Japanese & Chinese Experiences as Immigrants in US   Term Paper ID:27927 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Examines similarities & differences in Japanese & Chinese immigrant experiences. The examination is based on accounts written by the children of immigrants. Many 1st & 2nd generation acculturation problems.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Examines similarities & differences in Japanese & Chinese immigrant experiences. The examination is based on accounts written by the children of immigrants. Many 1st & 2nd generation acculturation problems. Paper Introduction: INTRODUCTION The immigrant experience in America has been varied, and those who are of different ethnic or racial backgrounds have had a more difficult time as immigrants than those who fit into the majority white society more easily. Immigrants from Asian countries are first of all marked as different from the time they arrive. They also are likely to experience language difficulties. They are a true minority population that has tended to settle in given areas. They usually create their own small communities within the larger American communities and so creating a protective shell based on union. The Japanese and the Chinese may seem much the same to whites, but in truth they are from quite different societies and have different attitudes toward their own community and the processes of assimilation that are part of the Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. They have alsoexperienced racism in different ways and different degrees in the UnitedStates. However, aninteresting finding from their study is that the process of acculturationis more stressful than being an immigrant and that many disorders are moreprevalent among members of the population who have been more acculturated,or Americanized. In the foreignsetting, though, there are many other influences which alter the way theindividual develops. There is a region called Chinatown in manymajor American cities, a region where Chinese immigrants have gatheredtogether and opened businesses in such numbers that they have created asmall version of their home in China. They are ghosts of the old world, but they are alsoghosts of ancestors calling to the Americanized Chinese girl not to forgettheir world: "The Chinese are always very frightened of the drowned one,whose weeping ghost, wet hair hanging and skin bloated, waits silently bythe water to pull down a substitute" (p. (199 ). There can be a tension between the two whichcould contribute to the sorts of mental disorders noted by Partes andRumbaut. Portes and Rumbaut note that immigrantsexperience a set of engulfing life events in terms of changes, losses,conflicts, and demands, all of which severely test the resilience of theindividual: "Migration can produce profound psychological distress, evenamong the best prepared and most motivated and even under the mostreceptive of circumstances" (p. First you could not, then you chose not to come. They are inessence resisting the acculturation that others seek. Even if the immigrant is wellprepared and well motivated, it is not at all clear that the circumstanceshe or she will experience in the new land can be considered "receptive,"and for many Chinese and Japanese immigrants their experience was not"receptive" at all. An interesting exchange occurs in the accountof Jade Snow Wong when her father announces that he has learned thatAmerican children call their father, Daddy," and that this has anaffectionate sound he likes. Memoirs of a girlhood among ghosts. Manyof the Chinatowns in other American cities have been patterned on the onein San Francisco as Chinese immigration has become more widespread acrossthe country. Jade Snow goes to school goes to college, andseeks work outside the intimate circle that is intended to protect her andthat expects her to develop in a certain prescribed way. Seattle: University of Washington. (1981). Portes and Rumbaut (199 ) discuss the general experience ofimmigration and begin with the fact that immigrants are coming to a worldthat is foreign to them. The opportunities and freedoms cited byPortes and Rumbaut did not apply to these people after a certain date, andtheir movements were curtailed more effectively and cruelly than would havebeen true of their traditional social mores. While many ofthese Chinese immigrants are able to hold onto their traditional ways to ahigh degree, they are less successful at perpetuating them to the nextgeneration, the generation more susceptible to the blandishments of thelarger society and to the pressures for acculturation. No-no boy. Seattle: University of Washington.Portes, A., & Rumbaut, R. The fate of her mothercauses the main character to ruminate on just this fact: By the time this country opened its pale arms to you, it was too late. Acculturation does take place for the childrenas they learn the new language and other aspects of the society in whichthey now live. The same is trueof Maxine Hong Kingston, who also realizes the ways in which she differsfrom the older generation and who feels a certain sense of loss at the sametime as she feels a sense of empowerment because of some of theopportunities open to her here that would not be in China. They also are likely to experiencelanguage difficulties. Once the railroads werebuilt, most stayed on and had to find other ways of making a living, andthey came together in this region of San Francisco for that purpose. G. If one were to hear the children address their father as "Daddy," he orshe might assume they had been Americanized. (1989). Joy Kogawa's account echoes the question raised by Partes and Rumbautconcerning whether or not the new country is accepting, and in the case ofthe Japanese during World war II, it was not. 241-242) In these stories, the difficulties of immigrants are found again andagain in tensions between traditions and new ways and between what isexpected and what is found. Such regions have a strongattraction for tourists because of the exotic nature of the food and goodssold. This isevidence of the freeing of the individual noted by Partes and Rumbaut - ifshe were in the traditional Chinese society from which her parents came,the course of her development would be more restricted. H. The analysis will be based on accounts written by immigrantsor their children. Yet, as this exchange shows,the way the children are given orders and the way they accept them isChinese and not American. ReferencesKingston, M. At the same time, it wasadmitted that the "marginal man" would also experience inner turmoil,instability, restlessness, and malaise: "This counterpoint between newlyfound enlightenment and the stresses associated with it was to permeateanalyses of the phenomenology of immigration for years to come" (pp. The connection felt with the Old China alsomakes the San Francisco Chinatown a special place for Chinese immigrants. The authors find thatthe incidence of psychopathology in the immigrant population is high andattribute this to the pressures of