Asian Immigration in the Decades Before the

Asian Immigration In the decades before the Second World War, throngs of Asian immigrants came to American shores from China, Japan, India, Korea, and the Philippines. In many cases, these immigrants only planned on remaining in the United States for a short while to earn money and then return back home to their families. Thus, many Asian immigrants left their families behind. However, in other cases, whole families followed, full of hope and the American Dream.

These diverse Asian immigrant groups varied greatly in terms of their culture of origin, their outlooks, and their visions of the future. However, all Asian immigrants, especially those that reached the shores of the United States before World War Two, shared several experiences in common. All groups suffered from intense discrimination that was not only delivered by angry white workers in fear of losing their jobs but also by the American government.

Also, almost all of the groups of Asian immigrants that Ronald Takaki discusses in his book Strangers from a Different Shore engaged in some sort of successful business or entrepreneurial practice, often overtly in pursuit of the American Dream. While some of these groups clung to tradition and a unique identity, other groups sought assimilation and embraced Western culture. However, all of these groups remained connected to and interested in the events that affected their homelands, which in some cases politically significant.

Based on Takaki's book, the paradigms that universally apply to Asian immigrants to the United States include systematic discrimination, economic motivation, and cultural preservation. Systematic and institutionalized discrimination was experienced by all of the groups of Asian immigrants that Takaki addresses. For example, the Asiatic Exclusion League and the Alien Land Act of 1913 applied to more than one group of Asian immigrants, including Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. Indian immigrants were initially treated differently but were soon victims of institutionalized discrimination too.

In fact, a Supreme Court decision held that Asian Indians were to be classified as non-white, and were therefore subject to overt discrimination in the workplace and elsewhere. In all cases, racism and discrimination threatened the lives and well-beings of the immigrants, whose hopes and dreams were shattered when they reached American shores. The hopes and dreams of all Asian immigrants were rooted in economic motivation. All immigrants came in search of money, either through temporary jobs as many of the early Chinese laborers did, or through permanent livelihood.

For example, the Sikhs who emigrated from India to the United States did so in large part because the Indian agricultural economy was faltering under British rule. Needing new work, they fled to America in hope of fulfilling the American Dream. Similarly, Korean immigrants thrived through entrepreneurial activities in America. However idealistic their outlooks were, though, each of these Asian immigrant populations experienced overt discrimination on the part of whites, who feared that the Asians would steal their jobs.

The struggle between assimilation into American society and preserving their cultural identity was a core paradigm of immigration for all Asian immigrant groups. The Japanese immigrants were particularly conflicted, for while proud of their cultural heritage, Nisei Generation hoped to remove the stigma of being an outsider. Similarly, Korean immigrants readily embraced.