Financial difficulties and immigration laws, such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, made a few Chinese women immigrants came to Unites States during the 1880s. Even if a woman came to United States with her husband or by herself alone, her life options were limited. As a wife of a Chinese man, she had to obey her father, her husband, and if she had a son, she had to obey him as well. Chinese women were considered only able to do domestic work.

The Chinese tradition limited sphere of their life. The practice of Foot- binding, in which small shoes wrapped tight a woman’s feet so they maintain a small size, limited her activities, because a woman couldn’t walk on her self for long by her tightened feet.
Single Chinese women weren’t willing to come to United States. Many of them were kidnapped or sold to brothel by their parents to earn money to help family in China. They often worked as a prostitute.

With race and gender discrimination, language differences affected many Chinese women immigrants making their life more difficult.

During the Great Depression in Unites States in the 1930s, the Chinese women immigrants had more of a hard time than before. While white males, females and other male immigrants didn’t have jobs there weren’t any opportunities for the Chinese women immigrants to get jobs.

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