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Mackensie Jackson

Professor Duncan

Senior Seminar ENG-450-01

9 December 2018

Housing, Education, and Employment struggles shown in Literature from the Civil Rights

Movement that similarly portray the struggles of Asian-Americans in the US

Literature during and around the civil rights movement has been far-reaching and unique

to speak in altruistic terms. There is a variety of literature that portray the image of poverty seen

by African-Americans around the civil rights movement era. Examples and reasons behind this

poverty in this literature from the civil rights movement. African-Americans seem to always be

portrayed in these pieces of literature as people who are either living in less than proper homes or

can’t find a home at all. Another main issue presented in these works of fiction is the lack of

education that’s being presented to the characters because of their race in society. One other

element presented in these pieces of literature is the problem of wages for black people. African-

Americans are constantly going from job to job or are continuously worrying about having

enough money to pay rent and buy food. Not to mention, most of the characters in these stories

don’t make minimum wage at their jobs whether that job be as a regular office worker or as a

janitor because of the racism of that time period. In consideration of these elements within this

frame of literature, it’s important to take note of the housing conditions that characters must live

in, the lack of education many don’t have or are not being offered, and the employment issues

and problems of minimum wage that come up within the pieces of literature made around the

Civil Rights Movement.

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This inequality is important to see and recognize as a focal point and effect of racism

towards African-American people, but black people are not the only ones who have had to deal

with the issues of a lack of education or proper housing. Asian-Americans, for example, have

had their fair share of abuse as a result of their race and they still struggle today, like African-

Americans, because of the discrimination and inequality that still exists to this day. Here lies an

opportunity to show not only the blatant mistreatment of African-Americans in their living

conditions through literature, but also a chance to see how another race of people had been

abused for being anything other than white. Asian-Americans have struggled supplying an

education for their children in the past and still face struggles today when it comes to housing for

Asian immigrants and the inequality that Asian-Americans face in the workforce today.

Fortunately, there are organizations like the Asian-American for Equality non-profit organization,

but this does not mean that Asian-Americans do not still have a difficult time getting the equality

they need to live a proper life in the US. That’s why, it’s important to take note of these Asian-

American issues while, at the same time, seeing the portrayal of the difficulties of life African-

Americans had to face as can be seen in the literature of the civil rights movement.

First, it’s important to recognize those pieces of literature that illuminate the struggles of

black people in society. One novel that does an exceptional job at this is Black Boy by Richard

Wright. This is an important book to take note of when discussing the scope of issues African-

American people have had around the time the civil rights movement occurred because Black

Boy is based off the real-life experiences Richard Wright had when he was growing up in

America in the 1900’s. Housing is one of the issues African-Americans faced around the time of

the civil rights movement and was a problem for Wright’s family since his childhood. Wright

was constantly being forced to move from place to place with his brother as a child because his
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mother could not find a steady job. At one point, his family lived next door to a prostitute ring,

showing types of places his mother had to move the children into because they could not afford

better living conditions (Wright 63). Richard describes what he saw while he was living here,

Quietly I pulled up a chair, placed a box upon it, and climbed up and peered through a

crack at the top of the door. I saw, in the dim shadows of the room beyond, a naked man

and a naked woman upon a bed, the man on top of the woman. I lost my balance and

toppled backwards to the floor. I lay still, wondering if the man and woman next door

had heard me. But all seemed quiet and my curiosity returned. Just as I had climbed up

again to look, a sharp rapping came on the windowpane behind me; I turned my head and

saw the landlady from next door looking at me (Wright 63).

Wright is only a child at this point in time, but is having to witness these mature adult situations

at an early age because of the difficulty his mother has with finding modest housing for her

children. Even before this scene occurred though, Wright was sent to an orphanage for less than

a year with his brother because his mother could not afford the money to live in a house or

apartment (Wright 28-37). To say the least, Wright did not seem to have permanent housing

situation until he moved into his Grandmother’s house with his mother and brother. There’s a

part of the story for a short while where Wright has plenty of food to eat (a rarity for him for

most, if not all, his childhood) and he starts hoarding the food and hiding it in the house because

he does not know if they will run out and he does not want to feel that hunger for food again

(Wright 50). Wright says, “I did not want to wake up in the morning, as I had so often in the

past, feeling hungry and knowing that there was no food in the house. So, surreptitiously, I took

some of the biscuits from the platter and slipped them into my pocket, not to eat, but to keep as a

bulwark against any possible attack of hunger” (Wright 50).

