The Rice Room - A Conflict of Generations

The relationship between the Statesns and Chinese immigrants in atomic number 20 is complex, to imagine the least. Chinese immigrants helped build such(prenominal) of the infrastructure and introduced intensive soil 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 uphill in America, and the Chinese immigrants chop-chop became the scapegoat for American duress. at that place was a rise in Anti-Chinese (anti-coolie) movements that swept across California (24). These movements lead to the closure of many a(prenominal) Chinese settlements and prompted Congress to blend the 1882 Chinese Exclusion comport and the 1924 Immigration Act. These Congressional decisions moreover perpetuated the history of racism and disbelieve felt between the Americans and Chinese in California, which would continue intimately into the 20th century. In his invigorated The Rice Room, Be n Fong-Torres traces his complex cross- ethnic heritage as a second generation Chinese American during the mid 1900s; mangled between the alluring American lifestyle and the traditional cultural heritage his immigrant parents struggled to instill in him. \nLike near immigrants, Bens parents came to America in search of the American Dream. Referred to California as the flamboyant Mountains , the United States offered an opportunity to consume more money and forget for family back in China. Ben notes that his nonplus was encouraged by his family to anticipate a greater fortune and then return to sire them  (11). His amaze did as he was told, and came to America via the Philippines. Like most Chinese immigrants in the 1920s, Bens father entered the sphere illegally. Because there were inexorable limits on the number of Chinese immigrants allowed into America, Bens father added Torres to his name to coax immigration officials that he was of Filipino descent. Bens mother also entered the country illegally, and both lived in timidity of being disc...