Last week, the story of mass immigration ended with the prospects of immigrants from Asia and other non-West European immigrating to the United States. The journey into this country by immigrants was not without its difficulties and challenges, in particular with racial and ethnic discrimination. This next segment will explore how and why this new wave of immigrants came and their need for acceptance and welcome to America.

1. Undocumented Asian Immigration—1900’s (Part III)
The U.S. Congress strived to curb this immigration by the amended Naturalization Act of 1870, which restricted American citizenship of Chinese and the passage of The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which prohibited all immigration of Chinese laborers. During the twentieth century, anti-Asian bias was extended in 1907 by President Theodore Roosevelt to include Japanese, Filipino, Koreans and all Asians, making them ineligible for citizenship.
In spite of the legal limitations on immigration put into place, this did not stop immigrants from Japan and China from crossing the borders illegally from Mexico and Canada into the United States. Erika Lee describes the demand for immigrants to the economy of this country: “Undocumented immigration was the logical if highly unintentional outcome of the exclusion laws. The efforts to exclude Asian immigration from the United States contrasted too sharply with the demand for immigrant labor and immigrants’ intense need and desire to seek entry.”
Profitability for the U.S. business became the basis for U.S. officials and companies to look the other way when it came to undocumented workers, like the issues facing this country today. It was estimated that between 1910 and 1920, approximately 27,000 Chinese and Japanese immigrants entered the United States without documentation. Many of them moved into the western states of California and Washington.
Smuggling Asians into the United States became a lucrative business for many guides or “pilots”, even disguising Chinese and Japanese as Native Americans. They would dress them in “native garb” carrying baskets of sassafras” often raising little suspicion from the border guards. Immigrants were helped by Mexicans on the southern border although much later that willingness to assist decreased.
More border guards were added, especially the border with Mexico. Immigrants were expelled and sent back into Mexico with dire results. Mexican began to resent their presence in border towns even becoming hostile toward the Asian immigrants. During the 1930’s, the United States expelled thousands of immigrants at a tremendous cost to the government.
 Immigrants received no relief from discrimination and expulsion from the courts. The Supreme Court upheld many of the decisions of the government to restrict immigration.
In 1924, Congress enacted the National Origins Quote Act (Immigration Act) which barred any “alien ineligible for citizenship” from immigrating to the US. This act completely ends Asian immigration, except for Filipinos who are subjects of the US Immigration Acts, and halts the flow of Japanese laborers to Hawaii and mainland.

