Chinese American

American people of Chinese Origin
華裔美國人 or 美籍華人;
华裔美国人 or 美籍华人

Gary Locke I. M. Pei Caroline Zhang Roger Tsien Jeremy Lin Chris Lu Michelle Kwan Jin Anna May Wong
Total population
3,794,673 1.2% of the U.S. population (2010)
Regions with significant populations
New York • San Francisco • Los Angeles • Boston Washington D.C. • Chicago • Seattle • Houston
Languages
Predominantly English • varieties of Chinese: Mandarin Chinese (Standard Chinese) • Yue Chinese (Yuehai Cantonese • Taishanese) • Hakka • Wu Chinese (Taihu Wu • Oujiang Wu), and Min Chinese (Min Nan • Min Dong).
Religion
Buddhism • Christianity • Confucianism • Taoism non-religious and others
Related ethnic groups
Hong Kong Americans • Taiwanese Americans Overseas Chinese

Chinese Americans (Chinese: 華裔美國人 or 美籍華人; Chinese: 华裔美国人 or 美籍华人) represent Americans of Chinese descent. Chinese Americans constitute one group of overseas Chinese and also a subgroup of East Asian Americans, which is further a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans are immigrants along with their descendants from Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, and other countries in southeast Asia.

The Chinese American community is the largest Overseas Chinese community in North America, closely followed by the Chinese communities in Canada and Mexico. It is also the fourth largest in the Chinese diaspora, behind the Chinese communities in Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. The Chinese American community is the largest ethnic group of Asian Americans, comprising 26.5% of the Asian American population as of 2010. They constitute 1.2% of the United States as a whole. According to the 2010 census, the Chinese American population numbered approximately 3.8 million.

History

Main article: Chinese American history

See also: Yellow Peril, Anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States, Chinese immigration to Hawaii, and Chinese immigration to Puerto Rico

The first Chinese immigrants arrived in 1820 according to U.S. government records. 325 men are known to have arrived before the 1849 California Gold Rush which drew the first significant number of laborers from China who mined for gold and performed menial labor. There were 25,000 immigrants by 1852, and 105,465 by 1880, most of whom lived on the West Coast. They formed over a tenth of California's population. Nearly all the early immigrants were young males with low educational levels from six districts in the Guangdong province.

The Chinese came to California in large numbers during the California Gold Rush, with 40,400 being recorded as arriving from 1851–1860, and again in the 1860s when the Central Pacific Railroad recruited large labor gangs, many on five year contracts, to build its portion of the Transcontinental Railroad. The Chinese laborers worked out well and thousands more were recruited until the railroad's completion in 1869. Chinese labor provided the massive labor needed to build the majority of the Central Pacific's difficult railroad tracks through the Sierra Nevada mountains and across Nevada. The Chinese population rose from 2,716 in 1851 to 63,000 by 1871. In the decade 1861-70, 64,301 were recorded as arriving, followed by 123,201 in 1871-80 and 61,711 in 1881-1890. 77% were located in California, with the rest scattered across the West, the South, and New England. Most came from Southern China looking for a better life; escaping a high rate of poverty left after the Taiping Rebellion. This immigration may have been as high as 90% male as most immigrated with the thought of returning home to start a new life. Those that stayed in America faced the lack of suitable Chinese brides as Chinese women were not allowed to emigrate in significant numbers after 1872. As a result, the mostly bachelor communities slowly aged in place with very low Chinese birth rates.

California Gold Rush

Chinese gold miners in California

The last major immigration wave started around the 1850s. The West Coast of North America was being rapidly colonized during the California Gold Rush, while southern China suffered from severe political and economic instability due to the weakness of the Qing Dynasty government, internal rebellions such as the Taiping Rebellion, and external pressures such as the Opium Wars. As a result, many Chinese emigrated from the poor Taishanese- and Cantonese-speaking area in Guangdong province to the United States to find work.

