Are You Aware? A Brief Review of Asian American History
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, photograph by Camilo José Vergara
This is part I in our Awareness Wednesday series on the Asian American Experience. Read the other posts in the series here.
Asian culture and peoples have always been the “East” to the European “West.” During the Roman Empire, trade routes and networks were established early on between these two regions and cultures. The fascination and desire to trade with the East and its otherworldly foods, animals, and the like is what compelled many, including Christopher Columbus, to embark on a voyage in search of Asia.
Early migrations
The first Asians to set foot in the Americas were mostly from China, Japan, and the Philippines, arriving in New Spain (Alta California and parts of Mexico). The first waves of Asian migration to the Americas were Asian servants with Spanish masters; then, enslavers began using deception and kidnapping to acquire enslaved Asian peoples [1]. These early Asian migrants created their own assimilated communities and had their fair share of struggles with the dominant Spanish population.
Spain’s monopoly on the Asian markets came to an end by the late 1700s as Great Britain increased in power. Intrigue with Asian items, namely tea, became a staple of American life and culture, and, notably, the fuel to the American Revolution (think Boston Tea Party).
As the U.S. increased its presence in Asia, migration to and from North America provided opportunities for Asian migrants to seize jobs as sailors, deckhands, and crew members. Subsequently, the Asian people who migrated to the Americas and much of the Caribbean came as indentured laborers. The journey to the Americas included “seasoning” (being kept outdoors for long periods of time or light work) and long voyages in overcrowded ships that were plagued with disease. Indentured servitude was brutal, and the workers had an estimated mortality rate of almost 25 percent [2, 3]. The search for new labor in the Asian hemisphere increased as African enslavement came to an end in the Americas. A new kind of enslavement was being formed, “which would shape Americans’ perceptions of Asian immigrants for years to come” [1].
The search for gold caught the world in a fever, and the prospect of striking it rich in California brought many from China in a fervor. The thousands of Chinese men (known as Gold Mountain men) who embarked to California created the impetus for the first rudimentary form of a green card. With the passage of a series of Chinese exclusion laws, Chinese laborers were barred from entering the country unless they were in a certain “exempt” category of merchants, teachers, etc. Even then, they were under strict surveillance and subject to interrogations and investigations. Many left their families behind, as the exclusion laws often explicitly discouraged or barred women from immigrating, creating a transnational family pattern that reverberated for generations to come.
The demand for Chinese labor increased with the onset of railroad use. Railroad companies were the largest employers of Chinese laborers. The landmark photograph of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads meeting at Promontory Point to drive the last spike strikingly lacks any representation of the thousands of Chinese laborers who dedicated and even lost their lives to building the intercontinental railroad. In other parts of the U.S., Chinese and other Asians were recruited to harvest sugarcane (Hawai’i) and to work for factories in the Northeast and plantations in the South.
Anti-Japanese sentiment began to grow as this succession of laws limited Chinese immigration. The Japanese were often viewed similarly to the Chinese — both groups were “unassimilable cheap laborers who were threats to white workers and to existing race relations” [1]. Efforts to restrict further Asian immigration were met with massive civil unrest along the West Coast as restrictions and segregation orders were placed. Violent attacks and riots persisted to the point of pushing both the U.S. and Canada to negotiate with Japan to restrict immigration, known today as the Gentlemen’s Agreement.
Discrimination and citizenship obstacles continue into the 1900s
In 1908, Asian American populations (specifically Chinese) flourished as more Asian women were permitted to migrate to the U.S., and Chinatowns popped up in major cities, permitting a place to bridge the two worlds many found themselves navigating. However, discrimination was still felt, even by those who managed to become citizens, despite the laws at that time. Many Chinese immigrants viewed coming to the U.S. as a place to earn money and then leave, as they didn’t see “any use of staying here; you can’t be American here” [4].
Bills were being passed in Congress left and right to prevent Asians from obtaining citizenship, including the Immigration Act of 1924 and the 1922 Cable Act (which revoked the citizenship of women who married Asian male immigrants). It would not be until World War II that Chinese Americans started feeling like they were part of American society [1]. As immigrants from other Asian countries (Philippines, Korea, and Vietnam, to name a few) began to make their way to the U.S., the scrutiny and hostility were unsurprisingly similar. Oftentimes, Asians wore distinguishing labels such as “I am Korean!” or “I am Japanese!” to limit discrimination as different waves of exclusion/racism were focused on various countries.
The first immigrants to be excluded from the U.S. were also the first undocumented immigrants. This was the unintentional outcome of the exclusion laws set in motion to exclude Asian immigration, and yet the demand for immigrant labor persisted. Smuggling routes were established in the late nineteenth century as the need for railway workers urged many Chinese immigrants to push through both northern and southern borders into the U.S. Japanese immigrants were also compelled to come undocumented as secondary migration was prohibited from Mexico, Canada, and Hawai’i, and the Gentlemen’s Agreement limited direct migration to U.S. to merchants and students only.
