Sample Paper: Asian Studies

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Title: Interview paper

Introduction

This narrative essay is based on an interview with John Hu, a Taiwanese who immigrated in the US in 1965 when he was aged 14. Incidentally, this is also the year when a new immigration law was put in place that removed all old quotas for all immigrants who were not of European origin. In this regard, the paper focuses on the specific theme of migration. It encompasses a reflection on various theories and concepts and an analysis of one immigration policy. These analyses are anchored on sociological data that is gathered through an interview with John Hu. Academic literature is used in the analysis of research relating to the issue of migration.

The immigration policy analyzed in this narrative essay is the 1965 Immigration Law and the way it transformed America, especially on issues of racism and future immigration trends by Asians. The immigration law heralded a drastic shift in the American immigration policy. An analysis is made on the way in which this transformation occurred. A reflection is presented with specific reference to John Hu’s circumstances as an Asian who immigrated into the US on the year this new immigration policy was introduced.

John Hu is a California-based medical doctor who immigrated into the US to join his father in 1965. His father had immigrated a few years earlier, in the 1950s, to pursue postgraduate studies in the California State University Berkeley. During that time it was much easier to immigrate into the US if one was going there to pursue further studies. For those who sought to immigrate for other reasons, it was very difficult to be granted permission by US authorities.

Being only 14 during the time of immigration, the interview did not know much about the whole immigration or even the culture of the destination country. John did not know about the difficulties of applying for immigration permission. He only knew that the conditions in the US were better to make his dad want them to emigrate from Taiwan. His father always thanks former President Kennedy for their contribution to put in place laws that enabled his family immigrate into the US.

Typical of a 14-year old, John Hu had many grand illusions about the US as a country where people ride on bicycles and cars instead of walking on their way to supermarkets and markets. John imagined switching from Chinese culture to an English culture. He and his brother did not know the English alphabet, let alone the English language. In Taiwan, students only start learning the English language upon joining middle school. John Hu and his elder brother learnt some English in middle school but upon immigrating, they had to enroll in English as a Second Language (ESL) classes. Their grades had fallen drastically as a result of not being able to express themselves well in English. At such times, cruelty from native kids was rife, especially for those like Hu looked like dummies on account of lack of English proficiency.

David Hu became naturalized as a US citizen in 1972, and he considers the transition period a very slow one. Today, his wife, children, and himself refer themselves as Americans, but he reiterates that the transition process has been slow, gradual one. Back in the Taiwanese village where Hu was born, the young lad had seen his father leave for the US soon after the mainland China was taken over by communist rule. His mother was born in Central Taiwan, and he met her future husband when he was teaching in her school.

In terms of competitiveness, the Taiwanese society values education, and children were ordinarily being encouraged focus on education, to the point of being provided with night tutors. This is how Hu started molding his passion for pursuing further education in the US. On his father’s side, there was an uncle who had achieved a similar feat. The uncle was highly regarded by relatives and family friends alike, and Hu wanted to be in a similar position. In short, Hu’s historical context, in many ways, is intertwined with that of his father, who also had a great passion for academic success, to the point where he immigrated to the US to pursue postgraduate studies instead of spending all his life teaching in high school. The thesis statement posited in this paper is that Asians have continued to suffer seclusion, restriction, and discrimination at the hands of US immigration authorities.

Analysis of sociological data: theories and concepts

In this section, the analysis of sociological data focuses on three core thematic areas: immigration, integration, and membership. Ordinarily, migration is a strenuous process that requires a high degree of endurance, determination, and the will to succeed in the entire process. As the Hu’s situation indicates, culture shock is one of the problems young immigrants face upon migrating into a new country. Previously, Hu was performing well in class but upon entering into the US, he started performing poorly. The culture shock problem was made worse by the situation of insufficient English language proficiency. This consumed most of his confidence, making him look like a dummy in class. He also had to revert to an introvert way of life, which he was not used to in Taiwan.

As Klusmeyer (2000) points out, when new members are being incorporated into host societies, the issue of cultural diversity and its effects on the immigrant population cannot be ignored. This is the reason why terms such as ‘integration’ and ‘assimilation’ are used. However, the problem of lack of clear specification on their meaning for purposes of public policy has been noted in many instances. According to Klusmeyer (2000), this lack of specificity becomes problematic for two main reasons. First, there is no clear definition of both terms. Secondly, relating to the first problem, the meaning attached to these terms may tend to look different when compared to the specific perspective of the host society on the one hand and that of the newcomers on the other.