For most Chinese immigrants of the 1850s, San Francisco was only a transit station on the way to the gold fields in the Sierra Nevada. According to estimates, there were in the late 1850s 15,000 Chinese mine workers in the "Gold Mountains" or "Mountains of Gold" (Cantonese: Gam Saan, 金山). Because anarchic conditions prevailed in the gold fields, the robbery by European miners of Chinese mining area permits were barely pursued or prosecuted and the Chinese gold seekers themselves were often victim to violent assaults. In response to this hostile situation these Chinese miners developed a basic approach that differed from the white European gold miners. While the Europeans mostly worked as individuals or in small groups, the Chinese formed large teams, which protected them from attacks and, because of good organization, often gave them a higher yield. To protect themselves even further against attacks, they preferred to work areas that other gold seekers regarded as unproductive and had given up on. Because much of the gold fields were exhaustingly gone over until the beginning of the 20th century, many of the Chinese remained far longer than the European miners. In 1870, a third of the men in the Californian gold fields were Chinese.

However, their displacement had begun already in 1869 when white miners began to resent the Chinese miners, feeling that they were discovering gold that the white miners deserved. Eventually, protest rose from white miners who wanted to eliminate the growing competition. From 1852 to 1870 (ironically when the Civil Rights Act of 1866 was passed), the California legislature enforced a series of taxes.

In 1852, a special foreign miner's tax aimed at the Chinese was passed by the California legislature that was aimed at foreign miners who were not U.S. citizens. Given that the Chinese were ineligible for citizenship at that time and constituted the largest percentage of the non-white population, the taxes were primarily aimed at them and tax revenue was therefore generated almost exclusively by the Chinese. This tax required a payment of three dollars each month at a time when Chinese miners were making approximately six dollars a month. Tax collectors could legally take and sell the property of those miners who refused or could not pay the tax. Fake tax collectors made money by taking advantage of people who could not speak English well, and some tax collectors, both false and real, stabbed or shot miners who could not or would not pay the tax. During the 1860s, many Chinese were expelled from the mine fields and forced to find other jobs. The Foreign Miner's Tax existed till 1870.

The position of the Chinese gold seekers also was complicated by a decision of the California Supreme Court, which decided, in the case "The People of the State of California v. George W. Hall" ("People v. Hall") in 1854 that the Chinese were not allowed to testify as witnesses before the court in California against white citizens, including those accused of murder. The decision was largely based upon the prevailing opinion that the Chinese were...

“

...a race of people whom nature has marked as inferior, and who are incapable of progress or intellectual development beyond a certain point, as their history has shown; differing in language, opinions, color, and physical conformation; between whom and ourselves nature has placed an impassable difference" and as such had no right " to swear away the life of a citizen" or participate" with us in administering the affairs of our Government.

”

The ruling effectively made white violence against Chinese Americans unprosecutable, arguably leading to more intense white-on-Chinese race riots, such as the 1877 San Francisco Riot. The Chinese living in California were with this decision left practically in a legal vacuum, because they had now no possibility to assert their rightful legal entitlements or claims – possibly in cases of theft or breaches of agreement – in court. The ruling remained in force until 1873.

Transcontinental railroad

Chinese workers in the snow constructing the first transcontinental railroad.

After the gold rush wound down in the 1860s, the majority of the work force found jobs in the railroad industry. Chinese labor was integral to the construction of the First Transcontinental Railroad, which linked the railway network of the Eastern United States with California on the Pacific coast. Construction began in 1863 at the terminal points of Omaha, Nebraska and Sacramento, California, and the two sections were merged and ceremonially completed on May 10, 1869, at the famous "golden spike" event at Promontory Summit, Utah. It created a nationwide mechanized transportation network that revolutionized the population and economy of the American West. This network caused the wagon trains of previous decades to become obsolete, exchanging it for a modern transportation system. The building of the railway required enormous labor in the crossing of plains and high mountains by the Union Pacific Railroad and Central Pacific Railroad, the two privately chartered federally backed enterprises that built the line westward and eastward respectively.

Since there was a lack of white European construction workers, in 1865 a large number of Chinese workers were recruited from the silver mines, as well as later contract workers from China. The idea for the use of Chinese labor came from the manager of the Central Pacific Railroad, Charles Crocker who at first had trouble persuading his business partners of the fact that the mostly weedy, slender looking Chinese workers, some contemptuously called "Crocker's pets", were suitable for the heavy physical work. For the Central Pacific Railroad, hiring Chinese as opposed to whites kept labor costs down by a third, since the company would not pay their board or lodging. This type of steep wage inequality was commonplace at the time. Eventually Crocker overcame shortages of manpower and money by hiring Chinese immigrants to do much of the back-breaking and dangerous labor. He drove the workers to the point of exhaustion, in the process setting records for laying track and finishing the project seven years ahead of the government's deadline.

