I-Search Paper

How did Chinese Immigrants get treated during the 1800s, and how is that related to the time period where Covid-19 first started that affected Asian people?

Part 1:

In this research paper, I would like to write about the struggle of people being treated differently due to prejudice and stereotypes. We can see that as racism, which has existed throughout America’s history. The specific target of this research paper is the Asian American community. Racism and discrimination toward colored-skin individuals had been one of the major reasons that dispute, fightings, arguments existed. During the 1800s, there was a large movement of Chinese immigrants moving onto the land of the United States, which has caused controversies among the country, especially some American supported the immigration of Chinese laborers into the country at first, then the fear of competition took over the mind of Americans. People started to get worried about their “jobs” being taken by all the Chinese laborers. That’s when the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 came into place, to “control” and put limitations on the Chinese people.

Then we can relate this issue to the modern-day pandemic that we’re facing, COVID-19, ever since the start of the pandemic, a lot of attention has been brought to the Asian American community. As we already know, COVID-19 originated from Wuhan, China, and it has been causing many problematic issues that we are facing, such as the economy, education, and lifestyles. It has changed many aspects in our lives, and it affected each and every one of us. We are all victims of this virus, one way or another. But the ones who really took the blame were Asian people. These two events were completely separated, but they are related in a way that represents discrimination and racism. I noticed that every time a major event or incident happens, most of the time, people want to look for the one responsible for that event. For the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, people thought they were losing jobs, that’s why they started putting the blame on Chinese people. During the pandemic, a lot of people thought that the Asian American community is the one carrying the virus around and infecting other people. So I did my research on how Chinese people were really being treated then connect it to the modern time where Asian people are also being mistreated.

Part 2:

Then I found one of the articles called “Chinese Hope” as I was looking for a good article about the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 through EBSCO host on Miramar College Library Resources. It really helped me understand more about the struggle of Chinese people in the 1800s, where everything was hard and there were still a lot of bad looks on immigrants. Americans don’t support the fact the colored individuals are taking away their “jobs”. Like it stated in the article, Chinese immigrants were actually doing better jobs and business owners loved that, but U.S citizens did not. “Their hard work earned the hatred of the American miners. Chinese miners became the target of racial slurs and violent acts. California passed taxes aimed directly at the Chinese.” This is where all the heat started, more Chinese being targeted for their work efficiency. Also according to the article, after being treated badly, strayed away from the gold mine, the Chinese moved on to working at railroads and also did a good job in that. “The Chinese were excellent laborers, efficient, and fearless. In the end, they made up about 80 percent of the workforce on the Central Pacific railroad. They took on the tasks that other laborers refused to do. But when the railroad was completed in 1869, the Chinese found themselves out of work again.” And the main problem came in, people started accusing Chinese people of taking away their jobs, as during the 1870s, there weren’t a lot of jobs available due to the 1870s economic recession. “The U.S. government also took action. It passed the first federal laws aimed at excluding a specific immigrant group based on race and nationality. After the Chinese Exclusion Act took effect in 1882, the number of Chinese laborers immigrating to the United States dramatically declined.” This is the result of discrimination and racism happening back then, America’s economy was collapsing, and who took the blame for that, Chinese people, just because they were colored individuals, hard workers and work efficiently.

Then again this also brings our attention to the modern-day COVID-19, where the pandemic has taken a big toll on all of us. Facing the blame from everyone, discrimination and assaults on the Asian American community have been increasing gradually. “Current attacks against Asian Americans occur in a context of historically entrenched attitudes regarding race and social structures that reflect and reinforce racially based power disparities.” More and more Asian Americans are being blamed for the virus, even worse, attacked. This is one form of discrimination and racism. Also, this has shown the true face of people during hard times, and it’s not acceptable for one community to be flamed for something they cannot control. This is also due to the fact that a lot of Americans look at this virus as the Chinese Virus, they believe that just because it came from an Asian country, they all assume that Asian Americans have it and transmit it to other people. “Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been accompanied by a dramatic increase in discrimination against Asian individuals worldwide, creating a form of socially mediated "secondary contagion." Asians of all ethnicities have been scapegoated, verbally attacked with racial slurs, coughed at, spat on, and physically assaulted.” I just want to bring in another fact from the article: “Potential Impact of COVID-19–Related Racial Discrimination on the Health of Asian Americans” by Justin Chen. This has shown the hardship of being Asian during this time, it is already hard for people to cope well in this pandemic, and now it’s even harder knowing that being Asian will be targeted.

Part 3:

After doing research on this topic, I have learned that racism and discrimination is a never-ending issue for us America, for it has existed for a long time, we can observe that it already existed in 1882 when the Chinese Exclusion Act was implemented, and we can still see its existence during this pandemic. In my opinion, during the 1800s, Chinese people were not being treated nicely based on their ethnicity, and the Asian American community is also not being treated nicely in the modern-day. I feel like some people just need an excuse, such as an economic recession or a pandemic, just to be racist, or discriminate against other colored individuals. So I think it’s clearly unfair for Asian people to be treated badly, everyone should be treated equally and given equal opportunities so that we can guarantee a fair life for the future generations.

Work Cited.

Blohm, Craig E. “Chinese Hopes.” Cobblestone, vol. 41, no. 5, May 2020, pp. 10–13. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f6h&AN=142749488&site=ehost-live.

Chen, Justin A., et al. “Potential Impact of COVID-19–Related Racial Discrimination on the Health of Asian Americans.” American Journal of Public Health, vol. 110, no. 11, Nov. 2020, pp. 1624–1627. EBSCOhost, doi:10.2105/AJPH.2020.30585