a fundamental part of American history Along with the Europeans, the Asians were the early immigrants to the United States of America (U.S.) However, due to the discrimination from the white, the contributions of Asian immigrants to the U.S economy, particularly to the U.S labour force seemed not to well recognized, especially, with their increasing in number and in quality since the passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act Thus, this study is conducted as an attempt to show the undeniable contributions of the Asian immigrants in the 20th century for the U.S labour force The study also indicated some insignificant hindrances and supports from the legislative aspect of the U.S government for Asian immigrants at this time In this study, contributions of Asian immigrants to the U.S in the 20th century were examined through surveying and comparing different related documents such as books, journals, articles and related studies from the official resource of the federal government The investigation found that Asian immigrants contributed to the U.S labour force in terms of quantity and quality These contributions have built up since the turning of the 20th century; however, they became significant after the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 As regard the supports and hindrances to the Asian immigrants when entering the U.S labour force, the investigation in the paper revealed that in the first half of the 20th century, the U.S federal government imposed many acts to restrict the entry of Asians and then prevented them from contributing to the U.S labour force These restrictions only ended in 1965 and promoted the significantly contributions of Asian immigrants to the U.S economy in general and U.S labour force in particular

1.1 Statement of the problem and the rationale for the study 1

1.2 Objectives and Research Questions 2

1.3 Research Methodology 3

1.4 Scope of the study 3

1.5 Significance of the research 3

1.6 Organization of the paper 4

CHAPTER II HISTORY OF ASIAN IMMIGRANTS INTO THE U.S 5

2.1 Pre-1965 period 6

2.2 Post 1965 period 13

CHAPTER III CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE ASIAN IMMIGRANTS

3.1 Contributions of Asian immigrants to the quantity of US labour force

CHAPTER IV THE SUPPORTS AND HINDRANCES FOR ASIAN

4.1 The hindrances for Asian immigrants 29

4.2 The supports for Asian immigrants 34

5.1 Summary of the research 37

5.1.1 The contributions of Asian immigrants to the U.S labour

force in the 20th century 37

5.1.2 The hindrances and the supports for Asian immigrants to

enter the U.S labour force in the 20th century 38

5.2 Limitations of the research 40

5.3 Suggestions for further studies 41

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION 1.1 Statement of the problem and the rationale for the study

From the history of making the nation, it is often said that the United States

is a nation of immigrants Since its early days, more than fifty million people have been admitted to the U.S., which was a larger number of immigrants Numerous factors of low wages, unemployment, disease, forced military conscription, religious persecution, and starvation inspired immigrants to come to the United States, firstly to benefit their own interests, and automatically to contribute to the cultural and economic wealth of this country “The contribution of immigrants can

be seen in every aspect of our national life We see it in religion, in politics, in business, in the arts…” (Kennedy, 1964, p.10) Thus, the immigrants are considered one of the key factors forming the appearance of the U.S today although sometimes they are still regarded the subjects of intense national debates because of alarming number of illiterates, paupers and criminals

Among the various groups of immigrants to the U.S, the Asians are one of the fastest growing population groups in the United States The first Asian immigrants came early in the mid-1800s since thousands of Chinese immigrated to California to work on the railroad Then Asian immigration has been an integral part of immigration to the United States since the mid-nineteenth century and one of the two dominant sources of post-1965 immigration to America when the Immigration and Naturalization Services Act of 1965 abolished national-origin quotas fixed in the 1920s and opened the nation's shores to new immigrants (Yang, 2010) At the end of the twentieth century, Asians have become the nation's fastest growing ethnic minorities Today, about half of the people immigrating to the United States are from Asia, and along with other immigrants and people of color, Asian Americans have been transforming the face of America Therefore, the Asian

group can represent the most obvious contributions of the immigrants to the U.S in the 20th century