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As for Wright’s education, he was off and on in his schooling. He did manage to

graduate junior high school as valedictorian, but it was a long process getting there (Wright 174).

One reason for this would be the constant moving he had to go through with his family. Another

reason for this was when he was in his teens he had to leave school to get a job to support his

family in paying the rent and buying food. Wright had many different jobs at a young age, but

they were all low-paying jobs so that the family was able to get food on the table (Wright 170-

178). These scenes of Wright’s true life exemplify the issues black people had to face because of

their race whether it came to difficultly with having a secure job or a place to live.

The second important piece of literature made around the civil rights movement would be

the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. From the beginning of the play, the

introduction to Act I Scene I of the play describes in excruciating detail and honesty the living

conditions of the Younger family:

The Younger living room would be a comfortable and well-ordered room if it were not

for a number of indestructible contradictions to this state of being. It’s furnishings are

typical and undistinguished and their primary feature now is that they have clearly had to

accommodate the living of too many people for too many years—and they are tired.

Still, we can see that at some time, a time probably no longer remembered by the family

(except perhaps for MAMA), the furnishing of this room were actually selected with care

and love and even hope—and brought to this apartment and arranged with taste and pride

(Hansberry 23).

The furniture is described as “tired” because they “have clearly had to accommodate the living

of too many people for too many year” (Hansberry 23). As well as being “tired”, the room seems

to have a “weariness” about it because of its age and having to accommodate so many people
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(Hansberry 23). Furthermore, this two-room house has only one window in the kitchen that has

“the sole natural light the family may enjoy in the course of a day is only that which fights its

way through this little window” (Hansberry 24). This image that Hansberry depicts shows the

less than picturesque house the Younger family must live in due to their lack of money. Ruth,

Walter’s wife, complains about the living conditions of their home. Apparently, it is his Walters

mother’s home, referenced as Mama in the play, making it an older house. It has only two

bedrooms even though there are five people living there. Futhermore, Ruth takes note that her

son, Travis, has to sleep on the couch in the living room because there’s no bedroom for him.

(Hansberry 23-24). Also important to note is there’s only one bathroom shared by five people in

this one house they all live in together. Hansberry depicts the struggle to share this one bathroom

from the beginning of the play when Walter complains about being late to work because his son

is still using the bathroom, but his son, Travis, has to use the bathroom because he has to get

ready for school (Hansberry 25-28). Walter races to the bathroom after his son gets out and this

seems to be a common occurrence based off of Travis ushering his father to hurry and use the

bathroom before anyone else does (Hansberry 27-28). This scene displays the added problems

faced by the family because of their living situation. Furthermore, it can be noted how

uncomfortable these characters have become with one another at having to not only share a

bathroom with everyone in the household, but also that they have had to live in this small,

cramped house for many years with each other.

As for education, Beneatha (Walter’s sister) is trying to get an education to become a

doctor, but Walter keeps wondering how she’s going to pay for school. Walter suggests that the

only way she’s going to be able to graduate Medical school is if she uses some of the inheritance

that Mama is getting (Hansberry 36). African-American people’s struggles with getting money
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better themselves in society can be seen in different pieces of literature throughout this period of

time. Usually one of the characters wishes to change people’s stereotypes about black people by

wanting to become a lawyer and fighting for black people’s rights or, in Beneatha’s case,

becoming a doctor.

When it comes to money for the family, Ruth and Walter cannot even seem to afford to

give their son money for school when the students are supposed to bring 50 cents to school for

the teacher (Hansberry 29) You can tell they are a family that worries about money because even

Travis, Ruth and Walter’s son, asks about the inheritance money and when it is coming

(Hansberry 29). Travis taking note on when the inheritance money is coming shows the family’s

struggles with money, but this can also be seen in the fact that the family has to live within

