Chinese Americans

<!-- +++++++++++ EDITORIAL NOTE +++++++++++++++

Please remember that "Chinese American" is *not* the same as "Asian American". Take care not to conflate or confuse the two categories, and do make it clear which one you are talking about. Use special care not to misquote references to the latter category as referring to the former category, or vice versa.-->

Chinese Americans are Americans of Chinese ancestry. They have ancestors from mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, as well as other regions of the Chinese diaspora, especially Southeast Asia. Chinese Americans include naturalized U.S. citizens as well as their natural-born descendants.

The Chinese American community is the largest Chinese community outside Asia and the third-largest community in the Chinese diaspora, behind the Chinese communities in Thailand and Malaysia. The 2022 American Community Survey of the U.S. Census estimated the population of Chinese Americans at 5,465,428, including 4,258,198 who were Chinese alone, and 1,207,230 who were part Chinese. The 2010 census numbered the Chinese American population at about 3.8 million. In 2010, half of the Chinese-born people in the United States lived in California and New York. About half of the Chinese people in the U.S. in the 1980s had roots in Taishan. Much of the Chinese population before the 1990s consisted of Cantonese or Taishanese-speaking people from Guangdong province. During the 1980s, more Mandarin-speaking immigrants from Northern China and Taiwan immigrated to the US. In the 1990s, Fujianese immigrants arrived, many illegally, particularly in the New York City area. In the 1800s and 1890s Chinese and Chinese Americans lived almost entirely in Western states, especially California and Nevada, as well as New York City.

History

thumb|upright=1.2|Chinese American miners in the [[Colorado School of Mines' Edgar Experimental Mine near Idaho Springs, Colorado, ]]

thumb|upright=1.2|Chinese American Shell Peddlers (1918)

First wave (1815–1949)

19th century background

Most early Chinese migrants were young men from villages of Toisan, as well as the eight districts in Guangdong Province. They were motivated to leave by floods and famine in the mid-nineteenth century, as well as mass political unrest such as the Red Turban unrest and the Punti-Hakka Clan Wars.

California gold rush and railroad construction

In the 1850s, Chinese workers migrated to work in the California gold rush, and also to do agricultural jobs and factory work, especially the garment industry. Some became entrepreneurs. Chinese often settled in ethnic neighborhoods called Chinatowns. In 1852, there were 25,000 Chinese migrants in America. After coming to the United States, these immigrants learned a lot of new knowledge about transportation, communications, architecture, medical care that they could not get in China. They also learned new Western culture, including new food, religion, life.

thumb|19th century Chinese parade celebrating San Francisco's Golden Jubilee

thumb|Chinese American [[fisherman at Monterey, CA, circa 1875]]

In 1862, the Pacific Railroad Acts led the Central Pacific Railroad to recruit labor gangs to build on the transcontinental railroad, most of whom were Irish. Later, these workers were accused of being "unsteady men and unreliable." Only a few Chinese were hired, but the employers found them quick to learn, careful and frugal, and paid less than white workers. Construction Superintendent J.H. Strobridge and the acting chief engineer, Samuel S. Montague were impressed by the experience and efficiency of the Chinese workers. They reported that Chinese workers laid 10 miles and 56 feet of track in a single day on April 28, 1869.

However, Chinese workers had their own "community", with their own chefs and accountants. They arranged their own board, including imported Chinese staples, such as dried shellfish, fish, fruits, vegetables, and seaweed, as well as local products. Observers recount that these railroad workers bathed daily, changing into clean clothes after work, and preferred to build their own dugouts and stone shelters rather than use company-provided tents. The Chinese railroad workers, it is recounted, kept to themselves and, other than gambling, enjoyed few vices. In the end, the company raised their wages, but only slightly.

The 1870 U.S. Census recorded 63,199 Chinese in the United States, and by 1890, the number had increased to 126,778. It was still difficult to obtain citizenship. In 1871, a white supremacist mob attacked Los Angeles' Chinatown and killed nineteen Chinese residents. Those lynched and shot likely included former railroad workers. The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act forced more Chinese to leave the United States.

Chinese Exclusion Acts

The Burlingame–Seward Treaty of 1868 between the United States and Qing China specified the rights of Chinese to immigrate, Since the United States did not formally recognize the People's Republic of China, Chinese Refugees in the 1960s and 1970s had come almost exclusively from Hong Kong and Taiwan. Richard Nixon's visit to China in 1972 led to formalization of relations in 1979, allowing travel to resume. The Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 further separated Taiwan and Chinese immigration quotas as well as formalizing relations.

