Questions | Yonkers | Chinese Communities
Life in a Laundry: Chinese in Pre-World War II Yonkers
Document 2
Vocabulary
Capital: Money.
"The reason why so many Chinese go into the laundry business in this country is because it requires little capital and is one of the few opportunities that are open. Men of other nationalities who are jealous of the Chinese, because he is a more faithful worker than one of their people, have raised such a great outcry about Chinese cheap labor that they have shut him out of working on farms or in factories or building railroads or making streets or digging sewers. He cannot practice any trade, and his opportunities to do business are limited to his own countrymen. . . ."
Document 2: Excerpt from Lee Chew, “The Biography of a Chinaman,” from The Independent 55:2829 (February 19, 1903).
Document 2 Short-Answer Questions
- According to the author, what are two reasons why so many Chinese Americans went into the laundry business?
- What jobs have Chinese American labor been “shut” out of working?
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