Walter’s mother’s house because they cannot even afford their own home. Travis even has to

sleep on the couch in the living room because there’s not a bedroom for him. Something else

important to note in the play is that the entirety of the play is focused on money since this

family’s thoughts and ideas of the future are revolved around the inheritance money Mama is

supposed to be getting from her husband’s passing away. The family is obsessed with the idea of

this inheritance money because they have never had that much money at one time before and

because they have been living in the same pitiful environment for so long. This play, in my

opinion, does one of the best jobs in showing the all-around struggles of black people during the

civil rights movement because of the Younger family’s constant worry about money and having

to live in a housing situation where Beneatha and her mother even have to share the same room

together and there’s only one window in the entire house. It’s a stark reality that shows just how

difficult it could become for black people having to live in a society filled with white hegemony.
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Third, a novel that does a ample job of portraying the struggles of black people is the

novel If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester Himes that showcases the struggles of an average

black man named Robert Jones living in Los Angeles, California as he tries to fit in with society

while having to deal with the constant mass of racial tensions in the area. Robert Jones, the main

character of the novel, has a better than average job as a black man because he works as a

leaderman at Atlas Shipyard, but even with his job, he still has to live at an apartment that he

shares with a man and woman named Ella Mae and Henry who have a daughter named Emerald

(Himes 1-11). The fact that Jones has to live with a family of three shows that he is not being

paid fairly enough to have a place of his own to live in. Jones even says in the novel, “I

wondered if they knew how well I could hear them through the thin partition” when listening to

the family of three moving around in their bedroom (Himes 5). The thin walls and Jones having

to live with a family of three just show the poor conditions Jones has to deal with while living in

LA. When it comes to an education, Jones needing to go back to college is consistently brought

up by his girlfriend, Alice, who even lies to her parents and says that Jones plans on going back

to college in the fall (Himes 61). Most people of Jones’s race did not get the opportunity to go to

college or have enough money for it and it would be difficult for Jones to go back to college

because he does not have that much money in the first place that’s made apparent in the living

situation he’s faced with in the novel. Therefore, paying for college would be an issue for him.

At the beginning of the novel, Jones also talks about how it was hard for him to find a job

and even with his job he can’t afford to have the things that Alice can have or to the level of

other white people:

Race was a handicap, sure, I’d reasoned. But hell, I didn’t have to marry it. I went where

I wanted and felt good about it. I’d gotten reused back in Cleveland, Ohio, plenty of
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times. Cleveland wasn’t the land of the free or the home of the brave either. That was

one reason why I left there to come to Los Angeles; I knew if I kept on getting refused

while white boys were hired from the line behind me I’d hang somebody as sure as hell.

But it’d never really gotten me down. Once I threatened to sue a restaurant and got a

hundred dollars. I’d even thought about making a business of it. Most times when I got

refused I just went somewhere else, put it out of my mind, forgot about it (Himes 3-4).

This quote from the book encompasses black peoples struggles for equality in a world where

“race was a handicap”, this emphasizing the extra burden it took to get a job for black people in

America (Himes 3). Jones furthers this in saying that whenever he was refused a job he “put it

out of my mind, forgot about it” representing the frequency of these refusals that black people

had to deal with and understanding that the majority of the jobs they would be allowed to take

were meager and did not give blacks the opportunity to rise up in society or be equal with whites

in any way (Himes 4). In addition to this, Jones says that he kept getting refused a job whenever

he tried to get one while living in Ohio because of his race so he moved to LA (Himes 3).

Unfortunately, even in LA many of the jobs that black people were being offered were to work in

kitchens with a white boss as a superior (Himes 4). Jones was fortunate to get a job at a

shipyard, but his experiences attempting to get jobs exemplifies black people’s struggles with

finding satisfactory jobs that paid minimum wage to black employees. Furthermore, the types of

jobs that many blacks had to take at this time were meager jobs that did not pay well, especially

for black people, an example of this being the kitchen job that Jones talks about as one job he

could have gotten while living in LA. All of Jones’s struggles just showed to him the widening

gap between him and his white superiors and the inequality that he felt the throughout the novel.
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A fourth piece that’s a short story about a father who struggles, but ultimately fails to find

superiority in society as a black man is called “The Typewriter” by Dorothy West. This short

story features a family similar to the one in A Raisin in the Sun, but this short story is different

because it focuses solely on the man of the household who is not named in the novel, presumably

because this situation can be related to the lives of many other black men around the civil rights

movement time period. The main character, who is never named, says that he came to the city in

hopes of finding something better in live. Right now, he is a husband and has two children and

an apartment that he rents, but because he can’t afford the whole apartment, he shares it with a

couple named Mr. Hicks and Ms. Berry (West 502). At the beginning of the short story, the main

character, right after coming home from work, must fix the furnace that stops working every now

and then. This scene may seem insignificant to some, but it shows the money struggles of the

family because they can’t afford to hire someone to fix the furnace permanently.

