Civics Corner HISTORY OF AAPI BIGOTRY
What Does AAPI mean? AAPI stands for Asian American and Pacific Islanders. This is an umbrella term for all people with Asian, Asian American, or Pacific Islander descent.
This includes the following groups:
East Asian South Asian
Chinese, Taiwanese, Indian, Bangladesh, Sri Japanese, Korean, and Lankan, Nepal, and Mongolian descent Pakistani descent
Central Asian Southeast Asian Filipino, Cambodian, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Vietnamese, Lao, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Indonesian, Thai, or and Uzbekistan descent. Singaporean descent
West Asian Pacific Islander
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Cyprus, Georgia, Iraq, Israel, Polynesia, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Micronesia, and Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Melanesia descent Syria, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen descent A TIMELINE OF THROUGHOUT UNITED STATES HISTORY, AAPI PEOPLE HAVE FACED INTENSE BIGOTRY AND ANTI- HATRED.
AAPI 1839 - 1860 HATE First Chinese Immigration to the U.S. The Opium Wars (1839 - 1842, 1856 - 1960) led to floods, droughts, and extreme poverty in China.
Meanwhile, in California in 1848, the gold rush was just getting started. Chinese immigrants traveled to California to join the gold rush and seek better opportunities. 1850s Early Chinese Discrimination 25,000 Chinese immigrants were in the U.S. by the early 1850s.
They were believed to be a "threat to pure white America," in terms of economic security, disease and health, and religious and morality. 1852 Foreign Miners' License Tax Act In 1850, the California legislature passed the Foreign Miners' Tax that required non-U.S. citizen miners to pay $20 a month to mine. In practice, this was taken from Chinese and Latino miners exclusively.
The act was repealed in 1851 and replaced with the Foreign Miners' License Tax Act in 1852, which charged $3 a month (about $100 today). 1854 People V. Hall The CA Supreme Court ruled that the eyewitness account of a Chinese man who witnessed a murder by a white man was inadmissible based on the ideas that the Chinese were, "a race of people whom nature has marked as inferior, and who are incapable of progress or intellectual development beyond a certain point."
This set a precedent that Asian Americans (along with other minority groups could not testify in court against white people and made it nearly impossible for Asian Americans to seek justice for the violence they endured. 1865 13th Amendment Passes The 13th amendment formally abolished slavery in the United States.
After this, thousands of Chinese people were brought here to work as cheap labor in the railroad, plantation, and mining industries. They are responsible for building the Transcontinental Railroad. 1875 Page Act This Act required immigrants from "China, Japan, or any Oriental country" who were not brought to the U.S. of their own will or who were brought for lewd and immortal purposes."
Chinese women deemed to be promiscuous workers and disease carriers and this Act prevented them from migrating to the U.S. 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act This law restricted Chinese immigration to the U.S. for 10 years and declared Chinese immigrants ineligible for naturalization. This would continue for 60 years. 1892 Geary Act This Act extended the Chinese Exclusion Act for another 10 years and required Chinese residents to carry certificates of labor, without which they were sentenced to hard labor and deportation.
It was upheld in Fong Yue Ting v. United States in 1893. 1907 Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907 This agreement between the U.S. and Japan placed the responsibility on Japan to limit its laborers from immigrating to the U.S. in exchange for Japanese children to continue to go to integrated schools in California. 1910 - 1940 Angel Island Immigration Station Hundreds of thousands of Chinese immigrants were detained on Angel Island and forced to undergo horrible medical examinations and intense interrogations to prove their relation with a U.S. citizen or suffer deportation. 1917 Barred Zone Act This Act restricted anyone from the "Asiatic Barred Zone" from entering the U.S., essentially barring all Asians from entry.
Exceptions included those from Japan and the Philippines because the Japanese were already limited via the Gentlemen's Agreement and the Philippines was a U.S. colony. 1924 Immigration Act of 1924 This Act barred all Asians from entering the U.S., denied all citizenship and naturalization for those from Asian countries, and prevented Asian Americans from marry Caucasian or owning land. 1934 Tydings-McDuffie Act In this Act, Congress promised independence to the Philippines by 1945.
This allowed Congress to impose a quota of Filipinos entering the U.S. to just 50 per year. 1942-1945 Japanese Internment Camps In response to the attacks on Pearl Harbor, FDR signed Executive Order 9066, which incarcerated all people of Japanese descent, including U.S. citizens, in isolation camps.
120,000+ Japanese people were thrown into camps, most of them U.S. citizens. 1943 Magnuson Act This Act reversed the Chinese Exclusion Act and established quotas for Chinese immigrants to just 105 a year. 1965 Hart-Cellar Act This Act ended immigration quotas and exclusion based on race and ethnicity.
This has changed the racial landscape of the United States and made Asian Americans, as a group, more diverse. 2001 USA Patriot Act This Act made 80,000+ men from Arab and Muslim predominant countries register with the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
It was the result of and influenced by hate towards Muslims and people of Middle Eastern descent and led to high surveillance and harassment of these people. 2017 Muslim Travel Ban President Trump signed a series of executive orders that prohibited travel from predominantly Muslim countries (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen) as well as suspended refugee resettlement in the U.S.
Despite vast protests and several courts blocking the ban, the Supreme Court allowed a third version of the executive order to stick, which expanded barred countries to include Venezuela and North Korea. 2020 Expansion of Muslim Travel Ban The Trump administration expanded the original Muslim Travel Ban to include Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Nigeria, Sudan, and Tanzania.
President Biden has since reversed these bans. 2020 COVID-19 and Anti-AAPI Hate 2020 saw high spikes of violence against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Between March 2020 and February 2021, there were 3,800 self- reports of anti-Asian hate incidents.
This is in large part due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting rhetoric and racism shown against the AAPI community.
What is the Model Minority Myth? The model minority myth is a stereotype that suggests that AAPI members are a "model minority", being more moral and successful than other minority groups, mainly Black communities.
This came about in the 1980s to place blame on other communities for bigotry faced against them instead of addressing their systemic disadvantages, while driving a wedge between different minority groups.
The truth is, more than 12% of AAPI members live below the poverty line and face their own systemic inequities. Want To Learn More?
(Click the links to view more) The Inadequacy of the Term “Asian American” - Vox Black and Asian Solidarity in American History: The Power of Unity Exemplified by 5 Major Events - Advancing Justice Self Evident: Asian America’s Stories podcast Asian Americans - PBS
Recommended Books
Sources (Click the links to view more) Before the Chinese Exclusion Act, This Anti-Immigrant Law Targeted Asian Women - History The Roots of the Atlanta Shooting Go Back to the First Law Restricting Immigration - The Nation A History of Anti-Asian Hate in the United States - Open Society Foundations Asian Americans Then and Now: Linking Past to Present - Asia Society Asian American Milestones: Timeline - History History of Angel Island Immigration Station - Angel Island Immigration History Timelines - Immigration History How 1965 Changed Asian America, in 2 graphs - AAPI Data Everyone's heard of the Patriot Act. Here's what it actually does - Vox Understanding What the Term AAPI — Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders — Means - Good Housekeeping 'Model Minority' Myth Again Used As A Racial Wedge Between Asians And Blacks - PBS