An Analysis Of Chinese American's Post-war Socioeconomic Changes Of Status

In 1943, American Congress abolished the Chinese Exclusion Act which had continued for 61 years and enforced a set of new immigration laws after World War II. After that, Chinese American′s socioeconomic status began to improve, and acquired much marked progress in education, occupation, income and politics. When paying attention to the success of them, we can not ignore the problems which have existed in the Chinese American′s society. As one of the Asian Americans, there is a lot of inequity in the aureole of the〝model minority〞in fact. The actual socioeconomic status is not precedence than the white. Using Chinese American′s society transformation after World War II as researching background, this dissertation studies the Chinese American′s education, occupation, income and participation in politics, exploring their socioeconomic status transition, embodying they are merging into the main society and American mainstream become more tolerable and acceptable to them, and probing the development of Chinese American′s society. Based on the findings of U.S. government and the works of American scholars especially the Chinese American′s investment research, directed by the historical materialism and the research methods in sociology and statistics, this thesis tries to explore and analyze Chinese American′s post-war socioeconomic changes of status .The thesis is composed of preface, text, conclusion and appendix. There includes four parts in text:Part one introduces and analyzes the characteristics and reasons of after World War II Chinese American in region source, language, sex, age and so on. Meanwhile this part reviews the pre-war old immigration and their socioeconomic status and the new generation who were born in America.Part two represents and analyzes the success of the Chinese American′s socioeconomic status after World War II which embodies in the whole progress in education, the marked improvement in occupation, the prevalence of income and the stepwise of awareness in participation in politics. And their socioeconomic status have improved than pre-war. Part three analyzes the factors which have impacted on the Chinese Americans socioeconomic status. The improvement of themselves and American society both have effected it, which is the result of the inner cause and outer cause.Part four explores the problems of Chinese American′s socioeconomic status, including the disproportionate in education and income, limitation in occupation, inequality in family income, and weakness in politics, and analyzes the causes of them.The conclusion summarizes the connection between Chinese American′s changes of socioeconomic status and merging into American mainstream. More and more new immigrations affect the traditional Chinese American′s community, and also construct it. With the multi-culture development in the community, merging and marginalization in American mainstream will be both existence, but in the long run merging into American mainstream will be the main trend.