In fact, there are undeniable impacts of the Asian immigrants on the cultural landscape “Many buildings, landscapes, archeological resources, and much material culture found in the United States today reflect cultural connections to Asia.” (Joyner, 2005, p.13) However, the most significant benefits that the Asians have brought to the U.S are economic aspects They have entered the U.S labour force and Asian immigrants have been compiling “an amazing record of achievement, climbing the economic ladder with remarkable speed” (Goel, 1989, p.78) The growth of Asian immigrants, especially in the 20th century has represented a large and increasing share of the labor force of the U.S., which is known for the valuable human resource for U.S economic development

Because of the development of the Asian immigrants in the 20th century, but lack of the research which focus on the contributions of the Asian immigrants to U.S labour force in this specific period, it has intrigued the researcher of this thesis

to conduct the graduation paper on the topic “Contributions of the Asian immigrants

to the U.S labour force in the 20th century”

1.2 Objectives and Research Questions

The primary aim of the thesis is to investigate a comprehensive analysis of the Asian immigrants‟ contributions to the U.S labour force To be more specific, the contributions of the Asian immigrants to the quantity and the quality of U.S labor force Moreover, in the process of entering the U.S labour force, the supports and hindrances for the Asian immigrants are also analyzed These objectives are specified in the following research questions

1 What are the contributions of Asian immigrants to the labor force in the U.S?

2 What are the supports and hindrances for Asian immigrants when entering U.S labour force?

1.3 Research Methodology

This research is a secondary research and the approach applied is comparative document analysis Different documents related to Asian immigrants and their contributions to the U.S labour force are collected from internet, books, magazines, and journals These documents are synthesized, analyzed, compared, contrasted and evaluated to find out answers for each research question

1.4 Scope of the study

Asian immigrants come from a wide range of countries from the Asian continent According to Barnes and Bennett (2002), the term Asian “refers to people having origins in any of the original peoples of the Far East, Southeast Asia, or the Indian subcontinent” such as Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippine Islands, Thailand, Vietnam and so on However, due to time limitation, only six major Asian legal immigration groups, namely, Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, Japanese, Koreans and Vietnamese are considered in this study since the data on the small immigration groups and the illegal immigrants are hard

to access

1.5 Significance of the research

Once having been finished, this research would be helpful for many purposes Firstly, the research can provide a deep insight into the Asian immigrant human resources for US economy Thus, it helps the U.S economists to value the role of the Asian immigrants in the U.S economy effectively In addition, the research would benefit the Asians in general and the Vietnamese immigrants in particular to consider entering the U.S economy Finally, the research would serve

as a supplementary source and a valued reference for researchers who are interested

in studying the success of Asian immigrants in the U.S economy

1.6 Organization of the paper

Chapter 1 – Introduction describes the study‟s rationale, aims, objectives, research questions, significance, scope and methods

Chapter 2 – History of Asian immigrants to the U.S

Chapter 3 – Contributions of the Asian immigrants to the labor market in the U.S

Chapter 4 – The supports and hindrances for Asian immigrants when entering U.S labour force

Chapter 5 – Conclusion ends the study by summarizing Asian immigrants‟ contributions, their supports and hindrances when joining the U.S labour force

CHAPTER II

HISTORY OF ASIAN IMMIGRANTS INTO THE U.S

The Asians have immigrated to the U.S for a long time and the Asian immigrants‟ history in the U.S is regarded as “the history of dreams, hard work, prejudice, discrimination, persistence, and triumph” (Le, 2012, p.1) The Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Koreans, and Asian Indians have been among the earliest to immigrate in significant numbers and constitute the largest Asian groups that settled

in the United States According to Kulkarni, there is a noticeable difference among Asians immigrants event though they are often regarded as a unified group which is distinct from the native born whites and from the other minority groups such as the Hispanics in the U.S In fact, the knowledge of the differences and the similarities in the historical experiences of the groups “potentially aids in situating one group vis-à-vis another with regard to their present socioeconomic position” (Kulkarni, 2008, p.12) Thus, history of each of six Asian immigrant groups is investigated clearly