The Central Pacific track was constructed primarily by Chinese immigrants. Even though at first they were thought to be too weak or fragile to do this type of work, after the first day in which Chinese were on the line, the decision was made to hire as many as could be found in California (where most were gold miners or in service industries such as laundries and kitchens). Many more were imported from China. Most of the men received between one and three dollars per day, but the workers from China received much less. Eventually, they went on strike and gained small increases in salary.

The route laid not only had to go across rivers and canyons, which had to be bridged, but also through two mountain ranges - the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains - where tunnels had to be created. The explosions had caused many of the Chinese laborers to lose their lives. Due to the wide expanse of the work, the construction had to be carried out at times in the extreme heat and also in other times in the bitter winter cold. So harsh were the conditions that sometimes even entire camps were buried under avalanches.

The Central Pacific made great progress along the Sacramento Valley. However construction was slowed, first by the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, then by the mountains themselves and most importantly by winter snowstorms. Consequently, the Central Pacific expanded its efforts to hire immigrant laborers (many of whom were Chinese). The immigrants seemed to be more willing to tolerate the horrible conditions, and progress continued. The increasing necessity for tunnelling then began to slow progress of the line yet again. To combat this, Central Pacific began to use the newly-invented and very unstable nitro-glycerine explosives—which accelerated both the rate of construction and the mortality of the Chinese laborers. Appalled by the losses, the Central Pacific began to use less volatile explosives, and developed a method of placing the explosives in which the Chinese blasters worked from large suspended baskets that were rapidly pulled to safety after the fuses were lit.

The well organized Chinese teams still turned out to be highly industrious and exceedingly efficient; at the peak of the construction work, shortly before completion of the railroad, more than 11,000 Chinese were involved with the project. Although the white European workers had higher wages and better working conditions, their share of the workforce was never more than 10 percent. As the Chinese railroad workers lived and worked tirelessly, they also managed the finances associated with their employment, and Central Pacific officials responsible for employing the Chinese, even those at first opposed to the hiring policy, came to appreciate the cleanliness and reliability of this group of laborers.

After 1869, the Southern Pacific Railroad and Northwestern Pacific Railroad led the expansion of the railway network further into the American West, and many of the Chinese who had built the transcontinental railroad remained active in building the railways. After several projects were completed, many of the Chinese workers relocated and looked for employment elsewhere, such as in farming, manufacturing firms, garment industries, and paper mills. However, widespread anti-Chinese discrimination and violence from whites, including riots and murders, drove many into self-employment.

Waves of Immigration

Second wave (1949-1980)

The Magnuson Act, also known as the Chinese Exclusion Repeal Act of 1943, was immigration legislation proposed by U.S. Representative (later Senator) Warren G. Magnuson of Washington and signed into law on December 17, 1943 in the United States. It allowed Chinese immigration for the first time since the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and permitted Chinese nationals already residing in the country to become naturalized citizens. This marked the first time since the Naturalization Act of 1790 that any Asians were permitted to be naturalized.

It was passed during World War II, when China was a welcome ally to the United States. It limited Chinese immigrants to 105 visas per year selected by the government. That quota was determined by the Immigration Act of 1924, which set immigration from an allowed country at 2% of the number of people who were already living in the United States in 1890 of that nationality. Chinese immigration later increased with the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1965.

Until 1979, the United States recognized the Republic of China on Taiwan as the sole legitimate government of all of China, and the immigration from Taiwan was counted under the same quota as that for mainland China, which had little immigration to the United States from 1949 to 1977. During the late 1970s, the opening up of the People's Republic of China and the breaking of diplomatic relations with the Republic of China led to the passage, in 1979, of the Taiwan Relations Act placed Taiwan as an area with a separate immigration quota than the People's Republic of China. Under British rule, Hong Kong was considered a separate jurisidiction for the purpose of immigration, and this status continued after the handover in 1997 as a result of the Immigration Act of 1990.

Chinese Muslims have immigrated to the United States and lived within the Chinese community rather than integrating into other foreign Muslim communities. Two of the most prominent Chinese American Muslims are the Republic of China National Revolutionary Army Generals Ma Hongkui and his son Ma Dunjing who moved to Los Angeles after fleeing from China to Taiwan. Pai Hsien-yung is another Chinese Muslim writer who moved to the United States after fleeing from China to Taiwan, his father was the Chinese Muslim General Bai Chongxi.

