Editor's note: This article is taken from a chapter of the book Contemporary Chinese America: Immigration, Ethnicity, and Community Transformation written by Professor Min Zhou. We thank her for giving us the permission to publish it on www.ChinaUSFriendship.com.

The majority of the Chinese American population is spreading out in outer areas or suburbs in traditional gateway cities as well as in new urban centers of Asian settlement across the country. Small suburban cities in Los Angeles and the Bay Area have also seen extraordinarily high proportions of the Chinese Americans in the general population. As shown in Table 2.3, there are 11 cities (with at least 10,000 people) in the United States in which Chinese Americans share over 20 percent of the city’s population, all but two of these cities are in the sprawling suburbs of Los Angeles.  All cities, except for San Francisco, shown in Table 2.3 are suburban cities that have emerged as visible middle class immigrant ethnoburbs only after 1980.19  However, recent residential movements of affluent Chinese Americans into white middle class suburban communities have tipped the balance of power, raising nativist anxiety of ethnic “invasion” and anti-immigrant sentiment.20

Table 2.3: Cities* with the Highest Proportions of Chinese Americans, 2000

State	City	N of Chinese Americans in the City	Share of Total Population in the City
California	Monterey Park	26,582	44.6%
California	Arcadia	19,676	37.1%
California	San Gabriel	14,581	36.6%
California	Alhambra	31,099	36.2%
California	Rosemead	17,441	32.6%
California	Rowland Heights	15,740	32.4%
California	Temple City	10,269	30.8%
California	Hacienda Heights	13,551	25.5%
California	Cupertino	12,777	25.3%
California	San Francisco	160,947	20.7%
California	Diamond Bar	11,396	20.2%

Source: U.S. Census of the Population, 2000.

* Cities with populations over 10,000.

Trajectories of social mobility among Chinese Americans also vary from those of the past due to tremendous diversity in socioeconomic backgrounds. Three predominant trajectories are noteworthy. The first one is the familiar time-honored path of starting at the bottom and moving up through hard work. This route is particularly relevant to those with limited education and English language ability, marketable job skills, and familiarity with the mainstream labor market. However, in post-industrial era in which the economy is globalized and restructured in such a way that most of the middle rungs of the mobility ladder are missing, low-skilled workers starting at the bottom of the economy often find themselves trapped at the bottom with little chance of upward mobility even when they work hard. For a majority of the low-skilled immigrants or those with insufficient English proficient and transferable education, they generally considered their initial downward mobility or lack of mobility as a necessary first step in their quest of the American Dream or as a collective strategy in paving the way for their children to do better.21

The second trajectory is the incorporation into professional occupations in the mainstream economy through extraordinary educational achievement. This is evident as more than a third of contemporary immigrants have attained college education and advanced professional training either in the homelands or in the United States.  Those who are equipped with U.S. college degrees or profession credentials generally face fewer labor market barriers, especially in science and engineering fields, than those who have completed their education and training abroad.22  It is worth noting that the influx of highly educated and highly skilled immigrants from mainland China into the United States is a direct result of the June-4^th Tiananmen incident in 1989, which was considered a pro-democracy student movement. The U.S. government passed legislation to grant permanent residency status to Chinese students, visiting scholars, and other visitors who were in the country during that time.  In the United States, for example, more than 60,000 Chinese on non-immigrant visas, most of whom on J-1 (for official exchange visitors) or F-1 (for students) visas, were granted permanent residency, or the so-called June-4^th Green Cards.23  This influx has not only led to a more diverse immigration from the mainland in terms of places of origin and a new trend of transnational movement between the United States and China, in which immigrants return to their homeland to seek better economic opportunities, but also has profound implications for the development of ethnoburbs and suburban ethnic economies.  It is also evident in recent years as Chinese American youths are enrolled in colleges and graduate with bachelor and advanced graduate degrees in disproportionate numbers. While many college graduates may have an easier time gaining labor market entry, they often encounter a greater probability of being blocked by a glass ceiling as they move up into managerial and executive positions. 

The third trajectory is ethnic entrepreneurship. Since the 1970s, unprecedented Chinese immigration, accompanied by drastic economic marketization in China and rapid economic growth in Asia, has set off a tremendous influx of human capital and financial capital, unveiling a new stage of economic developments in the Chinese American community as well as in the mainstream American economy. From 1977 to 1987, the U.S. Census reported that the number of Chinese-owned firms grew by 286 percent, compared to 238 percent for Asian-owned firms, 93 percent for black-owned firms, and 93 percent for Hispanic-owned firms.24  From 1987 to 1997, the number of Chinese-owned businesses continued to grow at a rate of 180 percent (from less than 90,000 to 252,577). As of 1997, there was approximately one ethnic firm for every 9 Chinese and for every 11 Asians, but only one ethnic firm for every 42 blacks and one for every 29 Hispanics.  Chinese-American owned business enterprises made up nine percent of the total minority-owned business enterprises nation-wide (and more than half of all Asian-owned businesses), but 19 percent of the total gross receipts.25  Ethnic entrepreneurship creates numerous employment opportunities for both entrepreneurs and coethnic workers.26  However, problems also arise that leave some workers behind in their pursuit of upward social mobility, such as labor rights abuse and over-concentration of jobs that entail low wages, poor working conditions, few fringe benefits, and lack of mobility prospects.27