The Second Wave of Chinese Immigrants consisted mostly of Hong Kong and Taiwanese nationals as well as students and professionals. The Aid Refugee Chinese Intellectuals initiative in 1952 helped Chinese refugees with more than two years of college move into America. Additionally thousands of Chinese students after the Chinese Civil War were unable to return to mainland China. 

Third wave (1980s–present)

In the 1980s and 1990s Chinese immigration continued to increase, with the number of Chinese Americans breaking 1 million by the 2000s. New Chinatowns emerged in Flushing and 8th Avenue in New York City and Richmond in San Francisco and existing Chinatowns expanded to accommodate the influx of Chinese immigrants.

Economic growth in the People's Republic of China has given mainland Chinese more opportunities to emigrate. A 2011 survey showed that 60% of Chinese millionaires were planning to emigrate, with 40% of Chinese millionaires selecting the United States as the top destination for immigration.

Under the EB-5 program, applicants, together with their spouses and unmarried children under 21 years old will be eligible to apply for U.S. permanent residency as a group. Because the EB-5 program allows applicants to apply as a family, it has been reported to be a significant method for Chinese students to obtain authorization to work in the United States. Chinese multimillionaires benefited most from the EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program in the U.S. in 2021, as long as one has at least US$500,000 to invest in projects listed by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), where it is possible to get an EB-5 green card that comes with permanent U.S. residency rights, but only in states specified by the pilot project. The H-1B visa is also becoming one of the main immigration pathways for the Chinese with 9% of the approved petitions in 2016.

Museums

A number of museums in the United States are devoted to Chinese American experience. The most prominent are the Museum of Chinese in America in Manhattan's Chinatown, established in 1980. Others include the Chinese American Museum in Los Angeles, the Chinese American Museum of Chicago, the Chinese Historical Society of America in San Francisco, and the Chinese American Museum in Washington, D.C.

Demographics

Population

The chart on the right shows the total number of ethnic Chinese in the United States since 1850.

States with the largest estimated Chinese American populations

thumb|upright=1.2|Percentage of Chinese population in the United States, 2000

The states with the largest estimated Chinese American populations, according to 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%), Virginia (59,800; 0.7%), and Ohio (51,033; 0.5%). The state of Hawaii has the highest concentration of Chinese Americans at 4.0%, or 55,000 people.

Population centers of Chinese Americans

According to the 2024 Census estimates, the three metropolitan areas with the largest Chinese American populations were the Greater New York Combined Statistical Area at 924,619 people, the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland Combined Statistical Area at 793,801 people, and the Los Angeles Area Combined Statistical Area at about 737,039 people. Together these three metropolitan areas account for half of the total Chinese population in the US. New York City contains by far the highest ethnic Chinese population of any individual city outside Asia, estimated at 635,355 as of 2024. 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 New York metropolitan area, which includes 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 an estimated 893,697 in 2017 and including at least 12 Chinatowns. Continuing significant immigration from mainland China is 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. The Manhattan Chinatown contains one of the largest concentrations of ethnic Chinese in the Western hemisphere; while the Flushing Chinatown in Queens has become the world's largest Chinatown. In 2023 and 2024, there was significant illegal Chinese immigration to New York City, and especially to the Flushing, Queens Chinatown.

Also on the East Coast, Greater Boston and the Philadelphia metropolitan area are home to significant Chinese American communities, with Chinatowns in Boston and Philadelphia hosting important and diverse cultural centers. Significant populations can also be found in the Washington metropolitan area, with Montgomery County, Maryland and Fairfax County, Virginia, being 3.9% and 2.4% Chinese American, respectively. Boston's Chinatown is the only historical Chinese neighborhood within New England. The Boston suburb of Quincy also has a prominent Chinese American population, especially within the North Quincy area.

San Francisco, California has the highest per capita concentration of Chinese Americans of any major city in the United States, at an estimated 21.4%, or 172,181 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 one of the largest neighborhoods 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. Houston, Texas is also another population center for Chinese Americans, as it contains the highest percentage of Chinese Americans in the Southern United States.

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.