The main character is evidently worried about money when he talks about how meagerly

the family lives. He talks about how the family needed a new sitting-room fixture, but that they

could not afford it. He then goes on to talk about how there was only three dollars left over for

food and fuel for the family after rent was paid, suggesting that the family lives in a very modest

life (West 503). His wife even says that she’s had the same dress for five years and she will

continue to wear it for another five years because they are in such a difficult situation (West 503).

The main character also talks about his previous jobs that consisted of being a “bell boy, porter,

waiter, cook, and finally janitor in a down town office building” that could not have possibly

been high-paying jobs (West 503). In addition to this, the main character of the story does not

seem to have much of an education. He states at one point in the story that,
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He was growing very careful of his English. Occasionally—and must be admitted,

ashamedly—he made surreptitious ventures into the dictionary. He had to, of course, J.

Lucius Jones would never go “Y’got to” when he meant “It is expedient.” And, old brain

though he was, learned quickly and easily, juggling words with amazing facility (West

507).

This scene shows some of the main character’s general diction while showing his need to look up

words in the dictionary to know how to speak in a proper manner. The main character of this

story is a character that shows how blacks in that period of time not only could not get a proper

education, but had to work in very meager jobs the majority of the time, such as being a janitor,

in order to make a living. This main character seems to have worked in the vast majority of low-

paying jobs out there, but many of the main characters in the stories that have already been

mentioned have had to work multiple meager jobs because there was no steady employment for

black people at this time. Ultimately, West’s story does not show the picturesque life of a family

man, but it does show the reality of the men who had to live through racial inequality in the

1900s.

One last piece of literature made around the civil rights movement called “Previous

Conditions” by James Baldwin focuses on a character’s struggles to find a job and a place to stay

all while living in New York City. Housing is the most prominent issue represented in this short

story through the character of Peter who traveled from Chicago to New York City in search of a

job. Peter talks about the room he’s hiding out in within the story:

The room I live in was heavy ceilinged, perfectly square, with walls the color of chipped

dry blood. Jules Weissman, a Jewboy, had got the room for me. It’s a room to sleep in,

he said, or maybe to die in but God knows it wasn’t meant to live in. Perhaps because the
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room was so hideous it had a fantastic array of light fixtures: one on the ceiling, one on

the let wall, two on the right wall, and a lamp on the table beside my bed. my bed was in

front of the window through which nothing ever blew but dust (Baldwin 84).

Peter describes the room that he’s living is as being “heavy ceilinged, perfectly square, with

walls the color of chipped dry blood” (Baldwin 84). The walls being described as having the

“color of chipped dry blood” is not an ideal living situation that anyone wants to live in when the

walls may or may not have literal dry blood on them (Baldwin 84). Peter also mentions that

even God knew that it was not a livable to place to be, indisputably having chipped walls,

sleeping on the floor, and having dust blow in your face when trying to sleep is a harsh way of

live for any individual, but these kinds of conditions are similar to what many African-

Americans had to deal with because of the inequality surrounding the nation at that time period

(Baldwin 84). What makes the situation worse is that this is not even Peter’s room, as the reader

discovers early on, because Peter is hiding in the room since he has no place to stay and no

money to afford rent. Furthermore, it’s an “only whites allowed” apartment building, so Peter is

not allowed to be there in the first place and is made apparent when the landlady kicks him out

after she discovers he’s been secretly staying there (Baldwin 90-92). Peter eventually goes to

stay with his Jewish friend, Jules, but Peter has to sleep on the floor because there’s not enough

room in the apartment for him (Baldwin 98).

