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At A GlanceFrom Welcome to Chinatown NYC
Chinese immigrants have come to the US for the same reasons many immigrants uproot themselves from their native land to come to this country: to make a better life for themselves and their families. Although Chinese merchants had come to the East coast, especially the NY ports, before the 1840s and 1850s, very rarely did they stay. It was not until China a series of wars, floods, drought, and famine made making a livelihood difficult, exacerbated by the Opium War (1840) in which China suffered a economically and socially taxing defeat, that large scale immigration from China to the US took place. Many came to California in village groups to mine gold and it was not until until the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 that many decided to stay permanently, lest they be unable to return and lose their livelihoods.[1] Prior to the Exclusion Act, many of the Chinese laborers in the United States had been temporary workers. They had come here to work in the gold mines of California and the Pacific Railroad; however, in the 1880s, workers were presented with the prospect of being barred from coming back if they left. Many of them chose to stay in the United States and moved to larger cities to escape persecution in the west; one of the most popular cities was New York City. [2] The Hart-Cellar Act reversed the biased, bigoted immigrations laws and helped to change Chinatown from a bachelor enclave to the bustling family neighborhood it is today. Chinatown has developed a unique blend of culinary, cultural, and social traditions, influenced by both China and New York. The development of Chinatown as a "city within a city" has allowed it to preserve its own personality and remain fairly independent.[3]
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