The Asian American Experience

1. The Asian American Experience RACE: Beyond the White, Black, Latino Conversation Prepared by: Melissa Horr, Greater Boston Chinese Community Services June 2010 Information from: Asian American History Course, Point Loma Nazarene University Spring 2009 w/ professor Jaeyoon Kim, Ph.D.

2. Angel Island: The Ellis Island of the West In 1905, construction of an Immigration Stationbegan in the area known as China Cove. Surrounded by public controversy from its inception, the station was finally put into operation in 1910. Although it was billed as the "Ellis Island of the West", within the Immigration Service it was known as "The Guardian of the Western Gate" and was designed control the flow of Chinese into the country, who were officially not welcome with the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

3. Sojourners or Immigrants? • “working away from home” • 45% settle in America, 5% of American population • America = working place, not settling place for some • 55% who returned to their country • NOTE: same ratio of Europeans settled: returned home • Came for manual labor and good wages

4. 1849 - California Gold Mountain (GamSaan) • Many of the Chinese came to San Francisco for Gold, but by then many of the gold was gone. So a lot of men had to open service jobs around the area to support themselves. This included cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc.

5. Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 African-Americans were a closed slave market in 1833, no more cheap labor Asian-Americans accepted low wage Lowered wage for Caucasian workers and causes Caucasian-Asian racial tensions which led to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 Only act targeted at a specific race Flyer for Neighborhood Meeting on the Chinese Exclusion Act, 1892 when the act was termed to expire.

6. Asians in Hawaii – Plantations Paternalism – business owners start to realize they need to treat workers well and encourage them to bring their families building cottages and churches for them Ethnic Consolidation – worked toward a common language, unique identity as Hawaiian people Divide and Control – the plantations provided free housing but divided up the ethnic groups, reflecting the different waves of labor recruitment; the segmenting of housing furthered the efforts of the owners to divide and control the work force, though the workers themselves preferred living among their own kind 1800’s – early 1900’s

7. 1863 - The Central Pacific RR Company First Transcontinental RR Other RR proposals denied because of (black) slavery concerns California - Utah Upon completion – no Chinese were invited to celebrate the RR completion ceremony and not allowed to ride the RR back to California; they had to therefore settle down and work where they were, creating Chinese communities as farm workers

8. 1906 San Francisco Earthquake Destroyed Records and created an opportunity for Chinese to claim that they had been born in America and thus were U.S. citizens, making them eligible to bring in relatives from China. Many claimed to have more relatives than they actually did and then sold the additional slots to those who wanted to immigrate. Those who came to the U.S. masquerading as relatives were called "paper sons“ Angel Island Detention Center was used to hold those claiming to be Chinese

9. 1922 - Ozawa v. U.S 1906 - Naturalization Act of June 29, 1906 which allowed white persons and persons of African descent or African nativity to naturalize He did not challenge the constitutionality of the racial restrictions. Instead, he attempted to have the Japanese classified as "white.“ Opinion of the court: Justice George Sutherland found that only Caucasians were white, and therefore the Japanese, by not being Caucasian, were not white and instead were members of an "unassimilable race," lacking provisions in any Naturalization Act.

10. Japanese-American Internment 1942 110,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese residing along the Pacific coast of the United States to camps called "War Relocation Camps," in the wake of Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt authorized the internment with Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, which allowed local military commanders to designate "military areas" as "exclusion zones," from which "any or all persons may be excluded.“ 1943 – Chinese immigrants permitted to become naturalized U.S. citizens 1944 – Interns eligible for military draft 1998 – Apology and monetary compensation for 2,200 Interns

11. 1970’s and 1980’s - Vietnamese Boat People In Vietnam, the new communist government sent many people who supported the old government in the South to "re-education camps", and others to "new economic zones." An estimated 1 million people were imprisoned without formal charges or trials, where 165,000 people died and thousands were abused or tortured. Fled and became "boat people." On the open seas, the boat people had to confront forces of nature, and elude pirates.

12. Chinatowns – Residence, Economy, and Tourism • Metropolitan Chinatowns – Seattle and New York (two largest) • Restaurants, laundries, home and community • Education and “Model Minority” – Second generation urged to study hard to achieve equality because not accepted by American corporations • Chinatowns re-designed to encourage Tourism

13. Additional Resources GOOGLE AND BING: “Asian American History” A-Voyce, Asian Community Development Corporation Blog and Walking Tour of Chinatown, http://avoyce.wordpress.com/ Text Book of Essays: Major Problems in Asian American History, Edited by Kuashige and Yang Murray http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/asian_voices/asian_timeline.cfm http://www.cetel.org/res.html