America’s Lost Work Ethic and the End of its global Exceptionalism – Part 1/5

December 9, 2011

Unless many Americans change their attitudes toward parenting and work, the United States cannot compete long term with China.

With about 14 million Americans unemployed, millions of illegal aliens still find work in the US.

In February 2011, the New York Times reported, “Despite continuing high unemployment among American workers, record deportations by the Obama administration and expanding efforts by states to crack down, the number of unauthorized immigrants in the work force — about eight million — was also unchanged, the Pew report found. Those workers were about 5 percent of the American work force.”

Then on November 4, 2011, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported, “Both the number of unemployed persons (13.9 million) and the unemployment rate (9.0 percent) changed little over the month. The unemployment rate has remained in a narrow range from 9.0 to 9.2 percent since April.”


Unskilled immigrants are competing with unskilled Americans–mostly high school dropouts.

Imagine, if the government told unemployed Americans, “Work or starve! If you need a job, we will train and/or transport you to where that job is even if it is a job that only illegal immigrants have worked before.” If that happened, the unemployment rate in the US would drop from 13.9 million to less than six million and hover around 4%.

If these shunned jobs were the only choice after the standard unemployed “benefit year” [which is 52 weeks] ran out and the benefit checks stopped coming, the choice would be work where there is a job, any job, anywhere or possibly become homeless unless a friend or family member is willing to support you.

However, taking jobs away from illegal immigrants and giving them to unemployed American citizens is not why I’m writing this series. I wanted to know why Americans spurn jobs millions of illegal immigrants are paid to work at in the US.

In addition, China may learn a lesson from the mistakes Americans are making today.

Continued on December 10, 2011 in America’s Lost Work Ethic and the End of its global Exceptionalism – Part 2

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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2 Comments | America, American culture, China, Chinese Culture, cultural differences, economy, education, family values, parenting | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Chinese in America – Part 2/3

June 8, 2011

This was the second post from 2010 that I remembered after reading John Putnam’s guest post of the Chinese during the California Gold Rush.

Angel Island in San Francisco Bay was America’s west coast Ellis Island.

From 1919 to 1940, mostly Asian immigrants entered the US through Angel Island.

After 1940, the immigration station on Angel Island was forgotten until a California Park Ranger, Alexander Weiss, discovered the stories carved in the walls.

He thought that there were stories here as if there were ghosts waiting to be heard.

Over half of the Angel Island immigrants came from China and Japan and most of the carvings on the walls were poems written in Chinese.

A former detainee, Dale Ching, went through the station in 1937 when he was sixteen. Even though Dale’s father was born in the United States, he still had to go through the immigration station.

While the East Coast’s Ellis Island welcomed immigrants, Angel Island’s story was one of sadness and suffering.

Most European immigrants who went through Ellis Island stayed a few hours, but immigrants on Angel Island were kept locked up under armed guard with barbed-wire fences surrounding the buildings and some people stayed for days, weeks, months and years.

The park service wanted to tear the Angel Island buildings down but Weiss found supporters and they struggled to preserve this history. They succeeded and the restoration project was challenging.

Alexander Weiss sums up the video saying we should know both the right and the wrong from U.S. history.

Continued on June 9, 2011 in The Chinese in America – Part 3 or return to Part 1

This post first appeared on September 8, 2010 as America’s Angel Island

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

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The Chinese in America – Part 1/3

June 7, 2011

While reading John Putnam’s guest post of the Chinese during the California Gold Rush, I thought of several other posts I wrote about the Chinese in America.

Putnam wrote, “White miners soon arrived and pushed the Chinese out…”

The first major wave of Chinese immigrants came to the US after the California gold rush of 1849.

Then in 1882, The Chinese Exclusion Act formalized an ugly American prejudice. In fact, there are still Americans who feel this way evidenced by a few comments left on this Blog. However, we are fortunate that more Americans appear open minded and accepting than those who do not feel that way.

This act stayed in effect de facto until 1965, when racist provisions of U.S. immigration law were removed during the Civil Rights era, liberalizing immigration by all non-European groups.

Most of these Chinese immigrants worked hard in industries like railroads, mines and canneries. The Chinese were willing to work for lower wages than European immigrants were demanding.

When there were labor strikes, companies often used Chinese workers as strikebreakers. This led to hate among European immigrants and demands that led to the Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned Chinese laborers from entering the US.

This was the first time the US passed a law to bar a specific race or ethnicity from entering the country. Source: Tenement Museum

Continued on June 8, 2011 in The Chinese in America – Part 2

This post first appeared on August 30, 2010 as Discrimination Against the Chinese in America

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

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the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse