Why Asian Americans are Becoming Mainstream Victor Nee & Hilary Holbrow Abstract: In contrast to earlier waves of immigration, the post–1965 Asian immigration to the United States has not spawned an exclusionist backlash among native whites. Rather, the new Asian immigrants and their children are rapidly gaining access to the American mainstream. Whether in integrated resi- dential communities, in colleges and universities, or in mainstream workplaces, Asian Americans’ pres- ence is ever more the rule, not the exception. The success of so many Asian American immigrants suggests that race may not be as decisive a factor in shaping socioeconomic attainment as it was in the American past; civil rights reform has been incorporated in a more inclusive American mainstream. As a group in which those of legal status predominate, Asian Americans have enjoyed more open access to mainstream institutions, paving the way to their rapid assimilation. Until 1965, immigration from Asia served as the crucible for a politics of exclusion that involved both the legal framework and a social consensus backing a national-origin quota for immigration. In the mid-nineteenth century, the arrival of a siz- able Chinese population in communities across the western states provoked widespread nativist senti- ment and anti-Chinese hostility. Competition in labor markets spurred union-led protests and vio- lent demands for the government to restrict Chi- nese immigration. The subsequent passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 effectively ended VICTOR NEE is the Frank and immigration from China, while Chinese residing in Rosa Rhodes Professor of Sociology America were barred from naturalized citizenship. at Cornell University, where he is Japanese immigration to the West Coast, which also Director of the Center for the followed the exclusion of Chinese laborers, incited Study of Economy and Society. similar mobilization of nativist sentiment and leg- HILARY HOLBROW is a Ph.D. stu- islative politics, culminating in the Immigration dent in the Sociology Department Act of 1924. This legislation limited free immigra- at Cornell University. tion to the United States to those from Northern (*See endnotes for complete contributor and Western Europe, with restrictive quotas set for biographies.) Southern and Eastern Europeans. Immigration © 2013 by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences doi:10.1162/DAED_a_00219 65 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00219 by guest on 24 September 2021 Why from Asia was closed down, and the rule ico. The debate has focused on the new Asian of exclusion extended to a wide range of immigration from Latin America, the Americans are discriminatory legislation in the western region sending the largest flow of immi- Becoming states designed to drive Asians into ra - grants, many of them unauthorized.1 Mainstream cially segregated enclaves. High-volume Asian immigration to the It took the emergence of a new political United States has now been continuous consensus born in the civil rights move- for nearly a half-century, constituting the ment for the federal government to enact longest lasting legal immigration from the watershed legislation that guided Asia in American history. In an exponen- institutional change and extended equal tial increase over the 1970 census count of rights and opportunities to nonwhite 1.5 million, Asian Americans grew to Americans. This civil rights legislation exceed 17.2 million by 2010, making up af½rmed principles of open access to 5.6 percent of the U.S. population.2 This political and economic institutions for all rapid increase is primarily due to contin- Americans, regardless of race and gender. uous and now accelerating immigration, Concomitantly, Congress passed with bi - such that in 2010, foreign-born Asians partisan support the Immigration Act of outnumbered native-born Asian Ameri- 1965, an international counterpart to the cans by a ratio of two to one. Since 2008, far-reaching Civil Rights Act of 1964 and 40 percent of new immigrants are Asian, Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Immigra- up from 27 percent of new arrivals before tion Act repealed national-origin rules 2005.3 If present population trends con- and opened legal immigration to all tinue, the Asian American population countries. has been estimated to grow to around Once legal immigration was open to all 9.2 percent of the American population countries, documented entry was then by 2050.4 directly connected with access to inclusive Unlike previous waves of the nine- political and economic institutions. Im - teenth and early twentieth centuries, the migrants with appropriate visa documents new Asian immigration has not spawned could enter the United States as perma- reactive nativist social movements and nent residents and, through a sequential politics demanding the exclusion of transition culminating in approved appli- Asians. Rather, Asian immigrants and the cation for naturalized citizenship, could second generation are assimilating into the gain access to mainstream American in - American mainstream more rapidly than stitutions. earlier immigrants to the United States.5 In combination, these sweeping legal Whether in integrated residential com- changes have reshaped American society. munities, in colleges and universities, or Though not anticipated by political elites in mainstream workplaces, Asian Ameri- in the 1960s, the new immigration law cans’ presence is ever more the rule than opened the way for mass immigration the exception. What accounts for their from Asia, and as a very unintended con- success? sequence, from Latin America as well. And in light of the rapidly changing de - It is commonplace to portray Asian mographic composition of the American Americans as a model minority. Socio- population, immigration is once again logical accounts of Japanese American inspiring national debate. There is again assimilation, for example, emphasize that a rising tide of nativist backlash, especially through acculturation, the nisei second in the states that share borders with Mex- generation adopted the cultural attri - 66 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00219 by guest on 24 September 2021 butes of the Anglo Protestant majority model minority account–it’s much harder Victor Nee group, which then led to their assimila- to cross the ocean than to walk across a & Hilary Holbrow tion into the American mainstream after border. Accordingly, formal rules govern- World War II.6 During that war, Japanese ing immigration have played a far greater Americans responded to racial prejudice role in shaping the flow of Asian immi- and internment by exemplifying the grants and their subsequent experience American creed, evidenced in the patri- than has been the case for immigration otism and sacri½ce of nisei soldiers on the from Mexico and Central America. While battle½elds of Europe. Retelling a variant immigration law speci½es the initial selec- of the model minority story for the new tion mechanisms, entry through formal Asian immigration relies on a ready-made channels also provides immigrants with conceptual template identifying group- the bene½ts and protection of equality of level attributes that enable the group’s rights and other civil laws. acceptance and entry into the main- In a democratic polity governed by the stream.7 Various accounts invoke “Asian rule of law, legal equality matters not values” such as a reverence for learning, only because of, but also despite the persis - emphasis on the family, or dedication to tence of racial prejudice embedded in hard work as the explanation for Asian cultural beliefs, informal norms, social Americans’ high levels of educational and networks, and organizations.10 This is professional attainment. be cause the rule of law is widely accepted What is overlooked in model minority and supported as a bedrock assumption accounts and in narratives of discrimina- by ordinary Americans, despite frequent tion is the fact that institutional mecha- outbursts of partisan politics and con- nisms–the forces that set the rules of the tentious differences over the content of game–play a signi½cant role in explain- speci½c laws. Although most Americans ing differential patterns of socioeconomic may not have agreed with the content of attainment and assimilation of immi- congressional civil rights legislation, grants and their children. In light of the once those initiatives were enacted as law, long history of racial discrimination and institutional mechanisms implemented exclusion of Asians, it took the institu- the changes over time and worked them tional changes of the civil rights era to into the American mainstream. restart high-volume immigration from A centerpiece of the civil rights era leg- Asia, and to extend legal rights to all islative struggle was the passage of Title Americans. This has enabled and moti- VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which vated the economic and social assimilation speci½ed the rules of equal employment of Asian immigrants and their children.8 opportunity to address institutionalized Although Asian immigrants include discrimination in the workplace against many different national-origin, cultural, women and minorities. The law was the and ethnic groups with considerable socio - product of a protracted battle by commit- economic diversity, a shared distinguish- ted social activists that sought equal ing feature of new immigrants from Asia