Asian immigration to the U.S lasts centuries and displays diverse trends and patterns According to Bernard (1980), the professor of sociology at Brooklyn College, Asian immigration to the Americas is separated into five periods of time The first period is named The Colonial Period (1607-1775), with the Asian settlements recorded in as early as 1765 The second one is the Open Door Period from 1776 to 1881, in which Asians immigrated to the new nation and were eager to stake a claim to the wealth and prosperity of America Next, the Regulation Period (1882-1916) concerned over Asian assimilation to American labour force which led

to legislated discrimination against Asians The fourth period is the Restriction Period lasting from 1917 to 1964, in which restrictions against Asian groups became prevalent and severely Lastly, the Liberalization Period (1965-present) came with the removal of quotas and legal hindrances to Asian immigration As the result of legislative supports, this period was the beginning of the process of greater contributions of Asians into the American culture and economy

However, the recent researches related Asian migration tend to consider two broad periods, marked by the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act (Xie & Goyette, 2004) The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, considered one of most liberal immigration laws, abolished the national origin criterion and it has been extremely instrumental in the growth in the Asian population in the past few decades of the 20th century Xie and Goyette (2004, p.1) claimed that:

“The first period, prior to 1965, is characterized by a U.S economy hungry for low-wage labor and a history fraught with severe racial conflicts In this period, Asian Americans faced much competition, racial violence, and discrimination The second period, after 1965, reflects a growing need in the U.S economy for an educated, skilled labor force and a relatively more tolerant racial environment following the Civil Rights movement It is during this time that Asian Americans have been perceived more positively as a “model minority.””

This chapter presents a brief description of the historical experience of the six major Asian immigrant groups that I study in this direction of Xie and Goyette

2.1 Pre-1965 period

Recent archaeological evidence traces Asian migration to the U.S as early as the fifth century when Buddhist missionaries from China visited the West coast of the U.S There is also some evidence that the Spanish brought some Chinese ship builders to Baja California as early as 1571 (Fong, 2002)

However, the first significant wave of Asian migration occurred between 1848 and 1924 when hundreds and thousands of people from China, India, Korea, Japan and the Philippines came to the U.S in response to the California gold rush with the hope of searching for a better life and to the image of American as “the Promised Land” (Fong, 2002) Along with many other immigrant groups such as Europeans, the initial wave of Asian immigrants arrived in the United States to fulfill the need for labor

Chinese

The Chinese were the first Asian group to arrive in significant numbers with the large scale immigration beginning in 1852 when 52,000 Chinese came that year alone (Fong, 2002) The first Chinese were brought to Hawaii to work on the sugar and pineapple plantations Workers from China were imported to work on the sugar plantations and were preferred over the native Hawaiian workers by the plantation owners because the Chinese workers were seen as more hard working, disciplined and efficient In fact, one of the white supervisors in 1838, wrote to the owner of the plantation that “A colony of the Chinese would, probably, put the plantation in order” (Takaki 1989, p.11) In addition to sugar plantation and rail road workers, there were merchants from China who migrated as well

Early Chinese immigrants were primarily peasants They had little or no formal schooling and the large waves of them came to the U.S as manual workers when the rapid development of the West required more cheap labor Chinese immigrants were also attracted by the promise of the discovery of gold in California (Xie and Goyette, 2004) Actually, the discovery of gold in California attracted the majority of early Chinese immigrants to the United States Chinese miners spread throughout California and surrounding states such as Nevada, Oregon, Montana, and Idaho There were 50,000 Chinese immigrants arriving in California in 1852 compared with 2,000 in Hawaii (Joyner, 2005)

In fact, when arriving in the U.S, these immigrants realized that there was not only gold in California, but there were also opportunities for employment The stories of such opportunities and those of the success of many migrants were carried

to the villages, reinforcing the motivation to emigrate As early as 1870, the Chinese accounted for 9 percent of California‟s population and 25 percent of the state‟s work force Chinese immigrants were brought to the West Coast in the latter half of the nineteenth century mainly because the emerging U.S capitalism there needed their cheap labor at that particular time (Bonacich & Cheng, 1984) On the other hand, most of the Chinese, came as “sojourners”, expecting to work for some time,

earn money and then go back home (Bonacich, 1973) This “sojourner” image has been attributed by scholars as the reason for the unwillingness on part of Chinese to assimilate and as contributing to discrimination and exclusion of the Chinese (Kitano & Daniels, 2001)