The Salience of Ethnicity and the Paradox of Assimilation

Contemporary Chinese immigration has heightened the salience of ethnicity as the community continues to be dominated by first-generation immigrants. It has also created new challenges for assimilation. In the past, Chinese immigrants were concentrated in ethnic enclaves and had to rely on ethnic organizations and ethnic social networks for their daily survival because of pervasive racism, discrimination, and exclusion in the larger society and ethnic members’ own lack of English language proficiency, marketable or transferable skills, and information about their new homeland. But these immigrants, like their European counterparts, were expected to assimilate into mainstream American society as they achieved socioeconomic mobility. 

Classical assimilation theories posit that the ethnic community and its ethnic institutions are initially instrumental in reorganizing immigrants’ economic and social lives and in alleviating social problems arising from migration and ghetto living. In the long run, however, ethnic communities either dissolve, fading into merely symbolic significance, as there are no newer group members to support them or no ethnic institutional roadblocks to inhibit assimilation.  When an ethnic community reaches its institutional completeness—a situation in which its formal institutions sufficiently satisfy all the needs required by its members, it is said to create disincentives for group members to learn English and American ways, decrease their opportunities to make contact with out-group members and with mainstream institutions, and ultimately trap them in permanent isolation.28

In the case of Chinese Americans, we have witnessed trends of upward social mobility that is predictable by classical assimilation theories. For example, second or later generations are unlikely to live in ethnic enclaves or get involved in immigrant organizations.29  Even many of today’s first-generation immigrants, especially those educated, highly-skilled, and middle-class, are bypassing their ethnic enclaves to assimilate residentially in suburban middle-class white communities. Meanwhile, however, we have also witnessed trends of ethnic revival. On the one hand, the growing presence and power of the first generation reinforce the sense of ethnicity. Many immigrants from Mainland China, Hong Kong, or Taiwan have never thought of themselves in ethnic terms until they arrive in the United States, because they were members of the majority group in their homelands. So they have become Chinese as they strive to become American. On the other hand, many new immigrants, who have acculturated into the American ways and have residentially assimilated into white middle-class suburbs, as well as members of the second or higher generations, are now returning to their own ethnic community to organize among their coethnics, culturally, socially, and politically, including suburban Chinese schools, Chinese churches, various alumni and professional associations, and ethnically based civil rights organizations, such as the Organization for Chinese Americans and the Committee of 100. These trends point to a paradoxical outcome of immigrant adaptation, implying that becoming American while maintaining the Chinese ethnicity is not just a possibility but also an increasingly preferred choice by Chinese Americans.30 

It should be noted that immigration, Chinese exclusion, and structural constraints created opportunities for ethnic organizing, prompted the revalorization of the symbols of a common ethnicity, and consolidated a unified, though internally conflictual and fractional, ethnic community in the past. At present the Chinese American community has become more diverse but less geographically bounded and less cohesive. Ethnic solidarity no longer necessarily inheres in the moral convictions of individuals or in the traditional value orientations of the group. In my view, the very facts that Chinese immigrants are allowed to assimilate and that they then return to their own ethnic community indicate that a fixed notion of the ethnic community as an isolated entity no longer applies. Community transformation has been prompted by two internal forces: one from the immigrants, especially those lacking English language proficiency, job skills, and employment networks to the mainstream economy; the other from the highly assimilated coethnics. New immigrants are primarily concerned with three urgent issues of settlement—employment, homeownership, and children’s education. In many cases, an immigrant would consider himself (or herself) successful if he runs his own business or becomes a laoban (boss), if he lives his own home (even if he has to cram in the basement and rent the rest of the home out), and/or if he sends his child to an Ivy League college. The ethnic community and ethnic organizations thus must respond to and address these issues of immediate concern. In contrast, the more established and assimilated immigrants, including the members of the second or higher generation, tend to be morally committed to community work and are primarily concerned with social justice issues by involving in new ethnic or panethnic organizations or in electoral politics. For example, the progressive and assimilated coethnics run new social services and other ethnic organizations in Chinatowns and put pressure on old ethnic organizations to adapt to changes. The injection of new blood, then not only replenishes the ethnic community’s organizational basis but also changes its mission from survival assistance to socioeconomic incorporation. 

Therefore, we should start to look at the Chinese American community of the 21^st century as integral to, rather than separate from, the mainstream society, and view Chinese cultural heritage, despite its distinct internal dynamics, as essentially contributing to, rather than competing with, the mainstream culture. The development in the Chinese American community provides some useful insight for the understanding of the paradox of ethnicization and assimilation. Is the ethnic community inhibiting, or contributing to, the assimilation of Chinese immigrants into American life? To the extent that they feel comfortable leading their own ethnic lives in America, the immigrants may be well adjusted. However, to the extent that their ethnic lives, intentionally or unintentionally, hinder opportunities for interethnic or interracial interactions at the personal and group level, the immigrants may be socially isolated. One of the main constraints on the ethnic community is its group exclusion. We have seen signs that Chinese immigrants are not mixing well with U.S. born non-coethnics in ethnic enclaves or ethnoburbs. This lack of primary-level or intimate interpersonal relationships may render Chinese immigrants and their children vulnerable to negative stereotyping and racial discrimination. For example, in middle-class Chinese immigrant communities in Monterey Park, California and Flushing, New York, non-Chinese residents feel they are being pushed out of their own backyards and that they are being unAmericanized by the many middle-class Chinese immigrants with higher-than-average levels of education and household incomes, who move directly into the suburbs upon arrival.31  While Chinese immigrants are perceived as foreign “invaders,” U.S. born Americans of Chinese or Asian ancestry are also stereotyped as foreigners – receiving praises for speaking “good” English when English is their first language or being told to go back to their country when the United States is their native country. This perception of Chinese Americans, and all other Asian Americans, as forever foreigners is deep-seated in the American psychic.32  Oftentimes, Asian Americans are perennially caught in situations where they feel compelled to prove their loyalty and patriotism, despite the tremendous inroads into American society they have made, largely on the strength of their own ethnic communities. Therefore, ethnic communities need to find innovative ways to collectively counter societal stereotypes and foster greater interethnic or interracial understanding and inclusion.

Conclusion

The Chinese American community in the United States has gone through tremendous changes since Chinese immigration began in the U.S. in the late 1840s. The current demographic trends mirror the linguistic, cultural, and socioeconomic diversity of the Chinese American community and its multi-faceted life in the United States. These trends suggest that the community is being transformed from a predominantly immigrant community to a native ethnic community in the 21^st century. While issues and challenges directly relevant to immigration and immigrant settlement continue to occupy a central place in community affairs, new issues and challenges concerning citizenship, civil rights, interethnic/interracial coalition, and political incorporation have acquired a high degree of urgency. The future of Chinese Americans, foreign born and U.S. born alike, is intrinsically linked to the diversity of immigration and to the current social stratification system into which today's immigrants and their children are supposedly assimilating. How to negotiate the culture of diversity and to redefine oneself in the new racial/ethnic stratification system is not only imperative but also inevitable.

Notes

19 Ethnoburb is a term first proposed by the Chinese American geographer Wei Li (1997) to refer to a suburban community with a significant concentration of a particular ethnic group in residence and business ownership.  Ethnoburbs are characteristics of the hybridity of inner-city ethnic enclaves and middle-class suburbs.

20 Horton, The Politics of Diversity; Saito, Race and Politics; see also Chapters 3 & 4 in this volume.

21 Zhou, Chinatown.

22 Tsai, “Contextualizing Immigrants’ Lived Experience.”

23 Zhou, “Contemporary Immigration and the Dynamics of Race and Ethnicity;” Zhou and Lin, “A Study on Ethnic Capital and the Transformation of Chinese Migrant Communities in the United States.”

24 U.S. Census Bureau, Survey of Minority‑Owned Business Enterprises, 1987; U.S. Census Bureau, Survey of Minority‑Owned Business Enterprises, 1992.

25 U.S. Census Bureau, Survey of Minority‑Owned Business Enterprises, 1997.

26 Zhou, Chinatown; see also Chapters 6 & 8 in this volume.

27 Kwong, The New Chinatown; Kwong, Chinatown, N.Y.; Lee, “Jing Fong;” Loo, Chinatown; Louie, Sweatshop Warriors; Shah, Contagious Divide; Trauner, “The Chinese as Medical Scapegoats in San Francisco, 1870-1906.”

28 Breton, “Institutional Completeness of Ethnic Communities and the Personal Relations of Immigrants.” Breton developed the concept of institutional completeness for his study of immigrant adaptation in Montreal Canada in the early 1960s. He defined institutional completeness in terms of complex neighborhood-based formal institutions that sufficiently satisfied all the needs required by members, and measured the degree of social organization in an ethnic community on a continuum. At one extreme, the community consisted of essentially an informal network of interpersonal relations, such as kinship, friendship, or companionship groups and cliques, without formal organization. Towards the other extreme, the community consisted of both informal and formal organizations ranging from welfare and mutual aid societies, to commercial, religious, educational, political, professional, recreational organizations, and ethnic media (radio or television stations and newspapers). He found that the presence of a wide range of formal institutions in an ethnic community had a powerful effect on keeping the social relations of the immigrants within its boundaries and minimizing out-group contacts, thus inhibiting assimilation.

29  Kasinitz et al., Inheriting the City. 

30 See Chapter 12 in this volume for a more detailed discussion.

31 See Chapters 3 & 4 in this volume.

32 See Chapter 12 in this volume.