2. World War II and the Internment of Japanese Americans—1941-1945 (Part IV)
Besides slavery, the trail of tears of Native Americans and subsequent
racism and discrimination, one of the most egregious and horrific acts of racist policy and discrimination in American history was the uprooting and internment of Japanese Americans at the start of World War II. Erika Lee gives a graphic illustration of the impact on an individual family:
“Yoshiko Uchida was in her last year of college at the University of California at Berkley when the bombs fell on Pearl Harbor. She and her family listened to the shocking news on the radio around the lunchtime on December 7, 1941. By that evening her own father, a manager for a Japanese company, had been arrested by the FBI and classified as an ‘enemy alien.’ He was eventually sent to a camp in Missoula, Montana. In the spring of 1942, the rest of the Uchida family was given ten days’ notice to leave their home in Berkley. Labeled Family No. 13453 by the U.S. government, the Uchidas hurriedly put their affairs in order, sold or stored their possessions, gave away their beloved dog, and prepared to be relocated’ to a former horse racetrack that had been turned into the Tanforan ‘Assembly Center’ in San Bruno, California. From there, they were sent to the Topaz camp in Utah, and Uchida spent the war behind barbed wire.”
The attack lasted for two hours. Two thousand, four hundred and three people were killed, including 1177 crew men. The number of wounded were 1178. The Japanese military went on to strike the Malay Peninsula, Hong Kong, Wake and Midway Islands and the Philippines on the same day. Japanese Americans realized after the attack their lives would drastically change.
Within hours of the attack, the U.S. Constitution was suspended, and martial law was established. Japanese, Italian, and German nationals were classified as “enemy aliens.” FBI agents rounded up and arrested 1,367 Japanese in Hawaii and 924 in the continental United States. Using a list prepared prior to the attack, “by February 16, 1942, there were 2,192 Japanese being held in U.S. Department of Justice camps” (Lee).
On the eve of the attack on Pearl Harbor, there were 125,000 Japanese residing in continental United States. Japanese along the Pacific Coast states and Hawaii were rounded up and interned in Justice Department camps. FDR signed the Executive Order 9066, putting Japanese (primarily US citizens) in ten concentration camps without any legal due process. The government determined that out of “military necessity” Japanese, most of them citizens, had to be uprooted and incarcerated during the war. Canada, in its Western Provinces, expelled Japanese from the country.
After the Pearl Harbor bombing and America’s entry into the war,
Japanese Americans came under increased surveillance. The 1940 Alien Registration Act required all resident aliens over fourteen years of age to register annually with the federal government and provide their fingerprints. The US government was sure that the Japanese government had successfully planted spies in the United States. There were nineteen Americans arrested for spying for the Japanese government. All were white. It is noteworthy that the U.S. government did not intern citizens of German descent, nor subject them to intense surveillance as Japanese citizens.
As Erika Lee, drawing from two intelligence reports, pointed out that the “vast majority of Japanese in the USA were overwhelmingly loyal to the United States.” It was estimated to be at approximately 90%. Many wanted the opportunity to do more to help the war efforts for the United States but were denied the opportunity.
 Unfortunately, many Japanese Americans did not get the chance show their loyalty during the early stages of the war. At that time, the Hearst newspapers vilified Japanese Americans and called for a mass exclusion policy. California fired all Japanese Americans in its state’s civil service. With pressure from different groups, the United States went on to forced mass incarceration. More so, the government encouraged countries in Central and South America to impose restrictions on and/or deport Japanese citizens. Fourteen Latin American countries as well as Canada participated.
Erika Lee graphically paints a picture of living conditions for those in the camps: “Yoshiko Uchida spent the war years in ‘desert exile’ at the Topaz relocation camp in Utah. Her memoir describes monotonous days behind barbed wire in ‘crude, incomplete, and ill-prepared camps’ in a ‘city of dust. Frustration and discontent spread among a once proud and self-reliant people as a total of 120,000 Japanese Americans, including over 1,100 transferred from Hawaii and almost 6,000 born in camps, were incarcerated in ten War Relocation Authority camps located throughout the United States.”
These camps were either hastily constructed or renovated military bases or fairgrounds to accommodate large families into small spaces-rooms, twenty-by-twenty. These families had to move quickly without personal possessions and limited resources into places where the food quality was poor and sometimes scarce. The government encouraged Japanese Americans to accept their conditions and insisted their acceptance of these conditions was an act of patriotism or loyalty on their part to the United States.
Not all Japanese accepted the relocation to camps: Fred Korematu refused to comply and was arrested in 1942. The American Civil Liberties Union represented him in court with the claim that the incarcerations were unconstitutional, but the lower courts decided against him. The case was appealed to the Supreme court where three justice agreed with Fred Korematu; however, in 1944 a majority, six justices, upheld the government’s position of mass removal and incarceration, calling it “military necessity” during war times.
Although the loyalty of Japanese was questioned, the army was not hesitant in recruiting Japanese Americans to join the army and to fight in the European campaign against the Germans. They fought in segregated units, the 442 Regimental Combat Team and the 100 Infantry Battalion. The 100 Infantry fought under the motto, “Go for Broke,” which was memorialized in a Hollywood movie by the same name. They suffered many casualties, and the unit was known as the “Purple Heart Battalion.”
In 1944, the U.S. government announced that it would close all of the internment camps within a year. Within the same time frame, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in the case brought by Mitsuye Endo that “citizens who are concededly loyal” could not be held in War Relocation Authority camps. Mitsuye Endo was an American woman of Japanese descent who was placed in an internment camp. She filed a writ of habeas corpus that ultimately led to the Court’s ruling that the U.S. government could not continue to detain a citizen who was "concededly loyal" to the United States. This decision was within months of the same Court’s decision on the Fred Korematu’s case. In Endo, the Court skirted the constitutional issues in the previous case. Warned that the Court would decide for Endo, President Roosevelt issued Proclamation 21 the day before the ruling, which rescinded the exclusionary orders.
The internment camps had an adverse impact on Japanese Americans. During the war, approximately 5,500 renounced their citizenship and became known as “Native American Aliens.” Later, many of these citizens renounced their “renunciation,” and regained their citizenship in 1959.
In 1946, the last camp was closed, and, at the urging of the government many Japanese American relocated, outside of the West coast, to the East coast. They moved to cities, such as Chicago, Denver, New York, Cleveland and Detroit. In spite of the government’s efforts to resettle them away from the West, many of them refused and returned to their previous homes.
Believing that the racial discrimination that led to encampment has ended, Japanese Americans were disillusioned and came to realize that discrimination continued to follow them into their new communities. Realty companies refused to rent or sell houses to them. Japanese Americans joined forces with NAACP and other civil rights groups to fight discrimination and won. President Truman issued an executive order removing the designation of “enemy alien” from those who live within the territory of the United States. It would take years extending into the 1950s to ensure that Japanese Americans, including those from Latin American, were appropriately resettled.
How were other Asians treated during World War II? Erika Lee explains:
“World War II brought enormous changes for Asian Americans. While Japanese Americans were removed from their homes and incarcerated, other Asian Americans, including Chinese, South Asians, Filipinos, and Koreans became to be viewed as ‘good Asians’ whose homelands were wartime allies of the United States or were engaged in the struggle against Japan. At the same time, racism in the United States was increasingly seen as damaging the United States’ war effort and its fight against Asian powers. Decade-old Asian exclusion laws were abolished, and for these Asian Americans, World War II was a ‘good war’ that opened up new opportunities to participate in the American economy, military, and society. Asian Americans took full advantage.”
       
