In 2000, New York City counted 261,551 foreign-born individuals from China. Chinese immigrants were the second largest immigrant group (after Dominicans), and they made up 9.1 percent of the city’s foreign-born population of 2,871,032.
The above timeline shows which events and immigration laws have affected Chinese immigration to the United States and New York City. In the early years of the American Republic, the government welcomed immigrants and the Chinese were initially attracted to the U.S. West Coast to work in the goldmines of California and help build the transcontinental railroad. However, nativism grew at the end of the 19th century, and as a result the Chinese faced extensive discrimination and they were barred from immigrating to the United States because of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. The ban on Chinese immigration (and naturalization) was lifted in 1943 when China became a U.S. ally in the war against Japan, and immigration restrictions were further relaxed as a result of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act.
The predominant means of entry for the foreign-born Chinese in New York City from 1990-1999 was by family preferences. Out of a yearly average of 11,217, every year about 5,239 foreign-born Chinese in New York City used the family preference category to gain admission to the United States, and 2,915 did so under the employment category. In addition, 2,355 came as immediate relatives. The rest were either refuges or came for other reasons. These numbers suggest the importance of social capital in explaining Chinese migration to New York City (Massey 1999) because during the 1990-1999 period almost 70 percent of all Chinese foreign born in New York City came because of family connections in the United States.
In 2000, the vast majority of the Chinese foreign born in New York City lived in the boroughs of Queens (39.3 percent), Brooklyn (32.9 percent), and Manhattan (24.4 percent). Only a very small percentage (3.4 percent total) lived in the Bronx and Staten Island.
As illustrated by the above pie chart, Chinese immigrants in have settled in distinct ethnic neighborhoods, often called “Chinatowns.” In New York City, we can identify three such “Chinatowns.” The official Chinatown can be found in Manhattan, adjacent to the Lower East Side. A second Chinatown can be found in Flushing, Queens, and a third in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Sunset Park-Industrial City (with a spillover into other neighborhoods, such as Bay Ridge and Bensonhurst). In 2000, the Lower East Side Chinatown was home to 16.2 percent (42,389) of all foreign-born Chinese in New York City, Flushing, Queens to 10.3 percent (27,056) , and Sunset Park, Brooklyn to 7.4 percent (19,451).
The above map also illustrates that large numbers of foreign-born Chinese resided in neighborhoods in the boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens in 2000.
Of all Chinese immigrants aged five and over in New York City in 2000, 74.6 percent lacked proficiency in the English language. Of all foreign-born groups in the city, Chinese immigrants are among the least English-proficient, second to Mexican immigrants. This high percentage of Chinese immigrants who struggle with the English language is not surprising when we consider the three-generation model that explains immigrants’ linguistic incorporation (Brown and Bean 2006). According to this model, first-generation immigrants tend to speak their native tongue, and may or may not be proficient in English. The second-generation, or the children the immigrants, often are bilingual, and the third-generation, or the grandchildren of the first-generation, tend to be monolingual in English. The native-born children and grandchildren of Chinese immigrants, therefore, are likely to show much higher rates of proficiency in the English language.
As the above pie chart shows, almost half of the Chinese immigrants aged 25 and over in New York City had not completed high school in 2000. However, 18.7 percent had completed high school and one-fourth of the city’s Chinese foreign-born population had earned a college or higher degree. This shows that, educationally speaking, the Chinese foreign-born population of New York City is bifurcated.
The above pie chart shows that an overwhelming majority (81.3 percent) of the Chinese foreign-born population aged 16 and over in New York City in 2000 were employed in the private sector. Much smaller percentages of foreign-born Chinese were self-employed (9.7 percent) or worked for government (8.4 percent). A insignificant 0.6 percent were unpaid family workers.
The above bar graph shows the most popular types of professions for both male and female foreign-born Chinese in New York City in 2000. Over a quarter of both foreign-born Chinese men and women aged 16 and over held managerial jobs, while 23 percent of men and 22 percent of women held sales/office jobs. A relatively larger percentage of women, worked in production, transport and material moving jobs and a relative larger percentage of men worked in the service industry. Small percentages of both foreign-born Chinese men and women held jobs in the construction, extraction, maintenance, farming, fishing, and forestry industries.
Family is very important to the Chinese, including those who call New York City home. They try to maintain their cultural traditions, as is shown by the fact that a relatively large percentage of the foreign-born Chinese live in a family household, defined as a household where one or more people living in a household are related to the main householder by birth, marriage, or adoption. As the above bar graph shows, 80.5 percent of Chinese immigrants in 2000 lived in a family household, compared to 73 percent of all foreign-born New Yorkers, and 54 percent of the city’s of native-born population.
All of the above data illustrate that Chinese immigrants in New York City are working hard towards integration in New York City. Over time, as more Chinese immigrants arrive in New York City, they will collectively reach higher levels of not only financial success, but also cultural and social success. Hopefully this will make the integration process easier for them.
Sources
Brown, Susan K. and Frank D. Bean. 2006. “Assimilation Models, Old and New: Explaining a Long-Term Process.” Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute.
Massey, Douglas S. 1999. “Why Does Immigration Occur? A Theoretical Synthesis.” Pp. 34-52 in The Handbook of International Migration, edited by Charles Hirschman et al. New York: Russell Sage Foundation Press.
Shinagawa, Larry Hajime, and Dae-Young Kim. 2008. “A Portrait of Chinese Americans: a National Demographic and Social Profile of Chinese Americans.” Washington, DC: OCA/Asian American Studies Program, University of Maryland.
Click on another immigrant group name (Dominicans, Mexicans, Haitians, or Russians) to explore the statistical data of foreign-born New Yorkers from that natinality group.
