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Our Asian-American Heritage
A
bittersweet heritage born of colonial exploitation. Carried across time on the
backs of thousands of coolies, the Asian-American heritage persevered. Held down
by exclusionary and unjust laws for a full century, it can now bloom in full.
Asian-Pacific Heritage Week proclaimed in 1987 pays homage and tribute the this
heritage of hard work, family values, ingenuity and patience.
Major Timeline
1763
First recorded settlement of Filipinos in America. Filipino sailors
jumped ship in New Orleans to escape imprisonment aboard Spanish galleons
and fled into the bayous of Louisiana.
1848
Gold discovered in California. Chinese begin to arrive.
1858
California passes a law to bar entry of Chinese and
"Mongolians."
1859
Chinese children excluded from San Francisco public schools.
1865
Central Pacific Railroad Co. recruits Chinese workers for the
transcontinental railroad.
1869
Completion of first transcontinental railroad.
1875
Page Law in Congress bars entry of Chinese, Japanese, and "Mongolian
prostitutes, felons, and contract laborers.
1882
Chinese Exclusion Law suspends US immigration of laborers for ten years.
1885
Anti-Chinese violence at Rock Springs, Wyoming Territory, results in many
dead.
First group of Japanese contract laborers arrives in Hawaii.
1892
Geary Law renews exclusion of Chinese laborers for another ten years and
requires all Chinese to register.
1898
The Philippine Islands become a protectorate of US.
Hawaii is also annexed by the United States.
1903
First group of 7,000 Korean workers arrives in Hawaii to work as
strikebreakers against Japanese workers.
1904
Punjabi Sikhs begin to enter British Columbia.
1907
President Theodore Roosevelt signs Executive Order 589 prohibiting
Japanese with passports for Hawaii, Mexico, or Canada to reemigrate to the
US.
First group of Filipino laborers arrives in Hawaii.
Asian Indians are driven out of Bellingham, Washington.
1910
Angel Island Immigration Station opens to process and deport Asian
immigrants.
1913
California passes alien land law prohibiting "aliens ineligible to
citizenship" from buying land or leasing it for longer than three years.
1918
Servicemen of Asian ancestry who had served in World War I receive right
of naturalization.
1921
Washington and Louisiana pass alien land laws.
1923
US v. Bhagat Singh Thind declares Asian Indians not eligible for
naturalized citizenship.
Idaho, Montana, and Oregon pass alien land laws.
Webb v. O'Brien rules that sharecropping is illegal because it is a ruse
that allows Japanese to possess and use land.
1924
Immigration Act denies entry to virtually all Asians.
1934
Tydings - McDuffie Act spells out procedure for eventual Philippine
independence and reduces Filipino immigration to 50 persons a year.
1941
December 7 - Japanese planes attack Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. United States
enters World War II.
1942
Internment of Japanese-Americans.
1943
Congress repeals all Chinese exclusion laws, grants right of
naturalization, but a very small immigration quota to Chinese (105 per year)
1950-53
Korean War
1956
California repeals its alien land laws.
1962
Daniel K. Inouye becomes U.S. senator and Spark Matsunaga becomes US
congressman from Hawaii.
1965
Immigration Law abolishes "national origins" as basis for
allocating immigration quotas to various countries - Asian countries now on
equal footing with others for the first time in US history.
1968
Students on strike at San Francisco State University to demand
establishment of ethnic studies programs.
1975
More than 130,000 refugees enter the U.S. from Vietnam, Kampuchea, and
Laos as Communist governments are established there following the end of the
Indochina War.
1978
Massive exodus of "boat people" from Vietnam.
1987
First formal signing of the Proclamation of Asian Pacific American
Heritage Week by the White House.
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