chinese immigration

One of the major reasons for Chinese immigration to the U.S. is economic. Starting around 1849, when Chinese immigrants first began flocking to the U.S., money was the reason. It was the time of the California Gold Rush, and many young Chinese peasants wanted in on the action. Eventually, they began to open stores and restaurants and businesses in order to make more money.These immigrants were faced with prejudices that forced many to go back home. Others simply came to save money, knowing they would return to China to spend it on their family. Today, economics is not as big of an issue, though many lower-class Chinese workers find opportunities in the United States to make higher wages, either to send back to their families in China or to start a life in the new country.

For many educated Chinese individuals, the United States serves as a breeding ground for high-paying jobs. For this reason, many emigrate to the U.S. in order to further their career, or simply to find a job that may be scarce in China. In particular, individuals travel to the U.S. to find jobs in the technology and engineering fields. Tying into the economic reasons for immigration, many of these skilled workers find that wages in the U.S. are higher, which allows them to save money and better provide for themselves and their families.

China is one of the few fully functioning communist countries left in the world, and this means there is a high level of government control over the people that live there. China is also host to many human rights violations, from human trafficking to child labor. People who are trying to escape these situations today make up much of the Chinese immigration to the U.S. Often, the situations at home leave families and individuals with no possibility to grow, better themselves and lift themselves out of poverty. The United States offers them just that possibility, and it is one made easier for individuals who already know someone in the country.

The promise of religious freedom has always ranked high on the list of reasons people chose to immigrate to the United States. The right to worship according to their own beliefs inspired the Pilgrims to establish a colony in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Toward the end of the 17th century, Quakers fled persecution and settled in Pennsylvania, escaping laws that established the Anglican Church as the only legal church in England. Thousands of Jews left Russia to escape widespread and systematic religious and social persecution at the end of the 19th century. A second wave of Jews left Germany during the 1930s and '40s to escape persecution and death under the Third Reich.