being immigrants. He tells his children to call him this: "Nocomment was required; the children mentally recorded this command" (p. 171). Los Angeles: University of California.Wong, Jade Snow. As a consequence, they are faced with variousforms of cultural shock, and how well they adapt to these differencesdetermines their mental health and the degree of acculturation they canachieve in their new surroundings. Always, though, there is a tension apparent as the oldworld beckons, always present in the form of relatives who remember andtell stories or celebrations and rituals of the community which arerepeated each year. Godine.Okada, John. The best-known Chinatown, a tourist mecca, is probably that in SanFrancisco, a Chinatown that has been closely identified with the city fordecades. Such tensions are seen by Portes and Rumbautas leading to mental disorders producing a variety of secondaryconsequences and perpetuating a sense of bitterness and uncertainty, bothreflected in these stories of Chinese and Japanese immigrants. The Japanese experience is detailed by Joy Kogawa and John Okada intwo separate novels. Jade Snow emerges in this book as a combination of oldand new, a young lady who has many Chinese cultural attitudes while alsofollowing American attitudes. They were supposedlyto discover that certain experiences were now secularized that had formerlybeen sacred, meaning that their old society was more restrictive, morecontrolling, often through religion, while their new society opened up aworld of possibilities previously denied them. 12). The Japanese and the Chinese may seem much the same towhites, but in truth they are from quite different societies and havedifferent attitudes toward their own community and the processes ofassimilation that are part of the immigrant experience. Immigrant America. Immigrants from Asian countries are first of all marked asdifferent from the time they arrive. 144). Pressures to remain true to the old ways conflict with pressures toacculturate for generations born in the U.S., as can be seen from theaccount given in Fifth Chinese Daughter by Jade Snow Wong. For the Japanese ofa certain age or who lived here during a certain period, the fact of WorldWar II looms large. The acculturation process takes place in fits and starts and is oftensubject to interpretation. (1976). Fifth Chinese daughter. For Kingston, these ghosts call to her to remember them and totell their stories. They usually create their own small communitieswithin the larger American communities and so creating a protective shellbased on union. The authorsconclude: "Results of these studies show that acculturation is not asimple solution to the traumas of immigration because it can itself be atraumatic process" (p. New York: Vintage.Kogawa, Joy. It is also possible that while the parents are acculturated at alower rate, they experience anxiety and uncertainty as they see theirchildren change into something they do not recognize as being part of theirearlier life. The Japanesetried to assimilate more fully and may have believed they had done so, butthe treatment they received during World War II, many placed in internmentcamps, changed that feeling to one of bitterness. Boston: David R. The Chinese inparticular seem to follow this course, bringing the old ways with them andtrying to maintain them in the face of pressures to change. 1). They are a true minority population that has tendedto settle in given areas. The story of Jade Snow is the story of a girl in atraditional Chinese home whose horizons expand as she grows up. Portes and Rumbaut also emphasize that early immigration literatureemphasized the concept of marginality, also seeing immigrants as achievinga release, a new freedom, in their new surroundings. The way inwhich the two cultures mix is seen in the Chinatown where the author lives: "Chinatown in San Francisco teems with haunting memories, for it iswrapped in the atmosphere, customs, and manners of a land across the sea.The same Pacific Ocean laves the shores of both worlds, a tangible linkbetween old and new" (p. If San Francisco still stands as a major collection point forChinese immigration, it is because San Francisco is an arrival point fortraffic from the Far East. The distance between parent and child seems muchgreater than was true in the accounts of the Chinese. Many try to holdonto their culture in their new country, with varying success. In both, the tensions between the traditionalJapanese society of the parents and the more Americanized children isdetailed strongly. 146-147). The treatment accorded the Japanese in recent memorywas harsher and more unfair than was true for the Chinese. Both novels detail thewrenching nature of this shameful act as the Japanese were rounded up andtaken to camps to sit out the war. Obasan. (p. 241)John Okada finds one result of the tensions created in the experience ofJapanese immigrants was a total rejection of the traditional, as if thatwere where the fault for non-acceptance could be found: Ichiro felt deeply sorry for his friend who, in his hatred of the complex jungle of unreasoning that had twisted a life-giving yes into an empty no, blindly sought relief in total, hateful rejection of self and family and society. (pp. The child spends more time outside the home and outside the communitysetting than do the parents. 16). INTRODUCTION The immigrant experience in America has been varied, and those whoare of different ethnic or racial backgrounds have had a more difficulttime as immigrants than those who fit into the majority white society moreeasily. Now you are gone. An examination of the Japanese and Chinese experiences asimmigrants will show both similarities and differences between the twopopulations. It is interesting that both Jade Snow Wong and Maxine Hong Kingstonuse the imagery of ghosts for what they feel of their lives in the U.S.among Chinese people and in Chinese enclaves where the "ghosts" of the OldChina rule. Drug abuse is one type of psychopathology that is notedas occurring more commonly among the more acculturated. Portes and Rumbaut are interested in the psychology of immigrationand in mental disorders that may result from the immigrant experience.They note the evolution of psychiatric thinking about the subject and theevidence used in earlier times as to higher suicide rates and otherproblems associated with the immigrant population. The process can lead to a higher incidence ofmental illness and to drug dependence as the immigrant loses his or hersense of identity and traditional social controls while at the same timebeing exposed to deviant practices in their new environment.CHINESE AND JAPANESE IMMIGRATION In the books to be examined, immigrants encounter the sorts ofpressures noted above and are changed by the process. The reason for the concentration of Chinese in San Francisco inparticular is historical, since many Chinese were brought to California inthe nineteenth century to work on the railroads. (1976). 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