Ethnic Chinese immigration to the United States since 1965 has been aided by the fact that the United States maintains separate quotas for Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. During the late 1960s and early and mid-1970, Chinese immigration into the United States came almost exclusively from Taiwan creating the Taiwanese American subgroup. A smaller number of immigrants from Hong Kong arrived as college and graduate students. Immigration from Mainland China was almost non-existent until 1977, when the PRC removed restrictions on emigration leading to immigration of college students and professionals. These recent groups of Chinese tended to cluster in suburban areas and to avoid urban Chinatowns.

Third wave (1980-present)

In addition to students and professionals, a third wave of recent immigrants consisted of undocumented aliens, who went to the United States in search of lower-status manual jobs. These aliens tend to concentrate in heavily urban areas, particularly in New York City, and there is often very little contact between these Chinese and those higher-educated Chinese professionals. Quantification of the magnitude of this modality of immigration is imprecise and varies over time, but it appears to continue unabatedly on a significant basis.

In the 1980s, there was widespread concern by the PRC over a brain drain as graduate students were not returning to the PRC. This exodus worsened after the Tiananmen protests of 1989. However since the start of the 21st century, there have been an increasing number of returnees producing a brain gain for the PRC.

Demographics

See also: Demographics of the United States

Further information: List of U.S. cities with large Chinese American populations

Statistics of the Chinese population in the United States (1840–present)

Chinese population % in U.S. states (Year 2000); locations of the largest Chinatowns of the USA - (click to enlarge). Source: US Census 2000.

The table shows the ethnic Chinese population of the USA (including persons with mixed-ethnic origin).

Year	Total U.S. population	Of Chinese origin	Percentage
1840	17,069,453	not available	n/a
1850	23,191,876	4,018	0.02%
1860	31,443,321	34,933	0.11%
1870	38,558,371	64,199	0.17%
1880	50,189,209	105,465	0.21%
1890	62,979,766	107,488	0.17%
1900	76,212,168	118,746	0.16%
1910	92,228,496	94,414	0.10%
1920	106,021,537	85,202	0.08%
1930	123,202,624	102,159	0.08%
1940	132,164,569	106,334	0.08%
1950	151,325,798	150,005	0.10%
1960	179,323,175	237,292	0.13%
1970	203,302,031	436,062	0.21%
1980	226,542,199	812,178	0.36%
1990	248,709,873	1,645,472	0.66%
2000	281,421,906	2,432,585	0.86%
2010	308,745,538	3,347,229	1.11%

Percentage of Chinese population in the United States, 2000.

According to the 2009 American Community Survey, the three metropolitan areas with the largest Chinese American populations were the Greater New York Combined Statistical Area at about 666,000 people, the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area at about 562,000 people, and the Greater Los Angeles Combined Statistical Area at about 495,000 people. New York City is home to the highest Chinese American population of any city proper (486,463), while the Los Angeles County city of Monterey Park has the highest percentage of Chinese Americans of any municipality, at 43.7% of its population, or 24,758 people.

The ten states with the largest estimated Chinese American populations, according to both the 2010 Census, were California (1,253,100; 3.4%), New York (577,000; 3.0%), Texas (157,000; 0.6%), New Jersey (134,500; 1.5%), Massachusetts (123,000; 1.9%), Illinois (104,200; 0.8%), Washington (94,200; 1.4%), Pennsylvania (85,000; 0.7%), Maryland (69,400; 1.2%), and Virginia (59,800; 0.7%). The state of Hawaii has the highest concentration of Chinese Americans at 4.0%, or 55,000 people.

The New York City Metropolitan Area, consisting of New York City, Long Island, and nearby areas within the states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania, is home to the largest Chinese American population of any metropolitan area within the United States, enumerating 665,714 individuals as of the 2009 American Community Survey Census statistical data, and including at least seven Chinatowns. Continuing significant immigration from Mainland China, both legal and illegal in origin, has spurred the ongoing rise of the Chinese American population in the New York metropolitan area; this immigration continues to be fueled by New York's status as an alpha global city, its high population density, its extensive mass transit system, and the New York metropolitan area's enormous economic marketplace.