America’s allegiance for China grew during the war. The war began when Japan invaded China in 1937. The Chinese community responded to the humanitarian crisis created by the war. Chinese organizations in the USA and world-wide joined in the efforts to help China and to oppose Japan. The American media began a campaign to dismantle the decades old demagogueries, stereotypes of Chinese as cheap laborers, gamblers and prostitutes and to recast them as “Chinese friends,” who were “law-abiding, peace-loving and courteous people living among us.”
In response to the sentiment, the Magnuson Act repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. A quota of 105 per year was set for Chinese immigration. Chinese were granted the right to naturalization. The media campaign continued promoting the view that there were “good” and “model” Asians, like the Chinese, Koreans, or Filipinos. The “good ones” need to be distinguished from the “bad ones,” the Japanese. Sadly, the same media described what it considered the physical characteristics of the “good ones” from the “bad ones.” Needless to say, the negative aspects were attributed to the Japanese. To help white Americans to identify the good from the bad, many Chinese wore buttons during the war saying, “I am Chinese.”
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Madame Chiang Kai-shek, First Lady of China became close companions during the war. Madame Kai-shek promoted the war efforts of the China against Japan. Employment opportunities were opened for them. Furthermore, she promoted the efforts of Filipinos, an American ally to wrestle the Philippines from Japan’s control. The Japanese army invaded the “Fighting Filipinos” and for four months the Philippines struggled to repel the Japan but unsuccessfully.
Filipino Americans showed their patriotism to the United States fighting side-by-side with other American troops. Although not allowed initially to serve in the military because of their race, President Roosevelt changed the draft laws allowing them to join the services. Like the Chinese, Filipinos took advantage of the employment opportunities available to them. Most importantly, on July 2, 1946, President Truman signed the Luce-Celler Act, which granted Filipinos the right to become naturalized citizens, and increased their immigration quota to 100 per year. Two days later, the United States officially granted independence to the Philippines. Other rights and opportunities were provided to Filipinos.
Korean American struggled even more to gain full citizenship. Korea was a colony of Japan although Koreans fought to gain independence from Japan. Korean Americans supported that efforts for their homeland to gain independence. When war with Japan broke out, Koreans were considered “enemy aliens,” similar to Japanese Americans. Violence and hate crimes were perpetrated against Koreans. Korean’s assets were frozen but was released later after a relented campaign from Koreans Americans and others. At the conclusion of World War II with the lost by Japan, Korea was placed under a trusteeship and became a pawn in the struggle between the United States and Russia. This led to the division of the Korean Peninsula at the 38^th Parallel, which resulted in the two Koreas, North and South. The result of this division was the Korean War.
U.S. attitudes about Asian in the South changed after the war. Indians and other South Asians were allowed to immigrate, especially after India won its independence from the British. The United States now turned its attention to the spread of communism, and the tactics by some countries to intervene militarily into Southeast Asian countries. The Cold War had begun. Laws restricting immigration, in particular for Asian brides reuniting with their husbands were changed. In 1949, a naturalized U.S. citizen from India, Singh Saund entered politics and was elected to the House of Representatives from California and worked tirelessly to promote ideas of democracy abroad.
What unfortunately developed during the Cold War period, was the stereotype of “model minority” for some Asian Americans. This stereotype evolved in response to the ongoing civil rights movement in America during the 1960’s. The gains of the movement helped, not only African Americans, but also Asians and other minorities. The media and reactionary politicians contrasted African Americans with Asian Americans with the assumption that they achieved success the “old fashioned way” through hard work and perseverance. According to Erika Lee, these political and media members claimed, “They [Asians] did not protest in the streets calling for Black Power like some militant African Americans.”
Lee, further, explained that Asian Americans made many gains over the decades after the war, but they still faced discrimination when compared to whites.

