Section 8.2: History and Demographics II

Fourth Wave of Immigration: 1965-Present

Koreans and Vietnamese

Wars in Korea and Vietnam led to increased immigration after 1965. While Korean immigration has been fairly gradual, Vietnamese immigration was more concentrated after 1975, when the formerly U.S.-backed city of Saigon fell and a restrictive communist government was established. Whereas many Asian immigrants came to the United States to seek better economic opportunities, Vietnamese immigrants came as political refugees, seeking asylum from repressive conditions in their homeland. The Refugee Act of 1980 helped them settle in the United States, with large numbers coming from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Many of these refugees settled in California, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, forming ethnic enclaves in urban areas.people, or approximately 20% of the population (Williams, 2005).

Cambodians

From 1975-1979, the Khmer Rouge (the oppressive Communist Party of Kampuchea ruling Cambodia at the time) killed approximately 1.2-1.7 million Cambodians, or approximately 20% of the Cambodian population (Williams, 2005). Cambodians who were considered a threat to the new political state experienced "persecution and elimination" (Ratner, S. & Abrams, J., 1997). After the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia in 1979 and ended the reign of terror of the Khmer Rouge, Cambodians fled to refugee camps and eventually resettled in Western countries such as Australia, Canada, France and the United States. The largest population of Cambodians outside of southeast Asia resides in Long Beach, California. 

Cambodian Americans contend with "model minority" stereotypes while also being considered the "Black sheep" of the Asian community (Ly, 2003, p. 119). Under the Khmer Rouge, any sign of wealth or education meant death, contrasting that experience with immigration from Japan, China, and Korea which was largely driven by a desire for better standards of living and new opportunities, one can see how important it is to consider how these contexts shapes different behavior and outcomes of these groups in the United States. Unlike these other East Asian groups, Cambodian parents rarely pressure their children to pursue higher education, which in part explains why they have the lowest percentage of college and graduates and the highest percentage of high school dropouts (Ly, 2003). 

Contemporary Immigration

Asian immigrants have come to the United States primarily in the second (1820-1860), third (1880-1914), and fourth waves (1965-present) of immigration.  Fourth wave Asian immigration includes immigrants from India, Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Indian immigration grew between 1980 and 2010 more than eleven-fold, roughly doubling every decade. It is composed primarily of English-speaking, highly educated immigrants, many of whom qualified for an H-1B (a temporary visa for highly skilled immigrants). As of 2014, the top five origin countries of Asian immigrants were India, China, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Korea.

Asian Enclaves (e.g., Chinatown, Little Manila, Koreatown)

Push and Pull Factors of Asian Immigration

There are many theories on why people immigrate to the U.S., especially from Asian countries. The general idea among social scientists is as such: American multinational corporations set up businesses in foreign countries and soon begin to dominate that country's politics and economy. This "globalization of capital" disrupts and transforms the traditional way people in these Asian countries make a living as the fundamental structure of their national economy changes from one dominated by farming and agriculture to the beginnings of a modern capitalist economy that emphasizes manufacturing and export sectors.

Many workers struggle to survive economically, to adapt to these rapid changes, and many become "displaced" (i.e., they lose their jobs or their land). Nonetheless, having already been exposed to U.S. culture, either through direct contact with those connected to the American businesses now operating in their country or through TV programs and U.S. media portrayals, many workers dream about working in the U.S. and earning lots of money. Their expectations for "the good life" become heightened but they also realize that they can't achieve these new goals in their current situation. They also see that by working in the U.S. and earning more money, they can help out other family members who have also been displaced.

In the meantime, companies in the U.S. are looking to hire immigrant workers who are frequently willing work for lower wages than U.S.-born workers. Many times, these companies actively recruit foreign workers to come to the U.S. Further, earlier immigrants from that country help in the immigration process by providing helpful information about jobs or assistance in the actual immigration and adjustment process. After this initial cycles, immigration becomes almost self-perpetuating through these established social networks as immigrant workers repeat the cycle of helping their family, relatives, and friends come to the U.S. to find work often referred to as chain migration.

