The Asian American Culture Of America - 1907 Words

The culture that I chose to present is the Asian American culture. It is one of the fastest formed ethnic groups that had their population grow 63% from 1990 to 2000 (Nguyen, 1). The history of the first Asian immigrants started around the gold rush in California. Many Asian immigrants wanted to pursue fortunes in America because of economic hardships in China. Many Chinese started moving to the United States in hopes to get some of the gold in California. Many Chinese were also contracted to work on the railroads in the United States where they worked in very poor conditions for little money and recognition for their hard work. The Chinese even demanded high wages for their work in these poor conditions, but ultimately they were shot†¦show more content†¦(Le, 1) The term Asian American refers to anyone that is living in the United States with a background or heritage with peoples of far east Asia, Southeast Asia and India (Chen, 2). In this culture, there are many different types of ethnicities inside the race of Asian Americans. This group includes Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Taiwanese, Vietnamese, Filipino, Cambodian, and Indians that are a part of the continent of Asia. The language of Asian Americans can differ from the type of background that they grew up in. They can chose to adopt the English language in order to better communicate with their surroundings. Asian Americans do not have a primary location in the United States. When the gold rush took place in California, many Asian Americans set up china towns in and around that state. The highest populated area of Asian Americans is in California with over 4.2 million inhabitants. They are a very diverse culture and many have different reasons for moving to the United States from searching for a better life to escaping war times. Some Asian Americans that immigrated to the United States need to adopt the norms that society has that is called acculturation. (Zhang, 752) One characteristic of the culture is that in Asian cultures, most people share a high power distance between one another. This means that there is a sensitivity when speaking with people in a higher position in relation to one another. Children are taught to