Chinese American facts for kids
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| (3,794,673 1.2% of the U.S. population (2010)) |
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| Regions with significant populations | |
| New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Boston, Washington D.C., Chicago, Philadelphia, Seattle | |
| Languages | |
| Predominantly English, varieties of Chinese: Mandarin Chinese (Standard Chinese), Yue Chinese (Cantonese, Taishanese), Min Chinese (Min Dong, Min Nan), Hakka, Wu Chinese (Taihu Wu, Oujiang Wu), and Minority Uyghur. |
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| Religion | |
| Unaffiliated, Protestantism, Buddhism, Catholicism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Hong Kong Americans, Taiwanese Americans Overseas Chinese |
| Chinese American | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional Chinese | 華裔美國人 | ||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 华裔美国人 | ||||||||||
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| Alternative Chinese name | |||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 美籍華人 | ||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 美籍华人 | ||||||||||
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This article contains Chinese text. Without the correct software, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Chinese characters. |
Chinese Americans are Americans of Chinese descent. Chinese Americans constitute one group of Overseas Chinese and also a subgroup of East Asian American.
The first Chinese immigrants arrived in 1820 according to U.S. government records. Fewer than 1,000 are known to have arrived before the 1848 California Gold Rush which drew the first significant number of laborers from China who performed menial work for the gold prospectors.
Chinese people were some of the early immigrants to live in the U.S., but then were banned from emigrating between 1885 and 1943 - when the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed. Immigration of Chinese was heavily restricted until 1965.
Contents
History
Chinese immigration to the United States has come in great numbers. Similar to other American immigration experiences, Chinese immigration has resulted in both hardship and success.
Citizenship
Legally all ethnic Chinese born in the United States are American citizens as a result of the Fourteenth Amendment and the 1898 United States v. Wong Kim Ark Supreme Court decision. Upon naturalization, immigrants are must take an oath of loyalty to the United States but are not required to formally renounce their former citizenship. The People's Republic of China does not recognize dual citizenship and considers naturalization of an person as an American citizen to implying a renunciation of PRC citizenship.
Major contributions
- Building Western half of the Transcontinental railroad
- Building levees in the Sacramento River Delta
- Developing and cultivating much of the Western US farmland
- Chinese food (see American Chinese cuisine)
- Recent technological developments (especially in the Bay Area)
The Chinese who immigrated to America in the earlier decades were mainly from the area of Guangdong (Canton) and later Hong Kong. However, recently, more Chinese from mainland began to arrive to perform skilled jobs. Most of these Chinese Americans hold high educational degrees and value education.
Language
Chinese, mostly of the Cantonese variety, is the third most-spoken language spoken in the United States, almost completely spoken within Chinese American populations and by immigrants or the descendants of immigrants, especially in California. Over 2 million Americans speak some variety of Chinese.
Although Chinese Americans grow up learning English, some teach their children Chinese for a variety of reasons such as of pride in their cultural ancestry.
Notable Chinese Americans
- See List of Chinese Americans.
Images for kids
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Chinese-American miners in the Colorado School of Mines' Edgar Experimental Mine near Idaho Springs, Colorado, c. 1920
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Percentage of Chinese population in the United States, 2000
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New York City is home to the largest Chinese American population of any city proper, over 600,000 as of 2017. Multiple large Chinatowns in Manhattan, Brooklyn (above), and Queens are thriving as traditionally urban enclaves, as large-scale Chinese immigration continues into New York, with the largest metropolitan Chinese population outside Asia, comprising an estimated 893,697 uniracial individuals as of 2017.
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San Francisco is home to the second largest Chinese community in the United States in number and the largest in percentage.
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Technology conglomerates such as eBay located within technology centers across the United States, including California's Silicon Valley, are attractive employers for Chinese Americans and foreign-born Chinese entrepreneurs.
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I.M. Pei, architect behind the pyramid of the Louvre, which is its main attraction; also designed the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame museum
See also
In Spanish: Sinoestadounidense para niños
