A long history, not a recent one
Chinese people have lived in the United States for well over a century and a half. A few arrived earlier as sailors and traders, but the first large wave came in the middle of the nineteenth century, when news of the California gold rush spread across the Pacific. Most of these early migrants came from the Pearl River Delta region of Guangdong province, which helps explain why Cantonese and related dialects dominated early Chinese American communities. The reasons for leaving were mixed: economic hardship, local conflict and the hope of earning money to send home.
Chinese workers did mining, farming, laundry work, cooking and a great deal of construction. In the 1860s many were employed building the western section of the first transcontinental railroad, doing difficult and dangerous work.
Exclusion and survival
Success drew hostility. Anti-Chinese feeling grew, and in 1882 Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, the first major U.S. law to bar immigration on the basis of nationality. Further laws extended the restrictions, and Chinese immigrants were barred from naturalization for many years. Those who tried to enter were sometimes held for long interviews at places such as the immigration station on Angel Island in San Francisco Bay.
The exclusion laws were repealed in 1943, when China was a wartime ally, though immigration quotas remained tiny. A major change came with the immigration reforms of 1965, which ended the old national-origin quotas and allowed more families and skilled workers to arrive. Since then, Chinese American communities have grown more varied, including people from Taiwan, Hong Kong, mainland China and Southeast Asia, with many different languages, backgrounds and political views. No single description fits them all.
Chinatowns as neighborhoods
Under hostile conditions, many Chinese immigrants settled in concentrated neighborhoods, which Americans came to call Chinatowns. They offered mutual aid, familiar food, language and work. Family and district associations, often based on shared surnames or home regions in China, helped newcomers find housing and jobs, and echoed the older world of clan genealogies and clan halls.
Chinatowns have also been shaped by outside perceptions. Some were promoted to tourists with architecture meant to look “Oriental,” which reflected American expectations as much as Chinese tradition. Today, historic Chinatowns in cities such as San Francisco, New York and others coexist with newer Chinese-heavy suburban communities, and many of the older ones face pressures from rising rents and changing populations.
Food: adapted, not simply imported
Few areas show the exchange as clearly as food. Early Chinese restaurants served workers from their own communities, then adapted to American customers. Dishes such as chop suey and sweet-and-sour preparations grew from this encounter, using local ingredients and sauces suited to local tastes. They differ from what is eaten in most regions of China, but they are a genuine part of Chinese American history and creativity. The fortune cookie, sometimes assumed to be an ancient Chinese custom, is generally considered an American development, and its exact origin is disputed.
In recent decades, Americans have had more opportunity to try regional cooking from different parts of China, from Sichuan to Shanghai to Cantonese-style dim sum. Takeout cartons and family-style banquets have become part of ordinary American life, and the broader tradition of Chinese cuisine is now familiar to many people who have never visited China.
Festivals and public life
Lunar New Year, known in the tradition as Chinese New Year, is celebrated in many American cities with parades, lion and dragon dance performances, family dinners and red envelopes given to children. Events such as the Mid-Autumn Festival, with its mooncakes and lantern displays, and the Dragon Boat Festival, with boat races held in some cities, bring Chinese traditions into public parks and waterfronts. These festivals now draw many visitors who are not Chinese, which makes them a form of shared local culture. Since the festivals follow the lunisolar calendar, their dates in the standard calendar change from year to year.
Some American schools and cities recognize the Lunar New Year, and some communities hold events at libraries and museums. How widely it is observed depends on the place.
Language, arts and everyday habits
Chinese languages are spoken in many U.S. homes, and Chinese-language schools, often held on weekends, help children learn to read and write. Chinese calligraphy, martial arts classes and tai chi in parks are common in community centers across the country, and Chinese loanwords have entered English, although the history of any particular word is worth checking before repeating it.
Chinese Americans have contributed to science, medicine, business, the arts, literature, film, engineering and public service, and the community’s history is increasingly taught in schools. It is also worth remembering that “Chinese American culture” is not simply “Chinese culture” transplanted. It is a distinct set of experiences shaped by American conditions, including discrimination, adaptation and the creativity of people moving between two worlds.
Cautions and nuance
Influence is not one-directional. Chinese Americans have adopted American habits, and many identify mostly as Americans with Chinese heritage. Some young people feel closely connected to traditions from China, while others feel less so. Regional differences also matter: Chinese communities in Hawaii, the Mississippi Delta, New York and California each have their own histories.
For anyone interested in the subject, local museums and community organizations are good places to learn about particular histories. Generalizations about “Chinese Americans” should be treated with caution, since the group includes recent arrivals and families who have been in the country for five or six generations.