The Rice Room - A Conflict of Generations

The relationship between the Statesns and Chinese immigrants in atomic number 20 is complex, to distinguish the least. Chinese immigrants helped build much of the infrastructure and introduced intensive dry land to the Bay Area in the 1800s, but, despite these contributions, continued to be viewed as unwanted laborers by the Americans. By the 1870s unemployment rates were rising slope in America, and the Chinese immigrants speedily became the scapegoat for American duress. on that point was a rise in Anti-Chinese (anti-coolie) movements that swept across California (24). These movements lead to the closure of umpteen Chinese settlements and prompted Congress to fail the 1882 Chinese Exclusion encounter and the 1924 Immigration Act. These Congressional decisions solely perpetuated the history of racism and apprehension felt between the Americans and Chinese in California, which would continue come up into the 20th century. In his myth The Rice Room, Ben Fong-Torres traces his complex cross- pagan heritage as a second generation Chinese American during the mid 1900s; divide between the alluring American lifestyle and the traditional cultural heritage his immigrant parents struggled to instill in him. \nLike roughly immigrants, Bens parents came to America in search of the American Dream. Referred to California as the halcyon Mountains , the United States offered an opportunity to act upon more money and raise for family back in China. Ben notes that his military chaplain was encouraged by his family to test a greater flock and then return to pay back them  (11). His start did as he was told, and came to America via the Philippines. Like most Chinese immigrants in the 1920s, Bens father entered the demesne illegally. Because there were exigent limits on the number of Chinese immigrants allowed into America, Bens father added Torres to his name to urge immigration officials that he was of Filipino descent. Bens mother also entered the c ountry illegally, and both lived in idolatry of being disc...