America encourages Asian immigration.

matashowski

So this is directed mostly at people with a better knowledge of East Asian history than myself (better than average, but bullet points. I can't see the web of people and events influencing one another). I've been curious for a long time what the effect of the United States, for whatever reason, encouraging immigration for East Asia, specifically China, Japan, and perhaps the Philippians. Concerning the POD, lets say some capitalist convinces the government that the best way to dominate the old world is by having the largest population possible (Racism is lessened by an influential writer, or something.) I'm envisioning an America where the West coast is composed primarily of decedents of Chinese/Japanese immigrants, perhaps with Anglophone and Hispanic pockets analogous to OTL's Chinatowns.

Now my real question is, what becomes of the destinies of Asia with this "pressure valve." In OTL, if you were European and facing something horrible, you had at least the option of crossing the ocean seeking a better life. Asia had no such option, and an incredible amount of blood was shed. Would having this "escape route" dramatically change political movements in the native countries?
 
Tripledot

Tripledot

Wouldn't this cause a period of racism against Asians, followed by segregation of Asians into ghettos? Couldn't this potentially change the Chinese from being a "model minority" into yet another impoverished underclass?
 

TxCoatl1970

You'd have to butterfly the Chinese Exclusion Acts etc in the 1880's which is a pre-1900 POD.
Finding some way for the Chinese and other immigrants to make common cause so nobody, Chinese or white or black or whomever gets exploited would do wonders for American labor movements.
 

Morty Vicar

Banned
Sorry this is a pre-1900 POD, but if you were open to an earlier tack I was thinking vaguely about a 'transpacific slave trade'. I can't think of any way to make it feasible though, mainly because of the distances and racial preconceptions of the time.

In a later era you could get a huge number of refugees from Taiwan after the Chinese Civil war, say the PR gets ready to invade them and the US sends hundreds of ships on a rescue mission. Add this to a sizeable Korean and Vietnamese influx after OTL Korea and Vietnam wars, and migrants from the Phillipines and Japan etc.
 

tenthring

Banned
Tripledot said:
Wouldn't this cause a period of racism against Asians, followed by segregation of Asians into ghettos? Couldn't this potentially change the Chinese from being a "model minority" into yet another impoverished underclass?
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Chinese don't end up underclass anywhere they go. They are a model minority because of who they are as a people.

Most immigrants, but NE Asians especially, really don't like to emigrate and live in foreign cultures. It seems it only becomes a mass phenomenon when there are huge material gains from emigration.
 

fscott

TxCoatl1970 said:
You'd have to butterfly the Chinese Exclusion Acts etc in the 1880's which is a pre-1900 POD.
Finding some way for the Chinese and other immigrants to make common cause so nobody, Chinese or white or black or whomever gets exploited would do wonders for American labor movements.
Click to expand...

The US let a lot of Asian, mostly Chinese, in while building the Transcontinental Railroad. They could even get mail order brides. That proably is why Chinese Exclusion Acts were passed.
 

mlp

tenthring said:
Chinese don't end up underclass anywhere they go. They are a model minority because of who they are as a people.

Most immigrants, but NE Asians especially, really don't like to emigrate and live in foreign cultures. It seems it only becomes a mass phenomenon when there are huge material gains from emigration.
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Talking specifically about South Koreans here.
Massive growth in immigration occurred during the late 1970s and 1980s because of harsh dictatorships. As most immigrants were anti-governmental intellects, they usually had college degrees. They were, therefore, forced to live in foreign cultures.
Domestic issues probably serve a much stronger reason than US immigration laws to go to the US.
 
Hrvatskiwi

Hrvatskiwi

I think the issue is that that claim would be opposed by people that would (wrongly) see the immigrants as parasites. Unless they were ghettoised and so-on (in which case they would not be a model minority and white Americans would bitch about them anyway), then they will be sending lots of money home, which will be interpreted as sucking the money out of the USA.
 

CthulhuFhtagn

Banned
Encouraging East Asian immigration isn't really necessary. All the US has to do is not block it through things like the Chinese Exclusion Act and the "gentleman's agreement" with Japan.
 

Lateknight

Banned
tenthring said:
Chinese don't end up underclass anywhere they go. They are a model minority because of who they are as a people.

Most immigrants, but NE Asians especially, really don't like to emigrate and live in foreign cultures. It seems it only becomes a mass phenomenon when there are huge material gains from emigration.
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I am a skeptical of your claim of Chinese superiority I wonder if can back it up at all.
 