Once these Asian immigrants get to the U.S., they frequently end up living or working in established Asian enclaves. This makes sense because these enclaves give them a sense of familiarity and emotional comfort, which makes it easier for them to adapt to life in the U.S. They also are more likely to get a job in the enclave, especially if they are not fluent enough in English to get a job outside the enclave. Being employed also helps them adjust to their new life in the U.S.

What are Ethnic Enclaves?

Ethnic enclaves are neighborhoods with high concentrations of one particular ethnic group, usually resulting from immigration patterns. Ethnic enclaves tend to share these characteristics: 1) live in close proximity; 2) support the traditional values customs and ways of life of that ethnic group; 3) maintain social services such as employment networks, political clubs, civic organizations and houses of worship; 4) establish retail stores where traditional foods clothing household goods and utensils are sold; 5) develop and sustain native language newspapers and sometimes radio and TV stations; 6) provide employment and social and sometimes financial support for new immigrants; 7) permit new immigrants to adapt to a new country without experiencing serious levels of culture shock and homesickness. In general, ethnic enclaves provide a safe haven with a variety of social supports for new immigrants that serve to ease their transition into a new and different culture.

These enclaves offer economic opportunities to immigrants and mechanisms for maintenance of immigrant cultures, but also the potential exploitation of immigrant labor, often based on gender. Some researchers argue that many Asian business owners are more than willing to exploit the relative powerlessness of these new immigrants and their willingness to accept lower wages and less-than-optimum working conditions. Specifically, many Asian-owned sweatshops, restaurants, and other small businesses have been accused of taking advantage of their own people in this manner for their own financial gain. In fact, many Asian American non-profit community organizations were established to protest against these exploitative conditions by picketing Asian small businesses and pressuring their owners to improve working conditions and wages, and by trying to unionize these immigrant workers. Academic research also shows that working within an ethnic enclave is frequently beneficial for Asian business owners but not for their workers who may be able to earn more and enjoy slightly better working conditions in jobs outside the ethnic enclave.

A Minority Within a Minority

Until 1980, "Hawaiian" was the only pacific islander group listed on the Census questionnaire; Guamanian and Samoan were added in 1990 and the census category today, reads "Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander". There are an estimated 1.4 million people who identify with this category in the United States, 41% of which identify as Native Hawaiian, with the remainder identifying as Samoan (13%), Guamanian (10%), Tongan (5%), Fijian (3%), Marshallese (2%) or other Pacific Islander (26%) (Ramakrishnan & Ahmad, 2014). Scholars have argued that because these groups face a different struggles with Pacific Islanders contending with issues relating to sovereignty and decolonization, and Asian Americans dealing with immigration, they deserved a label distinct from "Asian American." Given these dynamics, it is argued that the experience of Pacific Islanders is much more akin to that of Native Americans (Ishisaka, 2020). 

Native Hawaiians

In 1778, the year that Captain James Cook of England arrived, the estimated population of Hawaiians was between 400,000 and 800,000. In 1893 U.S. naval forces overthrew the monarchy originally founded in 1810 by King Kamehameha I, then in 1898 the Hawaiian islands were annexed by the United States as the Republic of Hawai'i. Much like the experience of Native Americans, European diseases introduced by colonization brought the population down to 29,800 Native Hawaiians and another 7,800 Hawaiians of mixed ancestry by 1900. Today, Native Hawaiians in Hawaii experience lower incomes, have the highest unemployment rate, and hold lower status jobs when compared to all ethnic groups in the islands. As is the case with other marginalized groups, this lower socioeconomic position leaves Native Hawaiians more vulnerable to health disparities such as lower mortality rates and higher rates of disease and cancer (Lai & Arguelles, 2003). 

Samoans & Guamanians

According to the United States Census Bureau, there are approximately 204,000 Samoan people including those with partial Samoan ancestry and about 160,000 Guamanians in the United States (United States Census Bureau, 2019). 

Like the Native Hawaiians, they are considered Polynesians, and are theorized to have migrated from the west (the East Indies, the Malay peninsula or the Philippines) as far back ago as 1,000 B.C.E. Today, the islands are divided up into American Samoa and Samoa. The former is only 76 square miles, has a population of around 67,000, and sends a delegate to the U.S. Congress. Samoa, known as Western Samoa until 1997, is an independent nation with islands totaling 1,090 square miles, and a population of 179,058.

