Chinese
in Minnesota (continued)
The decades of the 1930s and 1940s brought violent upheavals in China—war
with Japan, a brutal Japanese occupation, and World War II, followed by civil
war and the takeover of mainland China by Communist forces. The Cold War
created a seemingly unbridgeable gap between the United States and mainland
China, its former ally. It was a difficult time for Chinese Americans, concerned
for their relatives and for the future of their homeland.
 Herbert
Ling, draftee, saying goodbye to his family in St. Paul, 1942.
Nearly one-fourth of Chinese adult males living in the United States
enlisted or were drafted into the armed services during World War II.
In 1943 Congress repealed the Chinese exclusion laws, although the new
law still held immigration from China down to a thin trickle. The law
also made it possible—for the first time in U.S. history—for
Chinese immigrants to become American citizens.
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 Ying
Huie of Duluth, who enlisted in the Army during the Korean War, about
1952.
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