{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible"

! Rank

! City

! State

! Chinese Americans

! Percentage

| align="center" | 1

| San Francisco

| California

| align="right" |

| align="center" | 2

| Honolulu

| Hawaii

| align="right" |

| align="center" | 3

| Oakland

| California

| align="right" |

| align="center" | 4

| San Jose

| California

| align="right" |

| align="center" | 5

| New York City

| New York

| align="right" |

| align="center" | 6

| Salt Lake County

| Utah

| align="right" |

| align="center" | 7

| Sacramento

| California

| align="right" |

| align="center" | 8

| Seattle

| Washington

| align="right" |

| align="center" | 9

| Boston

| Massachusetts

| align="right" |

| align="center" | 10

| San Diego

| California

| align="right" |

| align="center" | 11

| Philadelphia

| Pennsylvania

| align="right" |

| align="center" | 12

| Stockton

| California

| align="right" |

| align="center" | 13

| Los Angeles

| California

| align="right" |

| align="center" | 14

| Portland

| Oregon

| align="right" |

| align="center" | 15

| Chicago

| Illinois

| align="right" |

| align="center" | 16

| Anaheim

| California

| align="right" |

| align="center" | 17

| Houston

| Texas

| align="right" |

| align="center" | 18

| Austin

| Texas

| align="right" |

| align="center" | 19

| Pittsburgh

| Pennsylvania

| align="right" |

| align="center" | 20

| Riverside

| California

| align="right" |

Languages

According to the United States Census Bureau, the varieties of Chinese make up the third-most spoken language in the United States. It is spoken mainly within Chinese American populations and by immigrants or the descendants of immigrants. In 2002, over 2 million Americans speak some variety or dialect of Chinese, with Standard Chinese (Mandarin) becoming increasingly common due to new immigration from China and supplanting the previous widespread Cantonese and Taishanese. In addition, the immigration from Fuzhou, Fujian brings in a significant populace of Fuzhou people (Eastern Min), particularly Changle dialect speakers to major cities like New York City, San Francisco, and Boston. People from Fujian (Minnan region), Chaoshan, Taiwan and Southeast Asia mainly use Southern Min dialect (Hokkien and Teochew) as their mother tongue. Varieties of Wu Chinese, particularly Shanghainese and the mutually unintelligible Wenzhounese, are spoken by a minority of recent Chinese immigrants hailing from Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai.

Although many Chinese Americans grow up learning English, some teach their children to speak Chinese for preservation of an ancient civilization, preservation of a group identity, preservation of their cultural ancestry, desire for easy communication with each other and their relatives, and the perception that Chinese is a very useful language. The official standard for United States public notices and signage is Traditional Chinese.

Religion

The majority of Chinese Americans do not report a religious affiliation. 43% switched to a different religion and 54% stayed within their childhood religion. According to the 2012 Pew Research Center Asian-American Survey, 52% of Chinese Americans aged 15 and over said that they did not have any religious affiliation. This is also compared with the religious unaffiliation of Asian-American average of 26% and a national average of 19%. Of the survey respondents, 15% were Buddhist, 8% were Catholic, and 22% belonged to a Protestant denomination. About half of Chinese Americans (52%)—including 55% of those born in the U.S. and 51% of those born overseas—describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated. since most Chinese Christians convert in the United States, not China.

List of Chinese temples in the United States

Politics

thumb|upright=0.9|[[Judy Chu (), the first female Chinese American elected to Congress]]

Chinese Americans vary by language, religion, generational status, age and socioeconomic status and have varying political priorities and goals. As of 2013, Chinese Americans were the least likely Asian-American ethnicity to be affiliated with a political party. They cluster in majority-Democratic states and voted Democratic in early twenty-first century presidential elections, as did other Asian Americans except Vietnamese Americans.

Discrimination, prejudice, depression and suicide

thumb|upright=1.2|17 to 20 Chinese immigrants were murdered during the [[Los Angeles Chinese massacre of 1871|Chinese massacre of 1871 in Los Angeles.]]

thumb|upright=1.2|An illustration of the [[Rock Springs massacre of 1885, in which at least 28 Chinese immigrants were killed]]

Perceptions and stereotypes

A 2007 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. However, the study did also find several positive perceptions of Chinese Americans: strong family values (91%); honesty as entrepreneurs (77%); high value on education (67%).

In 1871, 17–20 Chinese immigrants were murdered in Los Angeles by a mob of around 500 men. This racially motivated massacre was one of the largest mass-lynchings in the United States, and it took place after the accidental killing of Robert Thompson, a local rancher.