Xie and Goyette (2004) claimed that Chinese immigrants found work in agriculture, construction, mining and Chinese laborers represented 90% of the workforce responsible for the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad at that time In addition, Chinese workers were often brought into factories to replace the white workers who went on strike over labor disputes Because of this, the Chinese

in the U.S became a threat to the white workers (Xie and Goyette, 2004) Their presence in California and Hawaii aroused great anti-Chinese sentiment during the period between 1850 and 1900 The western states regarded the Chinese immigrants

as competitors for jobs and for land Thus, they began legislating Chinese to the margins of the U.S society More and more laws were designed to reduce the inflow of Chinese, which eventually led to the passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act

of 1882 The Act then was extended for another ten year period and reenacted without temporal limits in 1892 and in 1902 (Kitano and Daniels, 2001) However, officials, merchants, teachers, students, travelers and students of Chinese American citizens were still allowed to enter although subject to considerable harassment and finally, the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed in 1943 and Chinese immigration increased to modest levels in the late 1940s and 1950s (Nee & Nee, 1972)

Japanese

After the passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 and its effect until

1902, the number of Chinese immigrants reduced sharply, resulting in the decrease

in the labour force for the U.S at that time Meanwhile, the need for labor to build the country of America only increased Thus, other groups were sought The Japanese became the second Asian immigrant group in the U.S

In 1868, the Hawaiian consul general in Japan secretly recruited and transported 148 workers to Hawaii In the early 1880s, immediately following the Chinese Exclusion Act, Japanese farmers began to immigrate to Hawaii and then later to California In 1884, the Japanese government allowed Hawaiian planters to recruit contract labours which led to a massive migration from Japan At that time, the imposition of taxes and deflationary policies by the Meiji government caused a lot of financial hardship to the farmers that made the financially distressed farmers see emigration to Hawaii and the U.S as a refuge They saw themselves as laborers working temporarily in a foreign country and with the higher wages in Hawaii plantations, it was the primary attraction Beginning, in the 1890s, the Japanese began migrating to the U.S mainland as well, replacing Chinese immigration as a source of cheap labour As of 1880, there were 148 Japanese in the U.S mainland Between 1885 and 1924, 200,000 Japanese came to Hawaii and 180,000 to the U.S mainland (Takaki, 1989)

There were noteworthy differences between the characteristics and the experiences of the Chinese and the Japanese Due to Japan‟s system of compulsory education, Japanese migrants were more literate and better educated In addition, even though the Japanese were poor, they came with more money than their Chinese and European counterparts (Takaki, 1989)

Despite the favorable position of the Japanese relative to the Chinese, the Japanese were perceived as a source of unfair competition and therefore discrimination against them also existed Immigration from Japanese was restricted

by the Gentlemen‟s Agreement of 1907-1908 This agreement stopped the immigration of Japanese labours but allowed Japanese non-labour and women to enter the U.S Thus, unlike the Chinese, the Japanese were able to start their families and increase their population in the U.S (Fong, 2002) Movement from Japan was further restricted by the Immigration Act of 1924 The Immigration and the Nationality Act of 1953 restored a moderate flow of Japanese to the U.S in the

mid-1950s by permitting immigration outside the quota system for immediate relatives of U.S citizens and in other selected cases

Filipinos

The third significant Asian stream of immigration to the U.S was from the Philippines, which was the territory of the U.S after 1898, the year that the U.S acquired the Philippines at the end of the Spanish-American War Thus, they were more American in their culture and way of living Most of them received American education, had proficiency in written and spoken English and were familiar with the European culture (Takaki, 1989)

Even though the major immigration wave from the Philippines began after the U.S gained possession of the Philippines following the Spanish- American War in

1898, the first permanent settlement of the Filipinos dates back to the late 18th century with evidence of Filipinos establishing villages outside of New Orleans as early as 1763 (Fong, 2002)

