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Asian American history is the history of an ethnic and racial groups in the United States who are immigrants or descendants of persons from the continent of Asia. ASIAN AMERICANS Asian American history is the history of individual ethnic groups, and also the common history of groups often affected by the same laws and a culture that often saw them as one racial group. Since the late 1960s and 1970s, many activists and academics referred to an "Asian American movement" similar to the civil rights movement to refer to efforts across different Asian groups to promote their common welfare. In the latter 20th century, spurred by the 1965 Immigration Act, Asians from many different groups immigrated in larger numbers, often arriving as college students, or skilled workers with degrees. Their image of success was portrayed with headlines of the "Model Minority". CHINESE In the 1850s, many Chinese travelled to California to seek their fortunes in the California gold mines. In 1852, Chinese contract laborers arrived in Hawaii. In 1854, the California Supreme Court case ruled that the testimony of a Chinese man who witnessed a murder by a white man was inadmissible.[http://www.tenement.org/banana/history.html Banana History In 1862, California passed a "police tax" of $2.50 a month on every Chinese. In 1865 the Central Pacific Railroad Co. recruited Chinese workers for the transcontinental railroad when they could not find sufficient numbers of Irish workers. Many died in the harsh conditions blasting through difficult mountain terrain. In the 1870s, anti-Chinese violence broke out across the west as the Chinese were seen as competing for whites for jobs. In 1878, Chinese are ruled ineligible for naturalized citizenship. In the 1880s the US and China agree to severely limit Chinese immigration, and California bans intermarriage between Chinese and whites. The Chinese Exclusion Act prohibited the immigration of Chinese laborers, skilled or unskilled, for the next ten years. Violence against Chinese continued in the 1880s, leading to the 1887 brutal 2-day massacre of 31 Chinese miners in Snake River, Oregon which was not discovered until 1995. In 1910, Angel Island opens as a major immigration station for as many as 175,000 Chinese and 60,000 Japanese immigrants between 1910 and 1940. In 1913, Alien Land Laws prevented Asians from from owning property in California and other states. The 1924 Oriental Exclusion Act banned most immigration from Asia. The Chinese Exclusion Act would not be repealed until wartime in 1943, but the quota would be set to only 50 per year. In the late 1940s 2,600 Chinese came to the U.S. under the Displaced Person's Act, and 14,000 Chinese arrived in the United States under Refugee Acts. California repealed its ban on interracial marriages JAPANESE See Also: Japanese American history The history of Japanese Americans begins in the mid nineteenth century.
KOREANS The first group of Korean laborers came to Hawaii in January 1903 to fill in gaps created by problems with Chinese and Japanese laborers. Between 1904 and 1907 about 1,000 Koreans entered the mainland from Hawaii through San Francisco. Many Koreans dispersed along the Pacific Coast as farm workers or as as wage laborers in mining companies and as section hands on the railroads. After the occupation of Korea by Japan, migration was virually halted. Picture brides became a common practice for marriage to Korean men. After World War II, opportunities were more open to Asians, enabling Korean Americans to move out of enclaves into middle class neighborhoods. After the Korean War in 1953 came small numbers of students and professionals. A larger group were servicemen's wives and as many a 150,000 adoptees. As many as one in four Korean immigrants in the United States can trace their immigration to the wife of a serviceman. With the passage of the 1965 immigration act, Koreans became one of the fastest growing Asian groups in the United States, surpassed only by Filipino immigration. In the 1980s and 1990s Koreans became noted for starting small businesses such as dry cleaners or convenience stores. This would sometimes lead to publicized tensions with customers such as African Americans in movies such as Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing", and the Los Angeles riots. Their children, along with those of other Asian Americans would also be noted in headlines and magazine covers in the 1980s for their numbers in prestigious universities. However, though favorable economics and education have led to the painting of Asian groups such as the Koreans as a "model minority", Koreans as well as other Americans were shocked that Cho Seung-hui was named the gunman in the Virginia Tech Massacre . The family of the suspect was in many ways, typical of Koreans with two parents working at a dry cleaners who lived in an affluent community, and sent both children who immigrated as young children to 4 year universities. ALSO SEE |
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