San Francisco, California has the highest per capita concentration of Chinese Americans of any major city in the United States, at an estimated 19.8%, or 157,747 people, and contains the second-largest total number of Chinese Americans of any U.S. city. San Francisco's Chinatown was established in the 1840s, making it the oldest Chinatown in North America and the largest neighborhood of Chinese people outside of Asia, composed in large part by immigrants hailing from Guangdong province and also many from Hong Kong. The San Francisco neighborhoods of Sunset District and Richmond District also contain significant Chinese populations.

Other metropolitan areas with large Chinese American populations include Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Houston, Seattle, Philadelphia, Dallas, Portland, San Diego, Sacramento and Las Vegas.

In these cities, there are often multiple Chinatowns, an older one and a newer one which is populated by immigrants from the 1960s and 1970s. In some areas, Chinese Americans maintain close relationships with other Asian groups (i.e. Koreans, Filipinos, Vietnamese and so on).

New York City's Lower East Side, San Francisco's North Beach and Los Angeles' Olvera Street are good examples of Chinese-Americans intermingled with other races and cultures.

In addition to the big cities, smaller pockets of Chinese Americans are also dispersed in rural towns, often university-college towns, throughout the United States. For example, the number of Chinese Americans, including college professors, doctors, professionals, and students, has increased over 200% from 2005 to 2010 in Providence, Rhode Island, a small city with a large number of colleges.

Income and social status of these Chinese-American locations vary widely. Although many Chinese Americans in Chinatowns of large cities are often members of an impoverished working class, others are well-educated upper-class people living in affluent suburbs. The upper and lower-class Chinese are also widely separated by social status and class discrimination. In California's San Gabriel Valley, for example, the cities of Monterey Park and San Marino are both Chinese American communities lying geographically close to each other but they are separated by a large socio-economic and income gap.

The list of large cities (population greater than 250,000) with a Chinese-American population in excess of one percent of the total population.

Significant Chinese population centers

New York City has the largest Chinese American population in the United States.

San Francisco is home to the second largest Chinese community in the United States.

Rank	City	State	Chinese-Americans	Percentage
1	San Francisco	California	&10000000000172181000000172,181	&1000000000000002139999921.4
2	Honolulu	Hawaii	&1000000000003833000000038,330	&1000000000000001019999910.2
3	Oakland	California	&1000000000003408300000034,083	&100000000000000086999998.7
4	San Jose	California	&1000000000006343400000063,434	&100000000000000067000006.7
5	New York City	New York	&10000000000486463000000486,463	&100000000000000060000006.0
6	Plano	Texas	&1000000000001359200000013,592	&100000000000000052000005.2
7	Sacramento	California	&1000000000002030700000020,307	&100000000000000044000004.4
8	Seattle	Washington	&1000000000002721600000027,216	&100000000000000040999994.1
9	Boston	Massachusetts	&1000000000002491000000024,910	&100000000000000040000004.0
10	San Diego	California	&1000000000003566100000035,661	&100000000000000027000002.7
11	Philadelphia	Pennsylvania	&1000000000003006900000030,069	&100000000000000020000002.0
12	Stockton	California	&100000000000051880000005,188	&100000000000000018000001.8
13	Los Angeles	California	&1000000000006678200000066,782	&100000000000000018000001.8
14	Portland	Oregon	&100000000000091130000009,113	&100000000000000017000001.7
15	Chicago	Illinois	&1000000000004322800000043,228	&100000000000000016000001.6
16	Anaheim	California	&100000000000047380000004,738	&100000000000000013999991.4
17	Houston	Texas	&1000000000002942900000029,429	&100000000000000013000001.3
18	Austin	Texas	&100000000000088860000008,886	&100000000000000011999991.2
19	Pittsburgh	Pennsylvania	&100000000000034020000003,402	&100000000000000011000001.1
20	Riverside	California	&100000000000029850000002,985	&100000000000000010000001.0

Influence on American culture

Some of the noteworthy Chinese contributions include building Western half of the Transcontinental railroad and levees in the Sacramento River Delta; the popularization of Chinese American food; technological innovation and entrepreneurship; and the introduction of Chinese and East Asian culture to America, such as Buddhism, Taoism, and Kung fu.

Chinese immigrants to the United States brought many of their ideas, ideals and values with them. Some of these have continued to influence later generations. Among them is Confucian respect for elders and filial piety. Similarly education and the civil service were the most important path for upward social mobility in China. The first Broadway show about Asian Americans was Flower Drum Song.