In the early 20th century, only Filipinos, as citizens of a U.S colony were able

to immigrate to the U.S after the passing of the Immigration Act of 1924, which eliminated the entry for Chinese, Japanese and other Asian immigrants Next to the Chinese and Japanese, Filipino immigrants were the third largest Asian immigrant group in the first half of the twentieth century After the Spanish American War, the Philippines became independent after almost four centuries of Spanish colonization But then the U.S colonized the Philippines in 1903 In fact, the colonial relation between the United States and the Philippines facilitated the immigration of Filipinos to Hawaii and California In the early 20th century, the migration of Filipinos was to Hawaii to work on the sugar cane plantations Between 1907 and

1935, about 126,000 Filipinos arrived in Hawaii to work on sugar plantations, and, beginning in 1920, another 45,000 Filipinos came to the continental United States, mostly to California Plantation owners in Hawaii recruited Filipino laborers during this period mainly because exclusion laws terminated the immigration of other

Asian laborers In 1923, there was a migration of large number of Filipinos to the mainland By 1930, some 110,000 Filipinos from poor and uneducated farming households had come to Hawaii and another 40,000 to the U.S mainland (Burma, 1951)

In 1935, Filipinos could travel to the U.S without visas as the U.S nationals, but anti-Filipino sentiment was rampant Although the Filipinos were the only Asian country that was not prohibited from entering the U.S under the 1924 National Origins Act, the Tydings-McDuffie Act of 1934 placed an “alien” status

on Filipinos In fact, racism and economic competition, intensified by the depression of 1929 led to severe anti-Filipino violence and passage of the Tydings-McDuffie Act of 1934 The act gave the Filipinos a semi-independent status and resulted in the reclassification of Filipinos from American nationals to aliens and thus severely restricted their immigration The Filipino immigration was restricted

to fifty persons per year (Hirschman & Wong, 1986) Until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 there was a significant increase in the Filipino population in the U.S

Koreans

The first significant Korean wave came to Hawaii between 1903 and 1905 and the second one was after the Korean War (1950-1953) (Kitano & Daniels, 2001) Between 1903-1905, over 7000 Koreans were recruited for plantation labour work

in Hawaii They were brought in to meet the labor demand on the Hawaiian plantations after a series of laws barring Chinese labor immigration were enacted But after Japan established a protectorate over Korea in 1905 immigration from Korea stopped Therefore, there were relatively few Koreans in the U.S mainland between 1905 and 1940 The second wave 1951-1964 was a heterogeneous group consisting of wives of American servicemen, war orphans and students (Kitano & Daniels, 2001)

The early Korean migrants like the rest of the Asian groups were young and predominantly male But unlike the Chinese and Japanese migrants who were mainly farmers, Koreans were farmer, labours, government clerks, students, policemen, miners, domestic servants and so on Most of them were from urban rather than rural areas Also in terms of educational attainments, with a near seventy percent literacy level, Koreans resembled the Japanese more than the Chinese (Takaki, 1989)

The attraction of the plantation work in Hawaii and later on in the U.S mainland was perceived as an opportunity for Korean immigrants to escape from poverty as well as from Japanese oppression Hawaii and the U.S were described as

a “land of gold” and a “land of dreams” for the Korean (Takaki, 1989, p.56)

Unlike the other Asian group, Indians did not work in Hawaii prior to entering the U.S mainland They instead worked in California agriculture In 1907, Fred Lockley in his interview of many Indian migrants found that practically all of them had an literacy rate of 53 percent and they had worked as agricultural and non-agricultural unskilled workers (Takaki, 1989)

The early Indian immigrants can be subdivided into famers and labours and middle class students, elites and refugees (Sheth, 1995) Immigration restrictions after the 1924 National Origins Act stopped Indians from being a noticeable group prior to 1965

Vietnamese

Unlike the five groups above, very few Vietnamese migrated before 1965, the first recorded Vietnamese immigration to the U.S having occurred in 1952, when eight immigrants were admitted (Rumbaut, 1995) All the present Vietnamese population in the U.S entered after 1970, primary as a consequence of the U.S involvement in the Vietnam War

Though the historical contexts and the volume of immigration varied across the different groups, the pre-1965 phase of immigration was characterized by low socioeconomic status of Asian immigrants and discrimination against them