The problem with the understanding of integration issues is clearly discernible upon an in-depth analysis of the situation of John Hu and his family at the time of their migration into the US. John Hu had to attend EFL classes, some of them at night, so as to improve his proficiency of the English language. Later on his life, after establishing himself in the medical profession he had to go out of his way sometimes to work as a translator. He was in essence playing his role, in his now-advantaged position, to help other Chinese immigrants who were pursuing the American dream.

From this perspective, it is easy to understand integration as a process that is one-sided, whereby newcomers have to adapt themselves to the norms and cultures of the host societies. This brings to the fore the thorny question of the need for equal opportunities to be provided to all members of the society regardless of their origin. In the case of Hu, it took him seven years to become a naturalized American citizen. In his own words, the assimilation process has been too gradual for his liking. Hu does not highlight any situation where he experienced policy makers putting in place criteria for determining the allocation of benefits, rights, and responsibilities on the basis of the extent to which they would either facilitate or hinder equal participation by diverse peoples.

From a theoretical perspective, Klusmeyer (2000) observes that although there is a renewed academic interest in issues of citizenship, there is a gaping absence of a comprehensive citizenship theory that is broadly acceptable across the academic circles. For this reason, it is rather difficult for advocates of minority groups’ rights to base their arguments in favor of a shorter duration before naturalization on a theoretical argument. For example, in the case of Hu’s wait for seven years before becoming a naturalized citizen, advocates would be quick to lament in the mainstream media about the lack of proper integration and assimilation mechanisms, yet they would have little to say if asked to address this issue from an academic perspective.

On the issue of conceptualizing a theory of immigration, Bashi (1997) notes that many assumptions have to be made. One of them is that only the persevering and the most hardworking immigrants will end up getting entry into the target country’s labor market and its social fabric at large. Another assumption is that those who are persistent will no doubt be rewarded with integration into the target community. These assumptions are present both among theorists and the public. Indeed, these assumptions have been touted as the foundation of the assimilation model of migration.

In a classical assimilation model, immigrants are assumed to arrive from a position of disadvantage, owing to the cultural distance between the home country and the host country. The classical model also leaves room for comparison. In the case of Asian and European immigrants, for instance, European immigrants are assumed to arrive from a perspective of greater advantage vis-à-vis their Asian counterparts owing to the former group’s cultural closeness to the US society. The form of thinking applied in this model makes a lot of sense if it was to be applied in the context of US immigration policy after 1965. The policy that various US administrations rolled out after 1965 failed to put into consideration that all immigrants did not arrive into the country with the same level of disadvantage and vulnerability. Whether by ignorance or by design, this serious omission has contributed to continued segregation of Asian minorities and exclusion of Asians from immigration opportunities in the US.

For some scholars, focus is on the formal dimension, where there is a judicial relationship between the state and the individual. For others, analyze the issue of citizenship from a participatory dimension so as to explore various emerging forms of social movements and political mobilization in modern societies. This is where the main misunderstanding occurs, particularly with regard to the way citizenship rights are accorded to immigrants.

The interview with John Hu also put into focus the various ‘pull’ and ‘push’ factors influencing migration. Pull factors are those benefits that are viewed to exist in the destination country, in the case the US. A consideration of these opportunities acts as a driving force for people to search for opportunities that can facilitate their travel into the destination countries. Push factors, on the other hand, are undesirable factors present in one’s country of origin. These factors may include poverty, competition for educational resources, calamities, persecution, war, and famine. One of the pull factors is knowledge of close relatives who had immigrated into the US, that is, his father and the uncle from the father’s side. These immigrants were revered at home in Taiwan thereby providing motivation for your people like Hu to aspire to follow suit. Another pull factor is the conventional way in which Taiwanese people associate the US with opportunity.  There was an understanding that the opportunities that were available in the US were by far better than those available in Taiwan, and they outweighed the challenges that one faced in efforts to land there.

One of the main push factors is the scantiness of economic, educational, and social opportunities in Taiwan. As Hu points out, Taiwan is a much more competitive society than the American society. To excel, people have to endeavor and emerge among the best in academics and in career. This is not to say that in the US one does not have to work hard to succeed; rather the point is that in Taiwan, there are high chances of one putting in very great efforts only to miss out on very limited opportunities. During Hu’s childhood, many Taiwanese people had learnt to associate the US with high chances of success in life. This perception was implanted in Hu through education, a case in point being the time when Hu learnt that two Chinese scientists had won prestigious, world-acclaimed awards for their scientific in the US.