LeX

Alamo said:
In most Asian nations where Chinese exist as a minority (Most notably the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand), they have done quite well both economically and educationally, often well above the national average.
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That's just because of which Chinese have emigrated. Usually they have been the educated and business-oriented types, rather than laborers and farmers. If millions of Chinese from all walks of life came to the US, there'd be a backlash against them just as there is now against Mexicans. It probably isn't impossible to make Asian immigration more accepted, but I have no idea how.
 
Alamo

Alamo

LeX said:
That's just because of which Chinese have emigrated. Usually they have been the educated and business-oriented types, rather than laborers and farmers. If millions of Chinese from all walks of life came to the US, there'd be a backlash against them just as there is now against Mexicans. It probably isn't impossible to make Asian immigration more accepted, but I have no idea how.
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Actually, many of the Chinese who emigrated to south-east Asian nations in the 18th and 19th centuries came from peasant backgrounds, and were poor and often illiterate. The same can be said of most Chinese migrants who came to America OTL. In both cases, they still thrived despite local bigotry, and surpassed many of their neighbors in both wealth and education.
 
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Tripledot

Tripledot

Alamo said:
Actually, many of the Chinese who emigrated to south-east Asian nations in the 18th and 19th centuries came from peasant backgrounds, and were poor and often illiterate. The same can be said of most Chinese migrants who came to America OTL. In both cases, they still thrived despite local bigotry, and surpassed many of their neighbors in both wealth and education.
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This could be because they were encouraged to work together more, giving each other financial assistance when needed, etc. Would Chinese solidarity hold up if more migrants flooded into the US, or would criminal syndicates take hold and become the main "protectors" of the people (like with the Irish, Italians, and to an extent Mexicans)?
 

Alstein

I think such a thing might butterfly away Pearl Harbor, especially if the encouragement was pro-Japanese instead of just pro-Asian.

Could that be possible, could Japan find a way to make Japanese preferable to Chinese? Bonus points if you can make Japanese stuff fashionable in the US pre-1900.
 
Tripledot

Tripledot

Alstein said:
I think such a thing might butterfly away Pearl Harbor, especially if the encouragement was pro-Japanese instead of just pro-Asian.

Could that be possible, could Japan find a way to make Japanese preferable to Chinese? Bonus points if you can make Japanese stuff fashionable in the US pre-1900.
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Uh, plenty of Japanese people lived in Hawaii already. A pretty sizable proportion, in fact.
 

LeX

Alamo said:
Actually, many of the Chinese who emigrated to south-east Asian nations in the 18th and 19th centuries came from peasant backgrounds, and were poor and often illiterate. The same can be said of most Chinese migrants who came to America OTL. In both cases, they still thrived despite local bigotry, and surpassed many of their neighbors in both wealth and education.
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The Chinese migrants who came to America prior to WW2 faced all sorts of limitations. They were seen in the same "ooh cheap labor stealing our jobs" light that Mexicans are today. After WW2 (and especially in the 80s forward with the opening of the PRC) my impression is that many people who were educated or had some money emigrated, and so became the origin of the "model minority" notion that exists today. I doubt that people in Indonesia consider the Chinese to be a model minority, especially since they killed thousands of them in the Cold War.
 

Namayan

With regards to Philippines, there is no reason for Filipinos to migrate until 1960s.

In OTL 1900-1946, Philippines was an American colony. During the 1950s, Philippines was prosperous, had double digit economic growth and well managed.

1960s was a decade of mediocre growth and half of that decade rule by Marcos, which ruled until 1986.

Unless you PoD earlier years where America mismanages Philippines as their colony or Philippines mismanages the 1950s, I dont see any earlier migration.
 

Legofan4

Namayan said:
With regards to Philippines, there is no reason for Filipinos to migrate until 1960s.

In OTL 1900-1946, Philippines was an American colony. During the 1950s, Philippines was prosperous, had double digit economic growth and well managed.

1960s was a decade of mediocre growth and half of that decade rule by Marcos, which ruled until 1986.

Unless you PoD earlier years where America mismanages Philippines as their colony or Philippines mismanages the 1950s, I dont see any earlier migration.
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Yea my grandparents didnt immigrate to America until the 70s. But once they arrive here my father and his brothers and sisters became almost totally Americanized. He never speaks anything but English and the only kind of remnent of any heritage is food and that is an extremely rare event because my father's family lives on the other side of the country.
 
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