Jonathan H - History of Asian Americans: Exploring Diverse Roots

History of
ASIAN
AMERICANS

Exploring Diverse Roots

Jonathan H. X. Lee

Copyright 2015 by ABC-CLIO, LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lee, Jonathan H. X.

History of Asian Americans : exploring diverse roots / Jonathan H. X. Lee.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 9780313384585 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 9780313384592 (ebook) 1. Asian AmericansHistory. I. Title.

E184.A75L4452015

973.0495dc23 2014032354

ISBN: 9780313384585

EISBN: 9780313384592

19 18 17 16 15 1 2 3 4 5

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For my son, Owen Edward Jinfa Quady-Lee

History of Asian Americans: Exploring Diverse Roots documents the historical experiences of Asian Americans since the early 1850s. It provides detail coverage of pre-1965 Chinese, Japan, Korean, South Asian, and Filipino American historical experiences, as well as post-1965 waves of Asian migration to the United States that include the post-1975 Vietnam War experiences of refugees and immigrants from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Moreover, it begins the work of documenting newer Asian Americans who arrived since the 1990s, such as Burmese, Indonesian, Thai, Mongolian, Tibetan, Nepali, and Pakistani Americans. It also uses 2010 U.S. Census data to illustrate the demographic and geographic diversity of the Asian American contributions to Americas diverse mosaic.

It is important that I acknowledge Kim Kennedy-White, who invited and encouraged me to take on History of Asian Americans: Exploring Diverse Roots. I wish to also thank my students at San Francisco State University who informed much of the structure, coverage, and content of this volume. Funding from the College of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University, made it possible for me to work on and complete this volume. Thank you, John McClure of the Virginia Historical Society, for assisting me in fact-checking; thank you, Laurie Reemsnyder, photographer, for generously giving permission to publish photos that document Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese refugees resettlement; and thank you to my research assistant, Sidney C. Li, for assisting me in data collection and archival and library research. I also wish to acknowledge support from Mark S. Quady, Yaccaira de la Torre, Dominic Cabrera, Joel Cabrera, Earlita Chenault, and Johnetta G. Richards. Additionally, I wish to acknowledge my colleagues whose advice, conversations, and expertise assisted me in many ways. However, any error is solely my responsibility.

The majority of scholarship on the history of Asians in the United States, or Asian American history, documents the experiences of older and larger Asian American communities, in particular the historical experiences of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, South Asian (from present-day India), Filipinos, and postVietnam War refugees from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. The content and coverage is imbalanced in favor of the preVietnam War Asians in America. In History of Asian Americans: Exploring Diverse Roots, I have endeavored to provide some correction to the imbalance in presentation and coverage; however, much more work remains. The structure and coverage is informed by limitation in length of the book, as well as by the target audience, namely undergraduate students. I have taught the History of Asians in the United States course at San Francisco State University since 2009 and have oscillated between assigning Ronald Takakis Strangers from a Different Shore (1989) and Sucheng Chans Asian Americans: An Interpretive History (1991). Chronologically, History of Asian Americans: Exploring Diverse Roots extends coverage beyond post-1975 Vietnam War refugee resettlements and is inclusive of more ethnic-racial communities.

The narrative of this book continues the earlier works in documenting and sharing the stories of Asian immigrants-cum-Americans who struggle for the right to be legally, socially, culturally, and economically fully American. It is informed by Michael Omi and Howard Winants longue dure approach to the study of race, race politics, and racial formation in the United States (2015). A cursory glance at American history reveals that far from being colorblind, the United States has been an extremely color-conscious society. Color-conscious race politics informed public policies, flamed and fueled by social forces and ideological structures of white and Christian supremacies that limited Asian Americans and their right to be fully American. Asian American citizenship and race, their being and belonging, is contested throughout American history and society in both collective actions and personal practices. In , one narrative that is highlighted is the manner in which white supremacy, as an ideology and practice, is able to produce a racial hierarchy that restricts Asians in America and Asian Americans from being fully American. It reflects Adrian Cruzs definition of white supremacy as a social force that distributes resourcespolitical, economic, and socialin such a way that the lived experiences and material outcomes are differentiated for each group (2010, 30).

The goal of History of Asian Americans: Exploring Diverse Roots is to provide readers with a balanced narrative of the Asian American experience that puts Asian Americans squarely in historical discourse that is influenced by transnational and global historical forces, and not as sidenotes in American history. It presents narratives of how immigrants come to the United States to make new homes, transplant roots, create new ways of life and communities, and contribute to an ever-shifting American landscape. This book focuses on people, and the political, social, economic, and cultural variables that shape and inform their lives. It is grounded on the idea of one America, with many different varieties of Americans whose length of time in the United States and degrees of acculturation varies. Furthermore, History of Asian Americans: Exploring Diverse Roots continues the work of Asian American studies, which was born on March 20, 1969, when a settlement was signed at San Francisco State College (now University) to establish the countrys first and still only School of Ethnic Studies (now the College of Ethnic Studies). This was one of the results of the Third World Liberation Front strike that began on November 6, 1968. This legacy informs Asian American studies raison dtreits pedagogy and researchinside and outside of the classroom. Asian American studies is founded on the dual principles of self-determination and social justice. Asian American self-determination is expressedindividually and collectivelyfrom the demand of Asian American subjectivity: knowing Asian Americans through history, art, literature, social sciences, and education, but also as subjects of research.