Essay Example: Short Primary Sources about Chinese Immigrants

The history of Chinese Immigrants and the African American experiences in the USA creates an understanding of life as immigrants in the urban and industrial cities of US in the 18th and 19th centuries. The two groups faced discrimination and exploitation in the industries. The Jungle explains the life of Jurgis and his family in Chicago where they had gone to seek employment. They were given temporary jobs with little pay. Most of the jobs were risky with low pay or no compensation in time of injury (Iceland, 2017). Lee Chew also explains how the Chinese were given roles of houseboys in the state with very little pay. The African American faced the same experience in the state. The letter of Black Migrant to Chicago Defender shows how the blacks working in Chicago were mistreated with little pay, lack of promotion and compensation (Iceland, 2017).

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The two groups experienced injustices in the hands of police and federal state courts. Their cases were judged on racial basis giving the whites privilege and dominance. Jurgis explains how he was arrested and sentenced for attacking Connor who had raped and blackmailed his wife to enter into prostitution. The same issue was experienced by the Black Americans living in Detroit who were arrested, tortured and falsely accused by the police (Lasch-Quinn, 2017). Also, social seclusion was experienced by the two groups. They were forced to live in miserable cities and houses away from the white people. Jurgis explains how his family was evicted from the house they had bought and forced to move to inferior residential homes. Similarly, the blacks in Detroit and South America were socially discriminated thus had to live in overcrowded houses.

One thing that differentiated the lives of the two groups was that the Chinese were able to overcome discrimination and startup investments in the state. They understood the lives of the white people making it easier for them to live in the state. In his letter, Lee indicated the positive side of the whites showing they are not wicked people as the Chinese thought. In the Jungle. Jurgis also came to relate well with the white people through socialism. Also, the Chinese were not discriminated based on the color instead it was out of government fear. Between 1882 to 1943 a policy was put in place to curtail the Chinese from migrating to the US (Parry, 2015). Africans immigrants were not discriminated from going to the US since they offered cheap hard labor in the industries and war. They were discriminated based on the color hence were branded to be criminals and violent people.

References

Bain, A. (2016). " Knocking on the big city's door": Sociology and Southern migrants to Chicago in the early twentieth century (Doctoral dissertation, Middle Tennessee State University).

Iceland, J. (2017). Race and Ethnicity in America (Vol. 2). Univ of California Press.

Lasch-Quinn, E. (2017). Black neighbors: Race and the limits of reform in the American settlement house movement, 1890-1945. UNC Press Books.

Parry, S. E. (2015). Fiction: 1900 to the 1930s. American Literary Scholarship, 2015(1), 235-255.