The History of Chinese American Immigration

Since the first immigrant reached to the American during the gold rush in 1849, among the past 160 years, the population of Chinese-American has dramatically increased. Now, Chinese Americans become the largest ethnic minority among the Asian American and represented about 24% of the Asian population. However, there is an unusual phenomenon that different from the other nation. The majority of the Chinese Americans are still immigrants. The domain Chinese American people are composed by first and second generation, while most Italian Americans and Japanese Americans have already had their fourth generation.(Zhou 3) According to the American Census 2000, 70% of the Chinese Americans are foreign born. At the same time, the second generation only occupies 20% of the total population. The third generation, which means their parents are also born in America, account for only 10 percent of Chinese American population. From the history of Chinese immigration, the phenomenon can be closely connected the American immigration policy.  
In 1849, a piece of news spread through the south China that there were gold mountains in the America. During that time, Chinese were suffered in all kinds of wars. On one hand, China was defeated by the Britain in the Opium war which begun from 1840. On the other hand, a civil war called Tai Ping Rebelling broken out in 1850. Although leaving China was illegal during Qing Dynasty, homeless people bought the tickets to go to the United States to search for better economic opportunities. By 1851, over 25000 Chinese immigrants had left their home and moved to California. (Chinese Immigration par 3) The port they arrived is San Francisco which is still called Old Gold Mountain in China. However, when they finally reached to the California, they found the gold dream was an illusion. Mining was uncertain work and the gold area was not enough with the local people. (Chinese Immigration par 5) Either because Chinese looked strange or they worked...