The melting-together metaphor was in use by the 1780s. The exact term “melting pot” came into general usage in the United States after it was used as a metaphor describing a fusion of nationalities, cultures and ethnicities in the 1908 play of the same name.

Melting Pot: is a metaphor for describing the assimilation of immigrants into American culture. It relies on the image of people from different cultures and backgrounds mixing and melting together into one big cultural pot. The melting pot metaphor comes from the fusing together of melted metal material.

The melting pot theory holds that, like metals melted together at great heat, the melting together of several cultures will produce a new compound, one that has great strength and other combined advantages.

Ethnic Enclaves generate a pool of social capital through which members can access resources that lower the costs of migration. Thus, the ethno-specific nature of enclave economies makes them attractive to new immigrants who lack the social and cultural skills necessary to integrate into the mainstream economy.

Immigrants entered the United States through several ports. Those from Europe generally came through East Coast facilities, while those from Asia generally entered through West Coast centers. Although immigrants often settled near ports of entry, a large number did find their way inland.

Paper sons or paper daughters is a term used to refer to Chinese people who were born in China and illegally immigrated to the United States by purchasing fraudulent documentation which stated that they were blood relatives to Chinese Americans who had already received U.S. citizenship.

This loophole was a boon, for it allowed Chinese men to return to China as U.S. citizens, report that their wives had given birth to a son there (a child born to a U.S. citizen abroad is automatically eligible to be a U.S. citizen) and receive a piece of paper creating a “paper son.” This document could then be used by …

The estimated 15,000 Chinese living in San Francisco’s Chinatown lost nearly everything in the earthquake and fire. Following the disaster, most Chinese left for Oakland and only about 400 remained in the city.

Chinese immigrants first flocked to the United States in the 1850s, eager to escape the economic chaos in China and to try their luck at the California gold rush. When the Gold Rush ended, Chinese Americans were considered cheap labor.

Many Americans on the West Coast attributed declining wages and economic ills to Chinese workers. Although the Chinese composed only . 002 percent of the nation’s population, Congress passed the exclusion act to placate worker demands and assuage prevalent concerns about maintaining white “racial purity.”