The first Asians to come to the Western hemisphere were Chinese Filipinos in Mexico. They first sailed to U.S. in 1750 in what is now Louisiana, and other East Asians were brought in from around 1840 as a result of lack of slaves from Africa. The first massive immigration with deliberate intentions, however, was in 1848, when the gold rush in California was pulling countless number of people in. Besides the pull factor, there were also push factors for Asians to immigrate, most importantly the economic hardship caused by British dominance over China. British had defeated China in Opium War of 1839 to 1842, which led to more British presence in China. Asians also came to Hawaii, not for vacation, but to fulfill the roles of contract laborers for sugarcane plantations.

As more Asians immigrated to the U.S., discrimination against them grew, the first visible evidence being the Foreign Miner Tax, which was only forced on the Chinese as opposed to every foreign miner. Chinese miners who refused to pay were physically attacked and even murdered, crimes that never went punished due to California’s laws that prohibited Chinese immigrants from testifying against Whites. Anti-Chinese movement progressed with riots, lynchings and even murders, and its grand finale was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

There was no way for Chinese to survive on their own, because they were restricted from owning land or houses, intermarrying with Whites, receiving education, and residing in certain regions. From such circumstances arose present Chinatowns, where Chinese huddled together to gain mutual profit. These Chinatowns are the roots of stereotypical images of Chinese restaurants and laundry shops, Korean grocery stores, and Japanese gardeners and produce stands (C.N. Le).

With rather unspoken past, Chinese Americans are part of Asian Americans living in the U.S. today. An Asian Americans is currently defined as “a citizen or resident of the U.S. of Asian birth or descent,” descent meaning family origin (C.N. Le).