Historical Lens of The Novel

China Town, Brooklyn in 1890

Relations between the U.S. and China were strained by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1881, which halted most emigration from China. A Republican-led Congress had passed the bill, under heavy pressure from the party's West-Coast wing and from Democrats around the country, who argued that Chinese laborers undercut the wages of white men. The Exclusion Act allowed a few Chinese "merchants" to emigrate under special circumstances, and thus the issue did not completely go away. Labor advocates accused business leaders of seeking relaxations of the law, in order to recruit cheap labor for railroad construction and industry.

Critics blamed recent immigrants for causing crime, being "un-American" in their language, religion, and family lives, and for concentrating in cities where their votes were controlled by machines--a circumstance unavoidable for many immigrants who faced residential segregation and dire poverty. In the mainstream press, socialism, communism, and anarchism were widely depicted as "alien" political beliefs brought over from foreign soil. Labor organizers argued that large influxes of new workers undermined wages; indeed,industrialists and railroad magnates (such as Collis Huntington and Jay Gould) sought to import workers to de-stabilize unions and provide a large labor pool. Since business leaders tended to vote and contribute to the Republican party, Democrats tended to be more bitterly anti-immigration. The need to "Americanize" new arrivals became a goal for reformers in both parties after 1900.

Edwards, Rebecca. "New Immigrants." Immigrations. Vassar College, 4 Oct 1896. Web. 8 Apr 2013.

Chinese Immigrants in 2010

Brooklyn Surpasses Manhattan’s Chinatown as an Asian Hub

The fact that during the past 10 years the population of those New Yorkers has increased by 30 percent really isn’t news.

What is news, however, is that the Asian population of Brooklyn’s traditional Chinatown has decreased by 15 percent. At the same time, Chinatowns in Brooklyn and Queens have been booming.According to the report, the Chinese-American population of Sunset Park East, or the area around Eighth Avenue, grew from 19,993 in 2000 to 34,210 in 2010, increasing by 71 percent. More and more Brooklyn residents are familiar with the area’s yearly Chinese New Year Parade, with its Lion and Dragon dances and its martial arts demonstrations. The Brooklyn Chinese-American Association, which started with one small office on Eighth Avenue in the late 1980s, now sponsors several senior centers, after-school programs, ESL classes and social services at multiple locations.

Chinese communities have also sprung up, as we’ve mentioned, in Homecrest, especially around Avenue U, and in Bensonhurst. These communities spread along the subway lines, continuing a longstanding pattern among immigrants.