Talk:Asian Americans/scratch

Asian American history

Main article: Asian American history

Early migrations

Some of the earliest Asian migrations coincide with the journeys of Europeans such as James Cook. For example, in 1763, Filipinos established the small settlement of Saint Malo in the bayous of current-day Louisiana, after fleeing mistreatment aboard Spanish ships. Since there were no Filipino women with them at the time, the Manilamen, as they were known, married Cajun women and Indians. Chinese sailors came to Hawaii in 1778; some of these sailors settled and intermarried with Hawaiian women.

1849 to 1882

Hawaiian plantation owners brought in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Filipinos as laborers, many as indentured servants. Chinese immigrants sought their fortunes in the California Gold Rush. Other immigrants worked as laborers on the transcontinental railroad. A surge in Asian immigration in the late 19th century caused some to fear the growing number of Asians. This fear was referred to as the "yellow peril."

1924 to 1945

During World War II, approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans were forcibly removed from the west coast of the United States, with most being detained in hastily constructed War Relocation Centers in remote portions of the nation's interior.

The 442nd Regimental Combat Team/100th Infantry Battalion, composed of Japanese Americans, is the most highly decorated unit in U.S. military history.

1945 to 1965

Immigration trends of recent decades have dramatically altered the statistical composition and popular understanding of who is an Asian American. This transformation of Asian America, and of America itself, is the result of legislation such as the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952 and the Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1965. The McCarran-Walter Act repealed the "free white persons" restriction of the Naturalization Act of 1790, but it retained the quota system that effectively banned nearly all immigration from Asia (for example, its annual quota of Chinese was only fifty). Asian immigration increased significantly after the 1965 Immigration Act altered the quota system. The preference for relatives, initially designed to reduce the number of Asian immigrants, eventually acted to accelerate their numbers.

Historically, before 1965, Asian Americans were largely perceived as members of the two most numerous Asian ethnic groups, specifically Chinese and Japanese, as well as Filipinos, who became colonial subjects of the US in 1898 due to the Spanish-American War (also see Philippine-American War).

After the enactment of the 1965 Immigration Act, Asian American demographics changed rapidly. This act replaced exclusionary immigration rules of the Chinese Exclusion Act and its successors, such as the 1924 Immigration Act, which effectively excluded "undesirable" immigrants, including Asians. The 1965 rules set across-the-board immigration quotas for each country, opening the borders to immigration from Asia for the first time in nearly half a century.

Immigration of Asian Americans were also affected by U.S. war involvement from the 1940s to the 1970s. In the wake of World War II, immigration preferences favored family reunification. This may have helped attract highly skilled workers to meet American workforce deficiencies. Another instance related to World War II was the Luce-Celler Act of 1946, which helped immigrants from India and the Philippines.

1965 to 1990

The end of the Korean War and Vietnam War and the so-called "Secret Wars" in Southeast Asia brought a new wave of Asian American immigration, as people from Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia arrived. Some of the new immigrants were war brides, who were soon joined by their families. Others, like the Southeast Asians, were either highly skilled and educated, or part of subsequent waves of refugees seeking asylum. Some factors contributing to the growth of sub-groups such as South Asians and mainland Chinese were higher family sizes, higher use of family-reunification visas, and higher numbers of technically skilled workers entering on H-1 and H-1b visas.

Japanese Americans and South Asians are emblematic of the dramatic changes since the immigration reforms of the mid-20th century. Japanese Americans are among the most widely recognized of Asian American sub-groups. In 1970, there were nearly 600,000 Japanese Americans, making it the largest sub-group. Today, Japanese Americans are the sixth-largest group, with relatively low rates of births and immigration. In 2000, there were between 800,000 and 1.2 million Japanese Americans (depending on whether multi-ethnic responses are included). The Japanese Americans have the highest rates of native-born, citizenship, and assimilation into American values and customs.

In 1990, there were slightly fewer South Asians in the U.S. than Japanese Americans. By 2000, Indian Americans nearly doubled in population to become the third largest group, with increasing visibility in high-tech communities such as Silicon Valley and Redmond, Washington. High rates of immigration from across Asia will make Asian Americans increasingly representative of the continent itself. Indian Americans have some of the highest rates of academic achievement among American ethnic and religious groups, with most immigrants speaking English. South Asians are increasingly accepted by most Asian organizations as another significant Asian group.

Crime

In the 19th century, newspapers and the popular media carried stories of women sold into slavery, opium dens and illegal immigration . In the latter 20th century, Asian gangs received some attention. On February 18, 1983, three armed Chinese American men entered the Wah Mee gambling club in Seattle’s Chinatown, and left 14 people for dead.