In most American cities with Chinese populations, the new year is celebrated with cultural festivals and parties. In Seattle, the Chinese Culture and Arts Festival is held every year. Other important festivals include the Dragon Boat Festival and the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Analysis indicated that most non-Asian Americans do not differentiate between Chinese Americans and East Asian Americans generally, and perceptions of both groups are nearly identical. A 2001 survey of Americans' attitudes toward Asian Americans and Chinese Americans indicated that one fourth of the respondents had somewhat or very negative attitude toward Chinese Americans in general. The study did find several positive perceptions of Chinese Americans: strong family values (91%); honesty as entrepreneurs (77%); high value on education (67%).

Citizenship

Legally all ethnic Chinese born in the United States are American citizens as a result of the Fourteenth Amendment and the 1898 United States v. Wong Kim Ark Supreme Court decision. Upon naturalization, immigrants to the United States must take an oath of loyalty to the United States but are not required to formally renounce their former citizenship. However, the People's Republic of China does not recognize dual citizenship and considers the naturalization of a person as an American citizen to imply a renunciation of PRC citizenship. On the other hand, the Republic of China does not view naturalization in other countries as an automatic renunciation of Chinese nationality.

Language

Chinese, mostly of the Cantonese variety, is the third most-spoken language in the United States, almost completely spoken within Chinese American populations and by immigrants or the descendants of immigrants, especially in California. Over 2 million Americans speak some variety of Chinese, with Standard Chinese becoming increasingly more common due to immigration from mainland China and Taiwan.

In New York City at least, although Mandarin is spoken as a native language among only ten percent of Chinese speakers, it is used as a secondary dialect among the greatest number of them and is on its way to replace Cantonese as their lingua franca. In addition, the immigration from Fujian is creating an increasingly large number of Min speakers. Wu Chinese, a Chinese language previously unheard of in the United States, is now spoken by a minority of recent Chinese immigrants, who hail from Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai.

Although Chinese Americans grow up learning English, some teach their children Chinese for a variety of reasons: preservation of an ancient civilization, preservation of a unique identity, pride in their cultural ancestry, desire for easy communication with them and other relatives, and the perception that Chinese will be a very useful language as China's economic strength increases.^{[citation needed]}

Politics

Chinese Americans are divided among many subgroups based on factors such as a generation, place of origin, socio-economic level, and do not have uniform attitudes about the People's Republic of China, the Republic of China, the United States, or Chinese nationalism, with attitudes varying widely between active support, hostility, or indifference. Different subgroups of Chinese Americans also have radically different and sometimes very conflicting political priorities and goals. It is for this reason that Chinese Americans do not have any^{[citation needed]} unified political groups or any unified political viewpoints.

In the days leading up to the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election, John Kerry was favored by 58% of Chinese Americans, with George W. Bush being favored by 23% of Chinese Americans and 19% undecided.

During the Cultural Revolution, Chinese Americans, like all overseas Chinese, generally speaking, were viewed as capitalist traitors by the People's Republic of China government. This attitude changed completely in the late 1970s with the reforms of Deng Xiaoping. Increasingly, Chinese Americans were seen as sources of business and technical expertise and capital who could aid in China's economic and other development.

Socioeconomics

Education

Like many other Asian Americans, Chinese Americans are highly educated and have one of the highest educational attainments in the United States. Chinese Americans often have one of the highest averages in tests such as SAT, GRE etc. Although, verbal scores somewhat lag due to the influx of new immigrants, yet combined SAT scores have also been higher than for most Americans. Chinese Americans are the largest racial group on all but one of the nine fully established University of California campuses. Chinese Americans are disproportionately represented among U.S. National Merit Scholars Winners and constitute nearly 13% at the nations top Ivy League universities and as well as a handful of other prestigious institutions around the United States. They also constitute 24% of all Olympic Seattle Scholarship winners, 33% of USA Math Olympiad winners, 15.5% of Putnam Math Competition winners, and 36% of Duke Talent Identification Grand Recognition Ceremony attendees from the Dallas Metropolitan area.

With their above average educational attainment rates Chinese Americans from all social backgrounds have achieved significant advances in their educational levels, income, life expectancy and other social indicators as the financial and socioeconomic opportunities offered by the United States have lift many Chinese Americans out of poverty joining the ranks of America's educated and upper middle class.

