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A Historical Basis for Media Stereotyping from 1840 to Today

The intellectual and entertaining aspects of the media have always been at the forefront of spreading cultural ideas. People rely on such mediums for learning items they had not known about and for solidifying belief systems about them says Gerald Baldasty, author of The History of Communication. Since media is so pervasive and little information contradicts its monopolistic persuasion, stereotypes form from the audiences ignorance . The white majority, who may have never met any Asian Americans, judged, in this case, the Chinese culture based on what they had read in a newspaper or had seen on television and movies. In the late 1840s and early 1850s when the Chinese began immigrating to the United States in search of economic promise and even through today when Chinese continue to pursue the American Dream, the media classified the Chinese as sinister, pensive, and nefarious; the public readily accepts such media caricatures as the archetype for the entire Asian culture . The portrayal of Chinese Americans in the media, coupled with the oppressive history of immigration to the United States, adversely affected the white majoritys perception of the Chinese American. Prejudice arises from fear according to Benson Tong, author of The Chinese Americans . American knew little about the Chinese because of the concentration of the Chinese population living on the West Coast and in Chinatowns, isolated from the majority of the American population, the average. For example, in the 1860s and 1870s, Chinese in the United States were concentrated almost entirely on the West Coast, especially in California. According to the 1870 and 1890 U.S. Census, all of the 34,933 Chinese in the United States in 1860 lived in California, with 84 percent of them living in rural mining regions and only 7.8 percent living in San Francisco. In 1870, 78 percent of Chinese in the United States (49,277 out of 63,199) lived in California, with now 24.4 percent...

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