'The Rice Room - A Conflict of Generations'

'The consanguinity among Americans and Chinese immigrants in atomic number 20 is complex, to say the least. Chinese immigrants helped build frequently of the infrastructure and introduced intensifier farming to the embayment Area in the 1800s, but, despite these contributions, keep to be viewed as unwanted laborers by the Americans. By the 1870s unemployment judge were rising in America, and the Chinese immigrants pronto became the scapegoat for American duress. There was a rise in Anti-Chinese (anti-coolie) movements that swept crossways California (24). These movements chair to the closure of galore(postnominal) Chinese settlements and prompted relation post to pass the 1882 Chinese Exclusion bite and the 1924 Immigration Act. These congressional decisions only perpetuated the news report of racism and doubt felt amongst the Americans and Chinese in California, which would continue intimately into the 20th century. In his novel The sift Room, Ben Fong-Torres tra ces his complex cross-cultural hereditary pattern as a instant generation Chinese American during the mid(prenominal) 1900s; torn between the alluring American lifestyle and the traditional cultural heritage his immigrant parents struggled to instill in him.\n same(p) around immigrants, Bens parents came to America in search of the American Dream. Referred to California as the Golden Mountains , the linked States offered an opportunity to yield more gold and provide for family back in China. Ben notes that his sustain was encouraged by his family to seek a greater muckle and then proceeds to fetch them  (11). His vex did as he was told, and came to America via the Philippines. Like most Chinese immigrants in the 1920s, Bens capture entered the country illegally. Because thither were strict limits on the number of Chinese immigrants allowed into America, Bens father added Torres to his promise to convince immigration officials that he was of Filipino descent. Bens mo ther alike entered the country illegally, and both lived in cultism of being disc... '