The economy of American Samoa remains undeveloped; nearly one-third of workers are employed in the fishing or canning industry. Tourism has not taken off. In recent years, one of American Samoa's main exports has been football players. There are more than 200 playing Division I college football, and 28 in the NFL, reported ESPN in 2002. Perhaps the most famous has been linebacker Tiaina "Junior" Seau.

After Samoans, the next-largest NHPI group are the natives of the island of Guam, also known as Chamorro. There are only about 157,000 people living on today's multicultural Guam, of whom about half are Chamorro. So like American Samoa, a larger number of Chamorro actually live abroad-in the U.S., there are nearly 93,000 people of pure or part-Chamorro descent.

Today the U.S. military maintains a large, albeit declining, presence in Guam, with 23,000 military personnel and their families living on the island. Though the government has lobbied to free Guam from its "unincorporated" U.S. territory status, the island has yet to be granted the Commonwealth recognition given Puerto Rico. And although the people are given U.S. citizenship, they do not vote in U.S. presidential elections. Economically, the growing tourist industry catering to Japanese visitors has helped offset the military downsizing.

---

Contributors and Attributions

Content on this page has multiple licenses. Everything is CC BY-NC-ND other than Introduction to Sociology 2e, Relocation and Incarceration of Japanese Americans During World War II, and The Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907 which are CC BY-SA.

• Tsuhako, Joy. (Cerritos College)
• Gutierrez, Erika. (Santiago Canyon College)
• Asian Nation (Le) (CC BY-NC-ND) adapted with permission
• Introduction to Sociology 2e (OpenStax) (CC BY 4.0)    
• Relocation and Incarceration of Japanese Americans During World War II (Japanese American Relocation Digital Archive (JARDA)/University of California) (CC BY 4.0) 
• The Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907 (Wikipedia) (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Works Cited & Recommended for Further Reading

• Chou, R.S., Lee, K. & Ho, S. (2015). Asian Americans on Campus: Racialized Space and White Power. New York, NY: Routledge.
• Fang, J. & Fine, G.A. (2019). What’s in a Name?: English Names, Transnational Identities, and Self-Presentation among Chinese Students in American Universities. Conference Papers -- American Sociological Association, 1–31. 
• Feagin, J.R. (2020). The White Racial Frame: Centuries of Racial Framing and Counter-Framing (3rd Ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
• Jung, Moon-Kie. (2015). Beneath the Surface of White Supremacy: Denaturalizing U.S. Racisms Past and Present. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
• Kohli, R., & Solórzano, D.G. (2012). Teachers, please learn our names!: racial microagressions and the K-12 classroom. Race, Ethnicity & Education, 15(4), 441–462.
• Kurashige, L. (2016). Two Faces of Exclusion: The Untold History of Anti-Asian Racism in the United States. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press.
• Lew-Williams, B. (2018). The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Ling, H. (2009). Emerging Voices: Experiences of Underrepresented Asian Americans. New York, NY: Rutgers University Press.
• Liu, M. & Lai, T. (2008). The Snake Dance of Asian American Activism: Community, Vision, and Power. Washington, D.C.: Lexington Books.
• Love, E. (2017). Islamophobia and Racism in America. New York, NY: NYU Press.
• Ly, K.C. (2003). “Asian”: Just a simple word. Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge, 2(2), 116–121. 
• National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium. (1999). Audit of Violence Against Asian Pacific Americans: Challenging the Invisibility of hate, Seventh Annual Report 1999.
• Ratner, S. & Abrams, J. (1997). Accountability for Human Rights Atrocities in International Law: Beyond the Nuremberg Legacy. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
• Quintiliani, K. (2009). Cambodian refugee families in the shadows of welfare reform. Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, 7(2), 129–158. 
• United States Department of State. (n.d.). Japanese-American Relations at the Turn of the Century, 1900–1922. 
• Williams, S. (2005). Genocide: The Cambodian experience. International Criminal Law Review, 5(3), 447–461. 
• Yang, C. (2020). The Peculiar Afterlife of Slavery: The Chinese Worker and the Minstrel Form. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.Eastman, J.C. (2006). From Feudalism to Consent: Rethinking Birthright Citizenship. Washington, D.C.: The Heritage Foundation.