Even as a child, Peter had a poor conditioned housing situation when he says “We lived

in an old shack in a town in New Jersey in the nigger part of town, the kind of houses colored

people live in all over the U.S. I hated my mother for living there” (Baldwin 85). Peter’s living

condition when he was a child is the similar one Richard Wright and many blacks had to live

with back in the day. Besides having difficulty finding a place to live and finding a place to live
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that had adequate living conditions, Peter is currently unemployed and not make any money so

that he can pay to live somewhere. In addition to this, there’s not much known about Peter’s

education except for the fact that he likes acting and maybe has a background education in

theater. It most likely comes from experience though and not actually going to school for it since

blacks during that time period would have had a hard time finding a school that would accept a

black man. Peter states that “Acting’s a rough lie, even if you’re white. I’m not tall and I’m not

good looking and I can’t sing or dance and I’m not white; so even at the best of times I wasn’t in

much demand (Baldwin 84). Here, Peter seems to be following his dream to be an actor, but his

hopes of being successful in his endeavor are slim to none because acting is such a tough job and

he’s even less likely to become successful because he’s black. Furthermore, the jobs that Peter

probably did receive as a theater actor probably offered slim wages since blacks already

struggled with income at this time period and not many blacks can afford to go see a play, even if

it discusses inequality surrounding black people’s lives.

To parallel the struggles African-American people have had to face around the civil rights

movement, it’s also important to look at the minority group of Asian-Americans who have

struggled throughout history and still struggle today living in America. Many people don’t

realize the struggles that Asian-Americans had to go through when immigrating to the US. They

faced discrimination that can be paralleled to the ways in which blacks were discriminated

whether it be through the government or the educational system. Asian-Americans struggles can

even be compared to Toni Morrison’s opinion that Asians were able to survive on the “backs of

blacks” showing the immensity of the struggles that Asians had to face when coming to live in

America (Da 312). To understand Asian-American struggles, it’s important to first look at Asian-

Americans past in order to understand why they are facing struggles today. For example, many
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Chinese American children living in San Francisco specifically had to deal with the School Law

of 1860 that “segregated specific minority groups, including children of Black, Chinese and

Indian descent, into separate schools” (Kuo 190). Because of this, Chinese American students

were forced to go to a separate school away from white people, but opening the school took too

much time (Kuo 190). This led 30 Chinese parents to petition the San Francisco School Board to

make a school for their children (Kuo 191). The board, at first, did not pay much attention to the

petition, but eventually, when they were being pressured more, did end up opening a school, but

the problem was that the school they opened had a low attendance from Chinese American

students (Kuo 191). This happened for a variety of reasons, one of the reasons being “the school

board's reluctance to provide a separate school for Chinese Americans and the lack of control the

Chinese Americans had over the administration of the school. Claiming the lack of funds” (Kuo

191). Meaning, Chinese American students were most likely being taught in a manner that was

discriminatory and the schooling was not up to par compared to what it would be like if these

Chinese American students were allowed to go to an all-white school at this period of time.

Another reason for the low attendance was that the school was far away from what was

referred to as Chinatown, where the majority of Chinese American lived (Kuo 192). This meant

that Chinese American students had a long walk to get to school, but what was even worse was

that the school “fell in Caucasian territory” resulting in Chinese American students being

subjected to white children who often “insulted, abused, and threw stones at the Chinese

students” when they were just trying to get to school (Kuo 192). Looking at this information, it’s

not a surprise that the school had low attendance. Furthermore, these issues that arose for

Chinese American students could have been avoided if the San Francisco School Board had

taken into consideration the best possible place to move Chinese Americans students to instead
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of just shoving them into a school without considering the struggles the students would have to

go through as a result of the Boards decision. By looking at this example of the segregation of

whites and Chinese Americans and the way in which whites segregated the Chinese Americans,

it can be seen that Asian-Americans and black people both had to struggle to get a proper

education back in the day because of white hegemony and because of the “separate but equal”

doctrine that segregated schools not only between blacks and whites, but between Asian-

Americans and whites, as well.

Today, education can still be seen as a concern for Asian-Americans due to the recent

suing of Harvard for their supposed discrimination of Asian-Americans in their applications to be

accepted into Harvard. In a Washington Post article, Nick Anderson says that:

The plaintiff alleges that Harvard engineers every year a precise racial balance of

admission offers that gives an unfair edge to less-qualified applicants from other groups.

