Asian Immigration to America

The main factor of change in patterns of Asian immigration to America in the twentieth century can be summed up in two words from the title of the book edited by Ong, Bonacich, and Cheng: global restructuring, specifically shifts in the distribution of industrial priorities and division of labor for the benefit of holders and controllers of capital. Political policies can be seen to have played a role in this process, such as for example the Immigration Act of 1965, which formally put an end to racial restrictions on Asian immigration (Ong, Bonacich, and Cheng viii). But ultimately the role of capitalist economic structures must be seen as dominant, inasmuch as the 1965 Act itself can be interpreted as a response to the perception on the part of policy makers of the needs of capital for labor that could be efficiently provided by the expansion of Asian immigration quotas for the U.S. Ong, Bonacich, and Cheng cite the macroeconomic structure of the Pacific Rim, which includes the American west coast as well as the countries of the eastern Pacific Ocean, with influx of Asians into the U.S. being the focus of study. Within this economic environment, social forces influence adaptation and integration of Asian immigrants (Ong, Bonacich, and Cheng ix).

The 1965 Immigration Act opened the way for Asian immigration to change. The Act was made law partly because U.S. industrial economic activity in Asia and assertion of international leadership could not be politically reconciled w

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es where they could exploit a lower-cost and nonunion labor pool, often comprising "peasants and often young women . . . first-generation proletarians who are more easily controllable than experienced workers" (9). Meanwhile, there was a shift in the nature of employment in the U.S. toward a need for skilled and educated information-based workers and shift away from reliance on heavy industry for economic activity. This was a factor leading to changes in Asian American immigration because many of those with the education and skill sets that could meet the needs of American capital were from Asia. That, say Ong, Bonacich, and Cheng, was not anticipated by the 1965 Act, even though the weight of industrial capitalism's influence, which was historically consistent with political conservatism, was behind policies that fostered a contradiction: "On the one hand, the United States wants to cut social spending, including spending on education. On the other, it needs highly trained personnel" (25). Meeting the first goal basically prevented American-born working-class educational and career-advancement opportunities. But the benefit of a cheap labor pool for capital also fostered a labor shortage in industries requiring educated personn

Category: History - A