The rise of China and its impact on the Chinese in the San Francisco Bay Area

The San Francisco Bay Area has one of the largest Chinese communities in the USA and it has had frequent contacts with China throughout the past 140 years. The rise of China has had ripple effects on the Chinese community in San Francisco. The chapter will examine how the rise of China has had impacts on Chinese community organizations, ethnic identity, immigration movements and the interaction patterns between the Chinese community and the larger society in the San Francisco Bay Area. Contrary to popular perception, the Chinese community in the San Francisco Bay Area has not become more “sinicised” or developed more allegiance to the People’s Republic of China as a result of the emergence of a strong China. Paradoxically, as a whole they have become more Americanized, with more participation in US society and more commitment to America. This chapter examines how the rise of China has had impacts on Chinese community organizations, ethnic identity, immigration movements and the interaction patterns between the Chinese community and the larger society in the San Francisco Bay Area. It also examines how the rise of China has played an important role in achieving changes in the rise of sharp heterogeneity in terms of class and sub ethnic differences, the formation and use of a variety of new ethnic identities. Taiwan and the People's Republic of China may involve the local Chinese to participate in their disputes or disagreements. In addition to using the Chinese-American identity to organize themselves, the Bay Area Chinese coalesce with other Asians to form Asian-American groups for political action and other goal-seeking activities. The Chinese started to come to the USA in the early nineteenth century, originally to work in the gold mines, to labor on the railroads and to clear the land for agriculture in California.