Author: Jacob Goffstein

What stood out to me the most from the article and film is how much of a role Asians played in the early development of America. I knew that China was considered to be a highly valuable country for trading goods. While I had known that the original objective of Christopher Columbus was to establish a trade route with China, I had no idea that the Spanish ended up establishing sea routes across the Pacific Ocean to Mexico via the Philippines. What stood out to me (although not very surprising) was how badly the Asian sailors were treated. As the author says in the excerpt, the Asian crewmembers only received half rations, and were sometimes never even given their wages. This and the fact that the journey across the Pacific was so rough that many Asian sailors employed for a two-way trip would just abandon ship once they reached Acapulco. I guess they didn’t necessarily plan on sticking around and starting a new life, but the journey was so bad that restarting their lives in Mexico seemed like the best option. Once they were there, they had the ability to develop their lives through a broad range of occupations, which I’m sure attracted even more immigrants to come. 

I think some things have changed in the immigration process, while some have remained the same. Many of the challenges involved in immigrating to a new place have shifted. For example, modern advancement of technology has enhanced travel conditions to no longer be the extremely dangerous and unbearable conditions described by Lee in the excerpt.  However, there are still many challenges involved in settling down in a new place with a completely different language and culture. Much of the motive has remained the same, as we often hear stories (dating from the present to several hundred years ago) about migrants coming to America for a better life, for a new hope. People strive for opportunity and freedom to do what they want.

First of all, I’d like to say that I think this was an excellent article by Bahadur. She points out a major flaw in our records of history – that usually only those who are in power or are wealthy are capable of creating written records of their experiences. Not surprisingly, groups of people who are subjected to unfair and agonizing lives, such as these women from South Asia, lacked the necessary tools to record their experiences. It seems like a common theme throughout history that those who are oppressed were incapable of expressing themselves, unable to make themselves heard. Bahadur suggests an interesting solution. She suggests that through speculating answers to many questions regarding self identity of ourselves and of our ancestors, we can attempt to form an image of the experiences that they have gone through. If I were to construct an archive of your own family history, the first place I would go to is my parents. An oral record can form a chain of information and experiences going through the generations. I can ask my parents about their parents, who may have known about their parents, so on and so forth. While a written record of history may not exist, there may be a hidden oral one preserved through the generations.

I watched the interview of Grant Din. He tells the story of his great-great-grandfather, Gong Gim Hik, who worked on the railroad. Despite all of Grants efforts, he has been unable to find any sort of written record of his great great grandfathers immigration and work. This is something that is very similar to the dilemna Bahadur discussed in her article. The only information he was able to obtain was from oral records. He talks about how Gong Gim Hik opened a local laundry business to make money and build a new life here in the United States. The whole recounting is really cool, and it definitely confirms what I had previously thought, that many people immigrated to the United States in search of a better life. What I would like to know is what kind of hardships these people faced on a day-to-day basis. I can imagine it is fairly difficult moving to a country where people speak a different language and have a much different culture.