3. The New Asian America: 1960—Present (Part V)
This was the new age of Asian revival. According to Erika Lee, the first is the passage of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act and the widespread involvement of Asians in a number of campaigns for civil rights, women’s liberation, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights and an end to the Vietnam war.
The 1960’s was a period of tremendous change and inclusion. It began with the election of the first Catholic, John F. Kennedy, to President of the United States. President Kennedy authored a book in 1958, A Nation of Immigrants, which celebrated America’s immigrant heritage, and it called for immigration reform. Unfortunately, Kennedy did not get the opportunity to see any changes because he was assassinated on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas. He was succeeded by his Vice President, Lyndon Baines Johnson.
Now President Johnson, without hesitation embraced the mantle of Kennedy and supported many of the policies of predecessor, in particular civil rights, voting rights and immigration reforms. He ended immigration quotas of the 1924 Immigration Act. He put the weight of the presidency on the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and in that same year, Congress passed and Johnson signed the Immigration and Nationality Act, which cleared the way for immigrants from Asian and other non-European countries.
The final bill did impose a global cap or numerical limits on immigration to the United States. Although not perfect, the bill changed the dynamics of immigration, in particular for Asians. During the 1980s, 7,338,000 immigrants came into the United States, followed by 6,943,000 entering from 1991 to 1997. During the 1980’s, eighty percent of the immigrants came from either Asia or Latin America.
The 2010 Census revealed that the largest group of Asian immigrants came from China. Prior to 1960, there were only 100,000 Chinese-born immigrants in the United States. As of the 2010, 3.3 million adult Chinese. Why did they come? They came as students, professionals and jobseekers during the 1960s, and to reunite with families who previously entered the country. Also, many came to escape the political situation in China and Taiwan. They came and established businesses and communities in the United States.
The next largest group of Asian immigrants were from the Philippines. As of 2010, there were 2.55 million Filipinos in the United States, making up 18% of adult Asian Americans. Around 8 million Filipinos or 10% of the Philippine population left their country and emigrated to about 140 countries around the world with the largest numbers coming to America. Filipinos worked in the health and medical profession. They had worked in the military bases in their country. They arrived and alleviated the shortage of medical personnel, especially in the inner cities and rural areas of the United States. Professionals faced difficulties in the Philippines with the repressive government of Ferdinand Marcos, and the civil unrest brought on by him. Fluent in English and educated, they left the country.
Coming to America was not without its difficulties. Medical professionals were faced with discrimination when trying to meet medical requirements in the United States. Nurses had to face obstacles and responded by collective action. The Foreign Nurse Defense Fund called attention to these discriminatory practices, persuading states to implement nondiscriminatory license examination and procedures.
The passage of the 1965 Act opened the door for immigrants from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. They represent the third largest groups of Asian immigrating to the Unites States. They also immigrated to other countries like in the Caribbean, East Africa, Canada and the United Kingdom.
These immigrants were fluent in English and many were educated in the United States. They were medical professionals, engineers, computer scientists and technically skilled personnel with skills and jobs open for them in the United States. In 1974, there were 100,000 engineers in India out of work. At the same time, the USA had a shortage of engineers. Many came to this country under the professional preferences provision of the 1965 Act. The 2010 Census counted over 1.73 American Indians.
Since 1965, Korean immigration came overwhelmingly from South Korea. By 2010, 1.2 million Koreans immigrated to the United States. Like earlier Koreans, immigrant during the 1980’s and 1990’s, they came as families. Professionals and students made up the bulk of immigrants. They were physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and dentists. Professional certifications from Korea were not always accepted in the United States, and many suffered because of their lack of fluency in English. Koreans flocked to the inner cities and took over grocery stores and small businesses that were previously owned by “older Jewish, Italian and Greek immigrants and second-generation families.” Erika Lee points out: “In general, they have higher median annual personal earnings than the U.S. population. But they also have higher poverty rates as well.’
Asian immigration would not be complete without the stories of Southeast Asians. This includes Vietnamese, Laos, Cambodians.
 The first American troops landed in Vietnam in 1963. By the end of 1966, there were over 400,000 soldiers in the country. U.S. soldiers carried the war into neighboring Cambodia and Laos in order to minimize the impact of the Vietcong using those countries to support the war. To many the war appeared winless and endless. The death toll for American troops climbed to over 53,000. Subsequently, President Johnson in 1968 announced the beginning of peace talks and negotiations with the North Vietnam government. In 1973, the U.S. government and the government of North Vietnam signed an agreement and U.S. troop began their withdrawal from the country, even with a weakened U.S. supported South Vietnam government that was doomed to fail.
Within two years, the South Vietnam government failed, and North Vietnam troops marched into Saigon city. Thus, began a mass exodus of leaders, over 4,000, and citizens who collaborated with the U.S government, and those who married soldiers while they were stationed there. In 1975, more than 130,000 refugees entered the U.S. from Vietnam, Kampuchea, and Laos as Communist governments were established in those countries following the end of the war.
        While many believed that the exodus would end in 1975, it did not happen. Refugees continued to leave escaping the oppressive governments in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. It was estimated that another 453,000 individuals entered the United States from 1975 to 1980.
One distinctive group are the Hmong people. The Hmong people are an ethnic group living mainly in southern China, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar. They assisted the war efforts for the French when they were in Vietnam, and later the Americans. To escape retaliation, a quarter of a million of them fled to the United States. They had few resources and struggled, but they made homes in the United States and contributed tremendously to the Asian American community here.
From the Asian American resettlements in the United States emerged a need to engage in proactive and prosocial justice activities to protect and support their needs in America. Asian American groups began to ally themselves with other civil rights, women rights, and LGBT organizations. Groups, like the Asian Women United and the Organization of Asian Women flourished in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