According to the 2010 U.S. Census Bureau of Labor Statistics, 51.8% of all Chinese Americans have attained at least a bachelor's degree (compared to just 28.2% nationally and 49.9% for all Asian American groups). 54.7% of Chinese American men attained a bachelors degree and 49.3% of Chinese American women attained a bachelors degree. 26.6% of all Chinese Americans in the United States possess a master’s, doctorate or other professional degree, compared to just 20.3% for all Asian Americans, and is roughly two and a half times above the national average.

Employment

Many Chinese Americans work as white collar professionals, many of whom are highly educated, salaried professionals whose work is largely self-directed in management, professional, and related occupations such as engineering, medicine, investment banking, law, and academia. 53.1% of Chinese Americans work in many white collar professions compared to 48.1% for all Asian Americans 35.9% for the general American population. They make up two percent of working physicians in the United States. They also hold some of the lowest unemployment rates in nation with a figure of 5.1% compared to a national rate of 6.9%.

In 2007, there were over 109,614 Chinese-owned employer firms, employing more than 780,000 workers, and generating more than $128 billion in revenue. Among Chinese-owned U.S. firms, 40% were in the professional, scientific, and technical services sector; the accommodation and food services sector; and the repair, maintenance, personal, and laundry services sector. Chinese-owned U.S. firms comprised 2% of all U.S. businesses in these sectors. Wholesale trade and accommodation and food services accounted for 50.4% of Chinese-owned business revenue. 66,505 or 15.7% of Chinese-owned firms had receipts of $250,000 or more compared to just 2% for all U.S. businesses.

Economics

Main article: Model minority

According to the 2010 U.S. Census, Chinese American men had one of "the highest year-round, full-time median earnings ($57,061), and Chinese American women had a median income of $47,224. They also have one of the highest median incomes among any ethnic minority in United States with a figure of $65,5273, which is 30 percent higher than the national average but slightly lower compared to all Asian Americans which stood at $67,022.

Bachelor's Degree or Higher Educational Attainment

Ethnicity	Percent of Population
Taiwanese	73.6%
Chinese	51.8%
Japanese	47.4%
Vietnamese	25.2%
Non-Hispanic White	29.5%
General US Population	28.2%

Notable Chinese Americans

See also: List of Chinese Americans

Business

Co-founder of Yahoo! Jerry Yang

When Chinese Americans were largely excluded from labor markets in the 19th century, they started their own businesses. Chinese Americans have owned convenience and grocery stores, professional offices such as medical and law practices, laundries, beauty-related ventures to founding numerous and influential hi-tech Silicon Valley firms and as a result have become very successful and influential in the American economy. Annalee Saxenian, a UC Berkeley professor, whose research interests include the contribution of immigrants on America's technology concludes that in Silicon Valley, carried out a study that showed that since 1998, one out of five high tech start-ups in Silicon Valley were led by Chinese Americans. Chinese Americans like most Asian Americans have been disproportionately successful in the hi-tech sectors of California's Silicon Valley, as evidenced by the Goldsea 100 Compilation of America's Most Successful Asian Entrepreneurs.

Several influential Chinese American entrepreneurs such as Patrick Soon-Shiong, Victor Fung, John Tu, and Jerry Yang have become billionaires in the process and top the Forbes 400 regularly. Chinese Americans accounted for 4.0% of people listed in the 1998 Forbes Hi Tech 100 List. Viewsonic, Nautica, Nvidia, Garmin, Tagged, Youtube and Newegg.com were all founded and/or co-founded by Chinese Americans. The Chinese American 99 Ranch Market chain was also founded by Chinese American, Roger H. Chen. The chain is catered to the Taiwanese and Chinese American population.

Science and technology

Chinese Americans have made prominent contributions to American Science and Technology. They represent 4% of all American Nobel Prize winners, make up 5.1% of Grace Murray Hopper Award winners, and have been recipients of numerous prestigious scientific prizes such as the Turing Award and the Wolf Prize.