2.2 Post 1965 period

One of the most important pieces of legislation in the U.S immigration laws was the Immigration Control and Reform Act in 1965 This act, whose passage was influenced by the civil rights movement of the 1960s, along with its Constitutional amendment substantially, increased the token quotas established after World War II

to allow the Eastern Hemisphere a maximum of 20,000 per country and set a ceiling

of 170,000 This increased immigration to the U.S from many parts of the world including Asia The emigration from Asia has been large greater in volume and greater than anticipated by the U.S policy makers The push factors such as lack of economic opportunities and of chances for upward mobility seem to be central driving forces for the inflow of people from the Asian countries since the 1970s (Min, 2005) The primary goal of the 1965 Immigration Reform and Control Act was to encourage family reunification; however, a higher percentage of Asian immigrants entered the U.S in professional and occupational categories rather than

as family members (Min, 2005)

In spite of some intergroup differences, the post-1965 Asian immigration has been more middle class, educated, and more often involves entering the U.S as family units than earlier immigration from Asia, lending credibility to the image of

Asians as a „model minority‟: “a group that is culturally programmed for economic success” (Kibria 1998, p.945) The success of Asians in education and professional occupations has been widely acknowledged and publicized (Sakamoto & Xie, 2005)

CHAPTER III

CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE ASIAN IMMIGRANTS TO THE U.S LABOUR

FORCE IN THE 20 TH CENTURY

The U.S became an economic superpower in the 20th century It was not surprising when the growth of the economy originated from “capital accumulation, productivity increases, and the growth of the labor force” (Congressional Budget Office, 2005) In fact, labor force known as human resource was really the key factor in the contribution to the U.S economic development

In the 20th century, especially after the release of Immigration and Nationality Act in 1965, immigrant workers accounted for more than half of the growth of the U.S labor force Among immigration groups to the U.S in the 20thcentury, Asian immigrants played a significant role in meeting the U.S needs for workers and in understanding the role of immigrant human resources to the economic development, it should be seen from two aspects: quantitative and qualitative aspects

In fact, the participation of the Asians to the U.S labour force was different in two time periods of the 20th century, which were divided by the promulgation of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 The act has changed significantly the entry for the whole Asian immigrants then generated a new surge in the Asian American population to the U.S

3.1 Contributions of Asian immigrants to the quantity of US labour force in the 20 th century

3.1.1 Pre-1965 period

At the first half of the 20th century, immigrants in general and Asian immigrants in specific, were restricted by ethnicity and nationality In 1921, Congress imposed a quota system which restricted the number of immigrants

annually allowed to enter the U.S to preserve the existing proportions of ethnic groups in the country with only the exception of highly talented individuals and refugees The overall picture of the Asian immigration at the beginning of the 20thcentury was covered with the limitation by many governmental acts to restrict the quantity of immigrants

Although from the late nineteenth century, Chinese immigrants had a profound effect on America through supplying the labor for America's growing industry, due to the consequence of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 and its extension until 1902, which eliminated the right of the Chinese to enter the U.S, the number of Chinese immigrants in the first half of the 20th century reduced and their roles in the working place were usually replaced by the following immigrants from Japan and Korea

Like Chinese, Japanese and the rest of Asian immigration to the U.S were almost prevented by the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, also known as Johnson-Reed Act of 1924 This act limited the number of immigrants allowed entry into the United States through a national origins quota and it completely excluded immigrants from Asia During the 1930s and 1940s, it was calculated that fewer than 200 Japanese immigrated to the United States annually (Kulkarni, 2008)

Meanwhile, this era also witnessed the immigration of Koreans to the United States motivated primarily by political chaos and poverty in the early 1900‟s in their home country Approximately 7,000 emigrated to Hawaii between 1903 and 1905 seeking better working and living conditions; then some Koreans migrated to California by 1905 approximately 1000 Koreans Americans lived in California (Kitano & Daniels, 2001)