The Rock Springs massacre occurred in 1885, in which at least 28 Chinese immigrants were killed and 15 other Chinese were injured. Many enraged white miners in Sweetwater County felt threatened by the Chinese and blamed them for their unemployment. As a result of competition for jobs, white miners expressed their frustration by committing acts of physical violence in which they robbed, shot, and stabbed Chinese in Chinatown. The Chinese quickly tried to flee, but in doing so, many of them ended up being burned alive in their homes, starving to death in hiding places, or being exposed to animal predators in the mountains; some of them were successfully rescued by a passing train. A total of 78 homes were burned.

During the Hells Canyon massacre of 1887, at least 34 Chinese miners were killed. An accurate account of the event is still unavailable, but it is speculated that the Chinese miners were killed by gunshot during a robbery by a gang of seven armed horse thieves.

Other acts of violence which were committed against Chinese immigrants include the San Francisco riot of 1877, the Issaquah and Tacoma riot of 1885, the attack on Squak Valley Chinese laborers in 1885, the Seattle riot of 1886, and the Pacific Coast race riots of 1907. With the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is believed to have started in the city of Wuhan, China, numerous incidents of xenophobia and racism against Chinese people and people who are perceived to be Chinese have been reported.

Depression and suicide

In 2008, researchers Georg Hsu and Yu Mui Wan published a paper citing severe stigma of mental illness in the Chinese American community as a barrier to diagnosis and treatment. In a 1998 study of 29 diagnosed depressive Chinese American immigrants, more than half of respondents avoided labeling their symptoms as depression. While patients were able to accurately identify and report depressive symptoms such as "irritability" and "rumination," patients were more likely to attribute their depression to somatic and physical symptoms than as a psychological state. The study also reported that suicide rates among Chinese American elderly were higher than that of the national suicide rate for African-American, Hispanic, and Native-American people.

A study published in the Journal of Aging and Health stated that 18% to 29.4% of older Chinese adults in North America had at least a mild level of depression which was higher than other ethnic groups. Further, the study reported that these depressive symptoms among older Chinese adults "tend to remain untreated." Smuggling of immigrants without authorization increased during 1990s following policy changes by the American government, but by the 21st century, some have returned to China due to its growing economy. By 2017, it is estimated that more than a quarter million immigrants reside in the United States without authorization from China. In 2015, there were about 39,000 Chinese nationals who were supposed to be deported; however, the People's Republic of China government had not provided paperwork to verify their citizenship. In 2017, China was described as having become one of the leading sources of new immigrants without authorization.

Socioeconomics

Income and social status of Chinese American locations vary widely. Although many Chinese Americans in Chinatowns of large cities are 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 socioeconomic gap.

The model minority myth

High levels of achievement among some groups led to a perception of Chinese Americans as a "model minority". This stereotype was presented as positive, but has complicated implications for both Chinese Americans and other minority groups. Historical evidence suggests this narrative emerged partially as a political tool during the Civil Rights era.

Early immigration patterns were significantly shaped by discriminatory policies, particularly during the Chinese Exclusion Era (1882–1943). These restrictions had lasting effects on community formation and cultural identity.

Educational attainment

The Chinese American community shows a range of educational attainment and a split between recent immigrants from China and earlier immigrants who came mainly from Taiwan and Hong Kong. The earlier immigrants have a higher percentage working in white collar and professional occupations, and earn higher median household incomes compared to other demographic groups. Chinese Americans, like other East Asian Americans, typically have above-average achievement and higher educational attainment rates compared to other ethno-racial grops. Chinese Americans have high averages in tests such as SAT, ACT, GRE. Although verbal scores lag somewhat due to the influx of new immigrants, combined SAT scores have also been higher than for most Americans. Chinese Americans are more likely to apply to elite higher education institutions than other groups. Chinese Americans are also disproportionately represented among US National Merit Scholarship awardees, and constitute 13% of the students at Ivy League universities and other institutions.

Largely driven by enrollment of Chinese citizens, 25% of the recipients of American PhD in science and engineering are of Chinese descent.

Level of education

U.S. Census Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2021 found high levels of education. 58.6% of Chinese Americans have attained at least a bachelor's degree, compared with 35.0% nationally and 56.4% for all Asian-American groups. The 2021 U.S. Census also reports that 60.6% of Chinese American men attained a bachelor's degree and 56.9% of Chinese American women attained at least a bachelor's degree, 31.0% of Chinese Americans possess at least a master's, doctorate or other graduate and professional degree, compared to 25.8% for all Asian Americans, and is a little more than two times above the national average of 13.8%.

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