The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare Volume 24 Issue 1 March - Special Issue on Asian Article 2 American Experiences March 1997 Civil Rights and Asian Americans Gerson David University of Houston Jan Lin Amherst College Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/jssw Part of the Race and Ethnicity Commons, and the Social Work Commons Recommended Citation David, Gerson and Lin, Jan (1997) "Civil Rights and Asian Americans," The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare: Vol. 24 : Iss. 1 , Article 2. Available at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/jssw/vol24/iss1/2 This Article is brought to you by the Western Michigan University School of Social Work. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Civil Rights and Asian Americans GERSON DAVID University of Houston Graduate School of Social Work JAN LIN Amherst College Department of Anthropology-Sociology Asian American community composed of no less than 20 different ethnic groups is one of the most diverse and complex minority groups in the nation. This article examines the civil rights perspective on Asian Amer- icans through a historicalaccount of major Asian immigrant groups who have experienced and are confronting institutionalizeddiscrimination and violence; and analyzes contemporary civil rights issues affecting Asian Americans in the areasof public and higher education, the work place, and voting rights. Introduction The question of civil rights and Asian Americans is best set in the perspective of a history of discrimination that has existed since the mid-nineteenth century, when first the Chinese, then other Asian groups were confronted with xenophobic violence and decades-long exclusion from free immigration into the U.S. More recently, Asians continue to be the victims of bigotry and violence, from the racist killing of Vincent Chin in Detroit, to the KKK harassment of Vietnamese on the Gulf Coast. Contemporary civil rights for Asian Americans also concerns the issues of barriers towards access to public and higher education, discrimination in the workplace, and voting rights. We will examine the civil rights perspective on Asian Ameri- cans first through a historical account of how Asians were made Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, March, 1997, Volume XXIV, Number 1 4 Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare unwelcome, ill-treated, and kept out of the country by exclusion- ary immigration laws. Then we will turn to contemporary civil rights issues. The question of access to education will be examined through both: (a) consideration of primary and secondary school issues such as bilingual education and racial/ethnic violence; (b) Asian student access to higher education; and (c) the question of diversity and multiculturalism in higher education. Discrim- ination in the workplace will be mainly investigated through an analysis of the "glass ceiling", and Asian American voting rights will be examined through a consideration of multilingual balloting and political districting. History For almost a century, Asians were exposed to both public and institutional oppression and some even lynched by mob action. But they endured in the face of tremendous odds and demon- strated steadfastness in their loyalty to the United States. A brief account of the major Asian immigrant groups and their experi- ences is given below highlighting institutionalized discrimination and violence against Asian Americans and contemporary civil rights issues affecting them. The Chinese The Chinese were the first to immigrate in thousands to the U.S.A. although they were not the first Asians to enter Amer- ica. Nearly 300,000 Chinese came to U.S.A. during the 19th Cen- tury. Besides, 50,000 went to work on American-owned Hawaiian plantations during the 1840s. Most Chinese, like many Europeans during that period, were sojourners who returned home. The rest who stayed in the country worked to support families left be- hind. The single Chinese men seldom married since laws barred them from marrying White women and the few Chinese women brought to America were mostly prostitutes. Thus Chinese in America were principally bachelors until post World War II, re- sulting in the scarcity of those whose descendants can be traced to more than three generations (Karnow and Yoshihara, 1992). With the onset of the gold rush following the discovery of gold in 1848, prospectors to California from around the world Civil Rights and Asian Americans 5 arrived in great numbers. Twenty thousand of these were the Chinese who came under the auspices of Chinese labor contrac- tors, borrowing to pay their passage in order to seek gold in Gain Saan or "Gold Mountain", the Cantonese term for California. As gold extraction came to an end, they moved on to help build the Transcontinental-Central Pacific Railroad in the 1860s, over the Sierra Nevada mountains, which took a toll of more than 1,000 lives but earned them little gratitude (Karnow and Yoshi- hara, 1992). Organized attempts to