The plaintiff also charges that Harvard gives too much weight to race and fails to fully

comply with a Supreme Court mandate to consider race-neutral alternatives for

assembling a diverse class (Anderson).

Meaning, the school has a certain amount of whites they bring in and a certain limit to how many

Asian-Americans they accept into their school each year. By only accepting students at a certain

amount based on their race means that some students are not getting a fair chance because their

academic achievements are being overlooked at the fact that Harvard only wants a certain

amount of people in their racial group to be accepted into the school. This can be considered

inequality because Harvard could be putting more precedence on one race above another.
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The lawsuit filed in 2014 against Harvard also has its reasons including that not only does

the school demand more of Asian-Americans, but it’s noted that in Harvard’s recruiting letters

there is a difference between Asian-Americans and whites it being that Asian-Americans are

“required to have higher standardized test scores on average than peers from other racial groups

to qualify for a letter encouraging promising students to think about Harvard” (Anderson).

Harvard’s recruiting letters are being sent to Asian-Americans who are scoring higher than

average than people of other races in order to even be considered to get a recruiting letter.

There’s no mention of who these other races are, nevertheless, this action by Harvard is

discriminatory and it is unfair to expect more from Asian-Americans. Instead, Harvard should

create be an equal playing field between all races receiving recruiting letters and all races should

be looked at fairly and equally when applying to the college.

Just as Asian-Americans are still having struggles with equal education, housing and fair

wages is still seen as a current issue for Asian-Americans and Asian immigrants who travel to the

US looking for a better life. While it’s assumed that Asian-Americans are offered a better

education today than in the past, Asian-Americans are too often seen as “intellectually superior”

to white people and this assumption makes it hard for some Asian-Americans to get the help they

need when it comes to education (Da 314). Furthermore, this so-called “intellectual superiority”

typically gives white people the idea that minority groups do not need help in society (Da 314).

This can be compared to blacks in that law enforcement condones their strict behavior towards

black people based on the idea that the majority of blacks are “street thugs and troublemakers”

which is not in fact the case (Da 314). According to statistics, Asian-Americans have higher

poverty rates than white people in society, even though Asian-Americans have an average

education level that surpasses that of white people (Da 321). This is unusual because people
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typically make more money if they have higher educations, but this is not the case with Asian-

Americans. In Xiaofeng Stephanie Da’s essay “Education and Labor Relations: Asian

Americans and Blacks as Pawns in the Furtherance of White Hegemony”, Da states that,

“Although Asian Americans on average have higher education levels than Whites, they gain less

money than white Americans on average for each additional degree” (321). This statement

exemplifies the discrimination within the workforce that Asian-Americans still have to deal with

because of their race.

To suppose that Asian-Americans as a minority group are being treated fairly and are

given the same wages as white Americans are is a common misconception that needs to be

corrected in society. The reality of the situation for Asian-Americans is that Asian-Americans

are seen as a superior minority group because of their high education levels in American society,

but they are still being mistreated because of their minority status by being paid less than a white

American even when the Asian-American has the higher degree. This can easily be compared to

the issues faced by blacks represented in the literature being presented during the civil rights

movement because the majority of blacks were not being given minimum wage for their services

simply because of the fact that they were black. Just like blacks have in the past and continue to

face today, Asian-Americans also continue to face discrimination in the form of lower wages

even though they may have higher degrees than people who are working in their same field and

to do not have that higher degree.

Similarly, housing is also an issue for Asian-Americans today, especially Asians

immigrating into the US. An article by Florian Martin found that “A recent report by the Asian

Real Estate Association of America finds that 55.6 percent of Asian Americans and Pacific

Islanders own homes. That compares to 63.5 percent of all Americans.” (Martin). A reason for
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the difference in percentages could be because it’s harder for Asian-Americans, especially Asian

immigrants, to purchase or rent housing in America. One of the reason it’s hard for these Asian

immigrants to purchase housing has to do with their lack of credit history (Martin). There

doesn’t seem to be an accommodation for immigrants when it comes to finding housing when

arriving in America and certainly not for Asian-Americans based on statistics. Katherine Tong,

housing program manager at the Chinese Community Center, has seen examples of Asian

immigrants not being able to get housing before when it comes to providing required documents

that allow immigrants to get bank loans that allow them to pay to purchase a home (Martin).

