America experienced a Golden Age of prosperity between the close of World War II and the early 1970s. Immigrants who were opposed began to trickle in as a superpower and hub for capitalist fighters for safety from communists. As the $200 billion in war bonds that gave the funding for industrialization matured, the G.I. Bill provided funding for the study of industrial works. (Broyles and Timothy 220). As the Gross Domestic Product increased, the social class of her people rose, with the majority moving into the middle class. With the strength of trade unions beginning to increase around the 1950s, the number of employment possibilities grew somewhat. (Murphey 130). Most of the migration into the country came from the low-income farm workers looking for better-paying jobs in city-states. On this essay, I will explore the American connection factors that contributed to the movement of Asians to United States of American in the postwar era.
It is worth noting that the rate of immigration of Asians to U.S. gave the country a new dimension in the migration history. During the 1950s, the proportion of Asian moving into the U.S. increased significantly while reduced in the Western Europe. As the European population cut in the U.S., the share of Asians increased. By around, the 1970s the majority of immigrants were Asian from the Middle East and Western hemispheres. The following factors were responsible for the massive movement.
Global economic climate policy. After the Great Depression had experienced in the 1930s, President Roosevelt resolved to implement favorable economic environment healthy for investment through the reserve bank suggestion. More importantly was the adoption of Economist Keynes policies of fiscal intervention to control prices of bonds and wages. According to Skidesky research, unemployment dropped by 4.8% in the Golden Age and 6.1% in the Washington consensus (Merali., et al. 1160). On the contrary, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea were small economies that would not be relied upon. They recorded the highest percentage of inequality in representation and job opportunities. Regarding Martin Wolf findings, the Golden Age marked, the 27 years of exceptional financial stability until 1971.
The enactment of “Indochina Migration and Refugees Act of 1975”. The Act allowed the United States government to confer assistance to individual immigrant and refugees in the country. Most of the Asians origins opted to retreat to the United States after the ill-fated war in the Southern East. To United Sates, the acceptance of the visitors came with responsibilities to fulfill. Therefore, the Congress decided to convene the sitting to allocate refuges care kitty of $455 million for the implementation of the act. Previously, American had promised protection to hundreds of thousands of Cambodians, Vietnamese and Laotians should they manage to fight the communists. The disappearance of the Americans would mean that they would pay fearful prices to the masters thus motivation to search for assistance from the State.
Statistically, the program to disperse the refugees to all the States within the country show more than 750,000 immigrants entered the country from Southern East. The Refugees Act subsequently underwent several amendments in the Congressional House to improve the situations of immigrants. Among them were the issues of income gaps, better and affordable education and the creation of wealth.
In June 1952, other immigrants acted received support from the legislators. The McCarran-Walter Immigration Nationality Act removed all the restrictions on citizenship and naturalization of foreigners to become Americans. It succeeded the prior laws allowing Filipinos and Chinese to attain citizenship through naturalization. It addressed the problems of gender inequality and expanded the excludability factors like languages that lifted mass detention. Nevertheless, it has the limitation of creating the quota system that barred the Asian-Pacific countries. The quota system only allowed a maximum of 2000 immigrants from each nation among nineteen (Nam 16).
The Green Revolution created the enormous increase in agricultural productivity and use of simple tools in farming. After the war, all synergies were directed towards making American Great Again after the destructive war and Great Depression (Xiang, et al.). The period of high productivity ran up to the 1970s represented with the automation of technologies like feedback controllers unlike before the war that more efforts were invested in the invention of superior fighting tools (Merali et al. 1156). The wholesalers benefited from the improved logistics systems such as newly built highways, modernized stores, and warehouse, automated and computerized material handling machines (Murphey 100). In addition, the important inventions like the introduction of chemical fertilizers, pesticides reduced losses on the agricultural products.
We cannot fail to recognize the contribution of international cooperation policies in stabilizing the political temperatures. The aftermath of World War II, the Axis and Western powers collectively vowed never to repeat the mistake that landed them into Great Depression. More elaborate plans to rebuild the nation of the West got credit for pressuring for a reconciliation of the post-war giants. The international agreement resolved to pump $12 billion towards rebuilding the countries (Broyles and Timothy 228). Indeed the Southern Asians predicted the viability of this international treaty hence moving to secure the future.
Empirically, the Americans were never interested in the Asians before the war. At the time the Americans got into a war with the Vietnamese, the presence of Southern Asians was as small as 335 heads in the 1950s with an increase of 1300 heads in 1960s. A refugee crisis rose when the Southern Asians countries that supported the United States during the war against the Europeans and Japan. Because of the participation in the Indochina and humanitarians concerns, the Americans accepted to admit them into their country and take care of them (Merali., et al. 1159). Surprisingly, Vietnam became the primary supplier of the immigrants before the United States finalized the diplomatic relations with Vietnam. The Southern Asians devised a family unification formula for the admission into the States.
Asian migration to North America boomed from the decolonization after World War II. The fear of recapture made some Netherlands separate from the former Indonesia, France detaching from Vietnam and many others. History, however, shows that the movement significantly reduced after the 1970s. Most of the immigrants moved to look for lucrative jobs from the Soviet Union, German and Czechoslovakia (Nam 19-21). Among the jobs occupied were; medical practitioners, domestic jobs, and manual workers in farms and squatters.
The deregulation of many movement curfews imposed during allowed the refugees the opportunity to sneak into the country through Mexico border. Some scholars claim that the development plans of U.S. were changed by the sudden death of President Roosevelt and inception of incompetent President Harry Truman (Xiang, et al.). Nonetheless, most of the economic control had been drafted immediately after the great Depression throughout the war economic period. The government shifted their focus from security issues to economic stabilizing (Nam 20). This is the time to implement the suggestions of Keynes to curb the negative interest returns on the bonds, tax cuts, and improved debt servicing tactics.
Ultimately, after the World War II, some population from Southern Asia moved to American to acquire education. Among the faculties that drove the enrollment to include military studies, business, computer science and medicine (Broyles and Timothy 225). As long as a student had settled in the United States, he/ she became the unification factor bringing standardization to the family. The notorious countries that topped the list of countries sending students to America are India since 1970 (Murphey 97). Most of the immigrants come with the motive of employment. According to recent research, Indians occupy 5.7 percent of the total immigrant's population followed by Pakistan (Merali. et al. 1158). Due to this hike, U.S. government was inclined to introduce a different quota to control their entry.
Conclusion
In conclusion, United States has been the best destination for all Southern Asian immigrants since the end of World War II. From the essay, we can deduce the core connections that mad them prefer America at the expense of other Western countries (Merali. et al. 1158). Among the connection, was the presence the enactment of various policies and laws that made government responsible for the Southern Asian war refugees? For instance, “The Indochina Immigrant and Refugees Act,” that eliminated all the barriers to refugees and expansion of quotas from these nations. The act as well allowed the acquisition of citizenship through naturalization. Lastly, the immense growth in the country’s agricultural activities and technology opened job opportunities to foreigners (Nam 16). Asian mainly searched for better living areas after rebellion the communist nations.
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