        Out of the civil rights and social justice movements came a desire among Japanese Americans to revisit and rectify past mistakes of the U.S. government, in particular the mass incarcerations of Japanese during World War II. These achievements can be summarized by the following:

• In 1976, President Gerald Ford rescinded Executive Order 9066 (Mass Incarceration), 34 years after WWII.
• In 1981, The Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment

of Civilians (set up by Congress) held hearings across the country and concluded the internment was a "grave injustice" and that Executive Order 9066 resulted from "race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership."

• In 1989, President George Bush signed into law an entitlement program to pay each surviving Japanese American internee $20,000.

The long history of Asian American and Pacific Islanders reveals other atrocities of the past committed under federal and state government, but not covered here. Many of them were addressed in the last two decades, and should be reviewed in another setting. This brief summary will end with one the last gestures of our government to rectify past injuries. First, at Berkley in California, the term “Asian American, Pacific Island” was first used to describe the group of persons from Asian, backing away from the use of the term “Orientals.” Second, in 1987, President George Bush formally signed the Proclamation establishing Asian Pacific American Heritage Week.
The final article next week will address the subject of “Violence Against Asian American, Pacific Islanders and the Stereotypical Statement: Model Minority.”

Resources:

1. The Making of Asian American, A History, Erika Lee, Simon and Schuster Paperback, NYC, 2015.
2. History of Anti-Asian Racism in the United States, The Daily Skimm, Published March 25, 2021.
3. Debunking the Model Minority Myth, USC Asian Pacific Museum, USC University of South California, Online Exhibit.
4. We Are Not Silent, Confronting America’s Legacy of Anti-Asian Violence, Time Magazine, April 21, 2021.