The formation of border security began in the early 19th century. Angel Island (the Ellis Island of the West, in San Francisco) and detention barracks were overcrowded with Chinese refugees from Mexico. Chinese refugees were rounded up nightly along the border and placed in detention camps to be deported back to China. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor piqued the anti-Japanese sentiment throughout the nation. The outcry for removal and mass incarceration of the Japanese as a means of public safety was given precedence over individual rights. An estimated 400,000 people of Japanese descent lived in the Americas at the time [1]. The grave injustices done to Japanese Americans will be further explored in the coming weeks.
Attempts at immigration reform
Contemporary Asian immigration to the U.S. can be directly tied to the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act. This support for immigration reform grew out of Cold War politics and civil rights activism during the 1960s [1]. The law abolished the national origins quotas and ushered in a new era of mass immigration that has been different from earlier periods in terms of volume and ethnic makeup. It also created immigration preference categories based on family reunification and professional skills, which worked to the advantage of Asian immigrants. The 1990 Immigration and Nationality Act increased guest workers from abroad through temporary visas that actively recruited workers to the high-tech sector. This law established a global cap on immigration and new restrictions on immigration, resulting in a new era of undocumented immigration and debates surrounding immigration that we still see today.
What does it mean to be “Asian American”?
There are a number of ethnicities and races housed under the term “Asian American.” It represents more diversity than any other terminology we have for a group of people. It includes East Asians, South Asians, and Southeastern Asians. It has also been used to categorize Pacific Islanders.
The term “Asian American” is believed to have been coined in 1968 by two college-age activists, Emma Gee and Yuji Ichioka. They were looking for an appropriate name to unite all those of Asian descent, as other movements of other races were rising during that time, including the Black Power movement and the American Indian movement. The name stuck, as it held through the Vietnam War, when the highly televised war illustrated for Asian Americans that the enemy looked much like themselves.
Reasons to unite continued with the 1982 murder of Vincent Chin, who was beaten to death with a baseball bat in Highland Park, Michigan. Because of heightened tensions in the region (related to unemployment due to increased Japanese competition in the auto industry), a brawl broke out, and racial slurs were thrown at him despite the fact that he was not of Japanese descent [5]. The light sentencing of his murderers, limited to probation and fines, pushed Asian Americans to unite and fight for a federal civil rights case, which resulted in another appeal and a settlement outside of court.
The modern Asian American experience
The Asian American experience in the U.S. is very relevant to the social justice movement we see today and to discussions of immigration reform. The effects of globalization include not only a racially diverse people, but also transnational immigrants with socioeconomic success in the U.S. who have close family ties to other nations [1]. Understanding these transnational immigrant experiences, the laws created to encourage their immigration (such as the Immigration Act of 1990 — an immigration investor program that is maxed out annually), and the migration patterns that have emerged can help us understand the modern Asian American experience [1].
Growing up, I was able to eat Vietnamese phở (soup) 10 minutes away from my home in the Bay Area, and my grandparents could watch news and entertainment in Vietnamese from our local television station. Being American is a continual evolution for me as I come to embrace my Vietnamese heritage and find connections in the multiple communities I find myself amongst. This search for community and connection will continue with my biracial children.
There is a great need to understand what it means to be a global American, and hopefully, it can start with a better understanding of the Asian American experience. Due to the broad range of experiences and history that can be placed under the category of Asian American history, we have chosen to focus this month’s “Are You Aware?” series on the East Asian and Southeastern Asian experience.
For more information, check out the Asian Americans documentary by PBS, plus the sources cited below.
Angela Thanh Tam Stevenson is the first on both sides of her family to be born in the United States, as her parents were Vietnamese refugees. She is an active duty Air Force family member, and her husband, children, and Vizsla pup are currently stationed in Omaha, Nebraska. Angela studied at Brigham Young University in communication disorders and Spanish and also at the University of Washington in Seattle in public health. She is a registered dietitian. Her passions and interests are varied! They currently include: reading, podcast listening, artisanal ice cream eating, running (to balance out that ice cream addiction), and babywearing.
- “The Making of Asian America: A History” by Erika Lee
- “Little Manila Is in the Heart” by Dawn Bohulano Mabalon
- “Strangers from a Different Shore” by Ronald Takaki
- “The Chinese Laundryman” by Paul C.P. Siu and John Kuo Wei Tchen
- New York Times, March 20, 1932 and August 6, 1932
Photo: This picture is a photograph of the mural “We Want Justice” for Vincent Chin, a Chinese American beaten to death in Highland Park in 1982. This was pivotal to the formation of the term “Asian-American” which was not previously used. Historically,Pan-Asian solidarity was not the norm at this time. For example, during World War II the anti-Japanese sentiment was unfortunately used as an advantage for many Chinese Americans, who were harshly excluded prior to the war, and fed into the model minority stereotype which still exists today.
