Chapter 14

Of all the groups that have emigrated into the United States, none have successfully transitioned into American life than the Asian American population. While these people definitely faced discrimination and prejudice from White Americans, the demise of the Chinese Exclusion Act and coming of the 1965 Immigrantion Act allowed Asian minorities to find work and eventually move up in life so that the next generation has better opportunities. Another factor that contributed to the increase of Asian American people and influence was Hawaii's admission into the Union in 1959, which enabled many senators and  representatives of Asian descent to move up into the core of American politics in Washington. Given their cultural backgrounds, Asian Americans have been proven to be less likely to end up in jail and more so to head to college than the average American. Thus, they become known as the model minority - the group of immigrants that has set the bar for other descendants from a foreign country to reach if they are to succeed in the United States. However, there are some differences between the distinct Asian groups in terms of the median age within a particular group and the chances of these people's culture being around in the United States.

One such group, the Japanese Americans had faced a steady decline of their people coming to America during the the 1920s and '30s. The immigration patterns were much more rapid, though, a little less steep than other the other Asian ethnic groups. Interestingly enough, when the Immigration Act of 1965 was passed, there was still very few Japanese coming to the United States. While many immigrants from Japan did arrive during the 1950s and early 1960s, the one reason why they didn't emigrate after 1965 was due to the fact that if the act had been passed immediately after World War Two, a war torn Japan would have been enough of a push factor for people to reestablish themselves in the United States. Since Japanese immigration slowed from the '60s onwards, the Japanese American population started to slow down a bit, essentially due to the great number of births that overcame the number of deaths within this ethnic population. While they were becoming an aging group towards the end of the 20th Century, it should be noted that Japanese Americans have very well financially and for the most part, fall within the range of middle to lower class in American society. Although the average income for a Japanese American family wasn't higher than their educational expectations, it was higher than what most Americans had.

The experience for every Chinese American was greatly different from their Japanese counterparts. Since the 1940s, the number of Chinese immigrants has gone up quite a bit and many of these people weren't directly from China. Newcomers came from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and different parts of Southeast Asia. Even some ethnic Chinese arrived from Vietnam as refugees and have continued to identify themselves as such. Compared to the Japanese American families of the 20th Century, Chinese American families were mainly within incomes that were along the poverty line. Both groups do share similar educational status which enabled Chinese Americans, who went as far as college, to speak out against the "silent" issue of their people still living in poverty within San Francisco or being anything but the model minority.