Chien-Shiung Wu was known to many scientists as the "First Lady of Physics" and played a pivotal role in experimentally demonstrating the violation of the law of conservation of parity in the field of particle physics. Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang received the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics for theoretical work demonstrating that the conservation of parity did not always hold and later became American citizens. Samuel Chao Chung Ting received the 1976 Nobel Prize in physics for discovery of the subatomic particle J/ψ. The mathematician Shing-Tung Yau won the Fields Medal in 1982. Terence Tao, an Australian American of Chinese origin won the Fields Medal in 2006 and later won the Crafoord Prize in 2012. The geometer Shiing-Shen Chern received the Wolf Prize in Mathematics in 1983. In 1984, Dr. David D. Ho first reported the "healthy carrier state" of HIV infection, which identified HIV-positive individuals who showed no physical signs of AIDS.

In 2009, Charles K. Kao was awarded Nobel Prize in Physics "for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibres for optical communication". Ching W. Tang was the inventor of the Organic light-emitting diode and Organic solar cell and was awarded the 2011 Wolf Prize in Chemistry for this achievement. Min Chueh Chang was the co-inventor of the combined oral contraceptive pill and contributed significantly to the development of in vitro fertilisation at the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology.

Journalism

Connie Chung was one of the first Chinese-American national correspondents for a major TV news network, reporting for CBS in 1971. She later co-anchored the CBS Evening News from 1993 to 1995. Carol Lin is perhaps best known for being the first to break the news of 9-11 on CNN. Lisa Ling, a former co-host on The View, now provides special reports for CNN and The Oprah Winfrey Show, as well as hosting National Geographic Channel's Explorer. John Yang has won a Peabody Award and a Pulitzer Prize for his respective work.

Government and Politics

In recent decades, many Chinese Americans have started pursuing careers in politics and succeeded in getting elected and/or appointed into political office. In particular, several prominent Chinese Americans have in recent years served as members of the President's cabinet and other federal offices. Elaine Chao became the first Chinese American cabinet member in American history when she was appointed in 2001 to serve as Secretary of Labor under President George W. Bush, a position she held until 2009; she also was the first female Asian American to serve in a cabinet post in American history. In addition, Gary Locke became the first Chinese American governor when he was elected to this position for the state of Washington. Locke currently serves as United States Ambassador to China under the Obama Administration.

Further reading

• Chinese American Understanding: A Sixty-Year Search, Chih Meng, China Institute in America, 1981, hardcover, 255 pages, OCLC: 8027928
• Chinese Americans and Their Immigrant Parents: Conflict, Identity, and Values, May Pao-May Tung, Haworth Press, 2000, paperback, 112 pages, ISBN 0-7890-1056-9
• Chinese Americans: The Immigrant Experience, Dusanka Miscevic and Peter Kwong, Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, 2000, hardcover, 240 pages, ISBN 0-88363-128-8
• Compelled To Excel: Immigration, Education, And Opportunity Among Chinese Americans, Vivian S. Louie, Stanford University Press, 2004, paperback, 272 pages, ISBN 0-8047-4985-X
• The Chinese in America: A Narrative History, Iris Chang, Viking, 2003, hardcover, 496 pages, ISBN 0-670-03123-2
• Being Chinese, Becoming Chinese American, Shehong Chen, University of Illinois Press, 2002 ISBN 0-252-02736-1 electronic book
• ABC Struggles in the Church
• On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese American Family, Lisa See, 1996. ISBN 0-679-76852-1. See also the website for an exhibition based on this book [6] from the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program.
• Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White, Frank H. Wu, Basic Books, 2003, hardcover, 416 pages, ISBN 0-465-00640-3

External links

• Factfinder Chinese Americans 2005 American Community Survey
• The Rocky Road to Liberty: A Documented History of Chinese American Immigration and Exclusion
• Museum of Chinese in the Americas
• Chinese Culture Center & Chinese Culture Foundation of San Francisco
• Organization of Chinese Americans
• Chinese Historical Society of America
• The Asians in America Project - Chinese American Organizations Directory
• "Paper Son" - one Chinese American's story of coming to America under the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
• Becoming American: The Chinese Experience a PBS Bill Moyers special. Thomas F. Lennon, Series Producer.
• Chinese American Contribution to Transcontinental Railroad - Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum
• Emerging Information Technology Conference (EITC), organized by several Chinese American organizations
• Famous Chinese Americans Comprehensive list of famous Chinese Americans organized by professions. Includes short biographical notes and Chinese names.
• Chinese Information and Networking Association (CINA)
• Northwest Chinese Professionals Association
• The Yung Wing Project hosts the memoir of the first Chinese American graduate of an American university (Yale 1854).
• Chinese American Museum
• Documentary about the Golden Venture tragedy