Tong states that, “When applying for a mortgage, financial institutions require verification of

employment. Some of our clients have a difficult time submitting pay stubs because they are paid

in cash. Additionally, if the clients have recently immigrated to the United States, they may not

have two years of work history which is required by most lenders.” This may not be

discrimination based, per say, but it still shows the struggles that Asian-Americans are facing

when it comes to housing in America today. This can also be compared to African-Americans

since they did immigrate from Africa, even though they came to America as slaves.

To further the comparison between Asian-American and African-American in their

struggles, you can take a look at the laws that have discriminated both races. Of course, there

was the “separate but equal” doctrine that segregated schools between whites and blacks, but

there were also federal immigration laws that were accepted by Congress that significantly

affected Chinese Americans (Kuo 187). Something that affected Asian-Americans was when

Congress changed some of the concepts and ideas brought forth in the Burlingame Treaty of

1868 (Kuo 187) The problem is that the treaty was supposed to force the U.S. government to

protect Chinese people who were living in America from acts of discrimination, but when
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Congress changed some of the terms of the treaty, Congress started putting in place laws that

restricted Chinese people from immigrating to the U.S. (Kuo 187). One example of this is the

Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 that Congress enacted to limit Chinese immigration (Kuo 187).

This may not seem like a new Act today, but back in that time period this Act was the “first

immigration law to limit the entry of an ethnic group in the United States” and the fact that the

ethnic group was Asian showcases the amount of discrimination that Asian-American

immigrants had to suffer through not only within the U.S. government, but in society as a whole

(Kuo 187). There were other restrictions placed on Chinese-Americans and immigrants living in

the U.S. that included being “excluded from land ownership, voting, access to courts,

employment, interracial marriages, and naturalization” (Da 188-189). Obviously, there are few

restrictions placed on Asian-Americans today, but Asian-Americans still struggle with these same

issues because of discrimination that they still receive in society because of their oriental

background. Also, it’s important to recognize that this list of restrictions is very similar to the list

of restrictions forced upon blacks in their society as can be seen in the literature around the civil

rights movement time period. At the end of the day, Asian-Americans were seen simply

Orientals who looked and sounded too different from white people and were seen as just another

nuisance and race that wanted to take away white people’s jobs and, therefore, were

discriminated harshly against in governmental policies and society as a whole.

On the other hand, it is important to recognize the many organizations that work to help

Asian-Americans and other minority groups who are facing inequality or struggles with housing

and education in society today. Fortunately, the Asian Americans for Equality (aka AAFE) exists

as a nonprofit organization that is located in Brooklyn, New York that works to help better Asian-

American’s lives in NYC (AAFE). AAFE helps with Asian-Americans who have a lack of good
 Jackson 19

housing and education due to their minority standing in America (AAFE). AAFE was

established in 1974 to “advocate for equal rights” for Asian-Americans, but they have evolved

towards helping Asian-Americans living in NYC when it comes to housing, social services, and

are a part of different community development organizations in the U.S. (AAFE). There are

numerous examples of the kind of help that AAFE has brought for Asian-Americans living in

New York City that include the development of 86 buildings and the creation of more than 800

units of housing (AAFE). AAFE has also helped circulate money by giving $50 million in loans

to small Asian-American businesses and has provided educational services, financial assistance,

and other services to help better the lives of Asian-Americans living in NYC (AAFE). AAFE not

only helps Asian-Americans but Asian immigrants who need help finding and securing housing,

getting an education, and jobs in order to help Asian immigrants dreams for a brighter future for

themselves and their children come true.

Currently, there’s an organization located in Brooklyn, New York just like AAFE and this

organization is called the African-American Planning Commission (aka AAPC). The AAPC’s

mission is to “reduce homelessness and address the related issues of domestic violence,

HIV/AIDS, mental illness, substance abuse, shortage of affordable housing, and unemployment”

for African-Americans (AAPC). This is similar to AAFE because it works towards providing

adequate housing for African-Americans and tries to help with finding and securing jobs for

black people. AAPC also believes that “Everyone should have access to an affordable home in a

clean, safe and vibrant community, regardless of one’s status in life” (AAPC). This is an

exceptionally important ideal to have for African-Americans who have struggled with having

housing that is not only affordable, but to have housing that is adequate and sufficient enough to

live in for African-Americans. Matthew Okebiyi, the Founder and CEO of AAPC, says that,
 Jackson 20

“What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is

immortal”, this quote represents the helps that AAPC wishes to bring to African-Americans

living in New York City today and in the future (AAPC). This organization, like many other

African-American organizations that exist today, are helping African-Americans rise up to the

level of white people in society so that they may prosper and have bright futures in America.