In 1906, the Hawaiian Sugar Planters‟ Association began to actively recruit

in the Philippines, and by the mid-1920s, there was a large voluntary workforce seeking admission Filipinos began migrating in large numbers to California after the Immigration Act of 1924, which prevented almost Asian immigrants, exception

Filipinos By 1931, 113,000 Filipino workers had come to Hawaii About 39,000 eventually returned to the Philippines, but more than 18,000 eventually migrated to California In addition to these, some 27,000 Filipinos immigrated directly to the mainland, most hired under the padrone system of labor supply (Fix & Passel, 1994)

Meanwhile, Vietnamese immigrants did not come in significant numbers until the late 1970s, when many of them had to flee their country in the aftermath of the Vietnam War (Sheth, 1995)

In brief, during the pre-1965 period, the Asian immigrant labour force accounted for less in the U.S because many restrictive legislation from the federal government

3.1.2 Post-1965 period

Post-1965 immigration generated a surge in the Asian American population The passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act was intended to end a long history of national origins-based discrimination in United States immigration policy Asia quickly became the second largest source of immigrants to the U.S., and, as a result, the Asian American population had grown rapidly This act encouraged the new trend of immigration which consisted primarily of Asians arriving during the 1980s and 1990s (Borjas, 1999) Asian immigrants came primarily from Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam, and China Additionally, immigration from Asia greatly increased with the passage of the Refugee Act of

1980 which gave legal status to refugees and asylees (Rolph, 1992) As the Asian immigrant population had grown larger in the late 20th century, its impact on the labor force had increased

In comparison with other immigrant groups, in the second half of the 20thcentury, Asian immigration increased significantly contributing to the US labour force According to Fix & Passel (1994), (Figure 1), until 1960, the major of

immigrant source of US was from Europe with more than half of all immigrants, accounting for 66 percent Mexico was 12 percent and other Latin American was

14 percent Meanwhile, the number of Asian immigrants accounted for merely 6 percent, ranked the fourth among five immigrant groups

Figure 1 Legal Immigration by Country or Region, 1951 – 1990

(Source: Fix & Passel, 1994)

However, after ten years, after the release of 1965 Act, the number of Asian immigrants went up doubly to 13 percent along with the increase in other Latin

America Between 1971 and 1980 alone, about 1.6 million Asian immigrants arrived on American soil, and between 1981 and 1990, a surprising 2.8 million In 1970s and 1980s, Asian immigrants became the largest group entering the US, in turn accounting for 35 percent and 45 percent It also noticed that this percent rose

in the increase in the total of number of immigrants, so the quantitative contribution

of the Asian to the US labour force was much larger among five immigrant groups

of Europe, Asian, Mexico, other Latin America and all other By 2000, the Census Bureau counted there were nearly 12 million Asian Americans, comprising 4.2

percent of the population

Among six Asian immigrant groups, the increase and the contribution to the U.S labour force at that time also varied During the 1960s, 102,649 Chinese immigrants were admitted to the U.S and this number increased to 261,151 in the 1970s and 444,962 in the 1980s (Maura & Alicea, 2004) One immediate diversifying effect that the 1965 act produced was the surge in immigration of Koreans and Asian Indians For Koreans, post-1965 immigration became known as

a renewed third wave of immigration For Asian Indians, it was the first time they had come to the United States in significant numbers The Immigration Commission

in 1909 calculated that of the 79,000 Japanese immigrants on the mainland Prior to

1970, there were fewer than 5,000 Vietnamese living in the United States (Japanese American Citizens League, 2006) The first large group of Vietnamese immigrants came to the United States in the mid-1970s after the fall of South Vietnam in 1975 Massey (1995) argued that because of the failure in the United States' foreign policies regarding Southeast Asia, the U.S opened its doors to over 300,000 immigrants from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia Approximately 145,000 Vietnamese immigrated to the United States in 1975 after the fall of Saigon According to the 2000 census, there are currently 1,223,736 Vietnamese Americans The Vietnamese immigrant population grew faster than other immigrant groups during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s and they was the fifth largest Asian immigrant group behind Chinese, Filipino, Asian Indian and Koreans (Terrazas & Batog, 2010)