New Immigration Policies

Once China and America were allied in World War II, attitudes toward the Chinese changed and bigotry subsided. In 1943 discriminatory laws were lifted and Chinese G.I. brides were eligible to become naturalized. After the war, the 8,000 Chinese who had worn the uniform of a country that didn't recognize their right to be citizens were granted permanent citizenship.

The Chinese were no longer regarded by the government as innately alien to American values and were allowed modest immigration quotas. The Chinese who came to New York on these quotas were mainly middle-class and professional and many had close ties to the Nationalist Chinese on Taiwan. While this elite entered New York legally, thousands of undocumented Chinese were smuggled into the city to work in restaurant kitchens and garment sweatshops.

The Hart-Cellar Act of 1965 abolished the old national origins quotas and Chinese immigrants for the first time in 85 years were put on a par with other groups entering the country. Chinese from all levels of society, rich and poor, skilled and unskilled, flocked to New York.

The new immigrants differed from their Chinatown forebears; they were urban Chinese from Hong Kong and Taiwan who may have originally come from northern China and Shanghai. The newcomers came with families, wives, and children, and from the beginning were committed to the United States. They were Westernized and prepared to follow the American dream.

(from Ethnic New York by Mark Leeds, 1991)