restrict the movement of the Chinese and their occupational pursuits led to the enactment of vari- ous laws, chiefly in California. For instance, in 1855, California passed a law requiring $55 tax on every Chinese immigrant, and in 1858 a law was enacted to forbid Chinese from entering the state (McKenzie, 1928). These laws were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the U.S. in 1876 [Chy Lung vs. Free- man, 92U.S. 275 (1875)]. Also negative stereotypes about the Chi- nese and their personal habits were spread in the print media. In the midst of economic depression of the 1870s, and as the Chinese strove to enter other areas of employment, national re- sentment of Chinese immigrants rapidly developed, led by labor and political leaders and newspapers who accused them of push- ing wages down, depriving jobs away from the majority White community and for the country's economic plight. The mount- ing pressure against the Chinese led to the passage of the Chi- nese Exclusion Act of 1882. The legislation suspended the im- migration of all Chinese laborers for 10 years and denied them the right to apply for citizenship following the effective date of the Act. A subsequent 1888 amendment exempted the applica- tion of exclusion clause to Chinese officials, merchants, students, teachers, and tourists. Though there was expression of serious concern over the harshness of continuing exclusion, the Chinese Exclusion Act was extended for ten (10) years in 1892, for two (2) years in 1902 and indefinitely in 1904 (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1980). President Theodore Roosevelt fully endorsed the Chinese Exclusion Act and its amendments, stating that the Chinese laborer must be barred from the country permanently (Roosevelt, 1905). 6 Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare The Japanese The Japanese started arriving in the late 1890s and experi- enced discrimination, prejudice, and hostility soon after their arrival. They were accused of taking away jobs from U.S. citizens and working for low wages as domestic and factory workers. Most of the leaders of the anti-Japanese movement were also actively involved in the Chinese exclusion movement and used similar criticisms of Japanese immigrants. Resentment against the Japanese increased in great force and pressure mounted for a national policy to restrict Japanese immigration. In lieu of en- acting restrictive legislation, the U.S. and Japan concluded the Gentleman's Agreement of 1907, whereby Japan agreed not to issue passports to laborers except for those previously residing in the U.S. or to wives or children under 21 years of age of these workers. With the admission of female immigrants, the agree- ment enabled the formation of families in the U.S. and thereby contributing to increasing the number of Japanese persons. The subsequent passage of the 1917 Immigration Act and The 1924 National Origins Act virtually stopped immigration of Japanese as well as others from Asia. By the time of the second World War, persons of Asian descent living in the U.S. were either born or had been residing in the U.S. for many years. Yet, they were subject to suspicion, mistrust and for the Japanese loss of freedom (Daniels, 1971). With the U.S. declaration of war against Japan, following its attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbour, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 which autho- rized the War Department and designated military commands to prescribe military areas from which any or all persons may be ex- cluded and to provide the excluded persons transportation, food, shelter and other accommodations. This resulted in the removal of approximately 90% of Japanese-Americans from the West Coast to relocation camps in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Idaho, Utah and Wyoming. Though the U.S. government asserted that the relocation camps were humane and utilized for the pur- pose of national security, the Japanese internees considered the relocation camps to be concentration camps (Kitano, 1971). The re- located internees were forced to sell their property and businesses Civil Rights and Asian Americans 7 at rock-bottom prices. It was obvious that the implementation of the Executive Order 9066 was based on race, as the German and Italian-Americans, whose countries of origin were fighting the United States, viz. Germany and Italy did not receive like treatment (Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, 1982). The question of the dispersal of the internees after the camps closed received wide attention leading to President Franklin Roo- sevelt's memo of June, 1944 to the Secretary of the Interior urging a gradual dispersal of internees to the various parts of the country. The War Relocation Authority focused on resettling Japanese- Americans in the Midwest and East, but many of the detainees returned to the West Coast. The losses incurred by the Japanese-Americans including per- sonal wealth and properties were estimated to be between $185 million and $400 million.