People often find 21-year-old Jonathan Wong a mystery.“They go are you filipino? Are you Mexican? Are you Pacific Islander? Are you Hawaiian?” he recalled.Wong is actually a fourth-generation Chinese and third-generation Mexican American.He finds there is one thing both cultures deeply value.“The connection you have with your family in general. Both of them are very family oriented,” he noted.Like many immigrants, Wong’s Mexican and Chinese ancestors came to the U.S. for a better life, said Shelley Fisher Fishkin of Stanford University.“The Chinese who came to the U.S. in the middle of the 19th century and then Mexicans who came at the end of the 19th century or early 20th centurywere lured by the possibility of creating opportunities for their families that were not possible in their home countries,”she said.These new immigrants often faced discrimination and worked as laborers,either as modern-day Mexican migrant workers or as Chinese railroad workers in the 19th century.In an art exhibit that looks at the two immigrant experiences,this piece by artist Hung Liu depicts the early Chinese immigrants who came to dig for gold or labor on the railroads.“The very reason the Chinese first came here is to escape from the economic despair in China,” Hung Liu stated.Steven Wong, the curator of the Chinese American Museum, said immigrants from both countries still come at any cost.