In conclusion, Blacks and Asian-Americans have had issues with lack of housing and

problems with receiving minimum wage or having decent paying jobs because of their minority

status in the country. They have also struggled getting an education because whites didn’t want

them to better themselves and get higher paying jobs and, so, would make it difficult to get as

good of an education as a whiter person could. There are many pieces of literature that showcase

the struggles African-Americans faced with getting decent housing, a proper and constant

education, receiving fair wages, and even finding proper employment that was not a common

low-paying job that they commonly got like a janitor or bus boy.

Money and finding adequate housing was a major problem for Richard Wright and his

family as can be seen in the novel Black Boy where Richard had a lack of proper and frequent

food because of his mother’s low-paying jobs, but even had to have a meager housing situation

seen in the prostitute ring the landlady was running right next to where Richard’s family lived.

The character in the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry also had struggles with

having enough money to afford a new house that was best for them considering the condition of

their home. The novel If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester Himes talks about Bob’s struggles

with finding a job in his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio and the lack of education he was able to

acquire that caused his girlfriend to even lie to her parents about it. Another influential piece of

writing written around the civil rights movement time period is a short story called “The
 Jackson 21

Typewriter” by Dorothy West. This short story shows the difficult reality a father must come

face to face with that he can never improve himself and how he had to work many low-paying

jobs because of his race and how he did not grow up getting an education based on the diction he

uses when speaking. The last short story mentioned is “Previous Conditions” by James Baldwin

and features the main character named Peter who lives in a less than modest apartment and has

no job currently while living in New York City.

All these stories lead to a comparison between African-Americans and Asian-Americans

who have faced struggles when it comes to education and wages equality, but Asian-Americans

today still face these struggles which is why the AAFE exists in New York to help Asian-

Americans with any housing or employment struggles they may have. A similar organization

resides in New York called the AAPC that works with African-Americans when it comes to

housing and other struggles. The existence of these organizations are working to help create

hope and a brighter future for Asian-Americans and African-Americans who have and still do

struggle in finding equality while being minority groups in America today.

Works Cited
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African American Planning Commission. African American Planning Commission, 2018,

https://aapci.org/site/. Accessed 7 Dec. 2018.

Anderson, Nick. “Harvard admissions trial opens with university accused of bias against Asian

Americans.” The Washington Post, 15 Oct. 2018,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2018/10/15/harvard-admissions-goes-trial-

university-faces-claim-bias-against-asian-americans/?utm_term=.c20c15c8f30d.

Asian Americans For Equality. Asian Americans for Equality, 1974, https://www.aafe.org/.

Accessed 7 Dec. 2018.

Baldwin, James. “Previous Conditions.” Going to Meet the Man Collection, 1948, pp.83-100.

Da, Xiaofeng Stephanie. “Education and Labor Relations: Asian Americans and Blacks as Pawns

in the Furtherance of White Hegemony.” Michigan Journal of Race and Law, vol. 13, no.

1, 2007, pp. 309-35.

Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun. New York, Vintage Books, 1958.

Himes, Chester. If He Hollers Let Him Go. London, Serpent’s Tail, 1999.

Kuo, Joyce. “Excluded, Segregated and Forgotten: A Historical View of the Discrimination of

Chinese Americans in Public Schools.” Asian American Law Journal, vol. 15, no. 7,

1998, pp. 181-212.

Martin, Florian. “Why Is Asian American Homeownership Below Average?”

Houstonpublicmedia, 18 June 2017,

https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/2017/06/28/206494/why-is-asian-

american-homeownership-below-average/.
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West, Dorothy. “The Typewriter.” Opportunity Magazine, 1926, pp. 501-09.

Wright, Richard. Black Boy. New York, HarperCollins, 2006.