Suchergebnisse

Conventionally, US immigration history has been understood through the lens of restriction and those who have been barred from getting in. In contrast, The Good Immigrants considers immigration from the perspective of Chinese elites-intellectuals, businessmen, and students-who gained entrance because of immigration exemptions. Exploring a century of Chinese migrations, Madeline Hsu looks at how the model minority characteristics of many Asian Americans resulted from US policies that screened for those with the highest credentials in the most employable fields, enhancing American economic competitiveness.The earliest US immigration restrictions targeted Chinese people but exempted students as well as individuals who might extend America's influence in China. Western-educated Chinese such as Madame Chiang Kai-shek became symbols of the US impact on China, even as they patriotically advocated for China's modernization. World War II and the rise of communism transformed Chinese students abroad into refugees, and the Cold War magnified the importance of their talent and training. As a result, Congress legislated piecemeal legal measures to enable Chinese of good standing with professional skills to become citizens. Pressures mounted to reform American discriminatory immigration laws, culminating with the 1965 Immigration Act.Filled with narratives featuring such renowned Chinese immigrants as I. M. Pei, The Good Immigrants examines the shifts in immigration laws and perceptions of cultural traits that enabled Asians to remain in the United States as exemplary, productive Americans

This paper examines the operations of Aid Refugee Chinese Intellectuals (arci). It argues that arci's project failed in ways that illuminate the politicized, symbolic operations of refugee relief and the difficulties of manipulating mid-twentieth century migration flows, particularly of Asians. arci's challenges included registering too many, poorly qualified refugees for assistance rather than a useful "leadership" class; the limited willingness of the Nationalist regime to accept even well-educated new residents into the struggling economy of its tightly controlled political base; dependence on the State Department for funding and the imposition of its priorities onto arci's programs; and the preferences and capacities of arci registrants in forging their own paths. These problems illuminate the complicated, codependency of the "special relationship" between American "China hands" and the China Lobby and the Christian leader of the Nationalists, as well as the politicized and perhaps intractably irreconcilable messiness of managing refugee flows.

AbstractThe extensive literature concerning America's exclusion of Asians has emphasized primarily the domestic contexts for restricting trans-Pacific migrations. Fears of a "Yellow Peril" invasion and conquest were used to justify the earliest American attempts to limit the entry of races and nationalities deemed too different and incompatible to integrate and participate on equal terms in a republic dominated by European arrivals and their descendants. Asian American Studies scholars in particular have mined the rich vein of documents delineating the formative legacy of anti-Asian laws, ideologies, and institutions shaping the still deeply troubled patrolling of American borders today. Less attention has turned to the influence of foreign policy considerations and their role in carving out categories of migrants exempted from exclusionary laws. For example, the Chinese Exclusion Law of 1882 made exceptions for merchants, merchant family members, students and teachers, diplomats, and tourists.