During the interview with Hu, he noted that during his time and that of his father, the immigration climate for Asian would-be immigrants was much more favorable than the present time. In fact, he considers himself lucky to be in the US, where many opportunities abound. He added that the conviction that the US is a land of opportunities would make Taiwanese people take any chance that came their way to become US citizens. Indeed, this rings true, considering that Hu’s father immigrated into the country by a boat, in the most cumbersome journey of his life. No wonder he did not like the thought of making such a journey back to Taiwan just to see his family. As a result, he would wait for several years before visiting Taiwan, during which time he would be sending money home and communicating through letters.

The notion of ‘pull-push’ is has been numerously mentioned in literature. Klusmeyer (2000), for instance, talks of the ‘pull’ factors that were used to encourage Israelis in the Diaspora to return to the newly created state of Israel. The newcomers were assured of full citizenship in addition to many other socio-economic benefits designed to ease their ‘absorption’ into Israel.

 

Immigration policy analysis: The 1965 Immigration Law

The Immigration Act of 1965 was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965. According to the US administration, the aim of this act was to allow more people from the third countries to gain entry into the US. However, critics have argued that the act was the administration’s way of restricting Asian immigration and excluding Asians from consideration as US immigrants in the future. The act contained a separate provision for a quota system targeting mainly refugees. In this system, the maximum number of people of people allowed into the US per country was 20,000.

This bill was significant in that future immigrants would be welcomed on account of their professions or skills as opposed to their countries of origin. Hu points that after 1965, it was much more difficult for one to enter into the US on account of other reasons apart from studies. Perhaps this is because of the enactment of this immigration bill and the attendant immigration policy changes that came with it.

This act, in which there was a dramatic shift away from European countries, is blamed by some people for the current immigration mess that is being experienced in the US. They say that the law transformed the US from a low-level immigration country to a mass immigration country. The immigration-related laws that were passed after 1965 were typically civil-rights-era legislations, and the motivation to pass them was shared by presidents Kennedy and Johnson, who saw the quota system as chauvinism of archaic variety.

Implicitly and inferentially, the immigration policy of the US after 1965 contributed to leaving out of many immigrants from Asia. Hu’s observations during the interview attest to this. He says that in terms of social life, one of the things he is most unhappy about in America is the anti-immigration spirit that came with the passing of the immigration law of 1965. From this observation, it is implied that the immigration act, which became law in 1968, was an attempt by the US to exclude Asian immigrants. This anti-Asian bias, according to John Hu, has been going on for many years since 1965. For this reason, observes, Hu, many young Taiwanese people who would have come into the US and contributed a lot to its economy have been blocked from doing to and nothing much has come out of their lives in Taiwan.

Perhaps bearing on the changing American immigration policy is the transformation in Hu’s experiences relating to immigration issues, particularly during his stint as a translator. During this time, he experienced resistance from American policymakers whenever he appeared to encourage new immigrants to communicate with their relatives and to encourage them to come into the US. Hu construed this to mean that anti-Asian sentiments were a reality in the American society. He added that upon realizing this, he has had to live with this reality and make the most out of his circumstances.

Although the immigration law of 1965 was somehow followed by an increase in the number of Asians entering the US, restrictions still persisted and exclusion was rife. For a long time, the Chinese communities living in the US had a difficult time reconnecting with their loved one that they had had to abandon in their native countries in search for opportunity. Although Hu did not talk about any problems with immigrants that he knows, he kept emphasizing that he was lucky to have brought his wife and two sons to the US in one piece and to establish a home for them peacefully in spite of the difficulties.  It should be borne in mind that many people who had settled in the US by 1965 had families back in China. The men had left behind wives who had to remain back to tend the family estates. In other cases, the wives had remained behind by the power of the prevailing circumstances.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this narrative essay has analyzed the theme of migration using the sociological data obtained from an interview with John Hu, a California-based medical doctor who migrated to the US in 1965. This reflection was characterized by reflection on theories and concepts relating to immigration and related challenges. This analysis was followed by an assessment of the US immigration policy following the enactment of the Immigration Act of 1965. In this regard, this act is considered to be of particularly great significance since it marked a drastic shift in the approach of the United States regarding immigration policy. Upon comparing the experiences of John Hu and trends in US immigration policy after 1965, this essay concludes that Asians have continued to suffer seclusion, restriction, and discrimination at the hands of US immigration authorities.

 

References

Bashi, V. (1997) A Theory of Immigration and Racial Stratification, Journal of Black Studies, 27(5), 668-682.

Klusmeyer, D. (2000) From migrants to citizens: membership in a changing world, Washington, D.C: Brookings Institution Press.

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