ABSTRACT
There are important similarities and differences between Chinese communities in the United States and those in Southeast Asia. Certainly, there are far fewer Chinese in North America than there are in Southeast Asia, and Chinese Americans are a smaller percentage of the population than they are in Indonesia or Malaysia. Outside of the broad demographic differences in both parts of the world, Chinese on both sides of the Pacific Ocean have confronted discrimination and institutional impediments to political incorporation. Chinese immigration to the United States has occured during two distinct waves: first between the late 1840s to the 1880s, and second from 1965 to the present.
