by Madeline McWilliams

Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

By: Madeline McWilliams

History, Immigration and Background

In 1763, the first Asians to settle in the United States were Chinese and Filipino. In 1840, increasing numbers of Chinese workers immigrated to the western U.S; as well as Japanese and Koreans, in Hawaii. They were not granted citizenship, even if their children were born in the United States. This exclusion caused them to form their own communities where they can be self-sufficient.

Chinese people migrated to California during the Gold Rush and some were hired by the Central Pacific Railroad. Twelve thousand (12,000) Chinese railroad workers were hired to perform the dangerous jobs which other men refused to do. They dammed rivers, dug ditches, and blasted tunnels through mountain ranges. They often outperformed other laborers but were paid less. Despite the hardships, Chinese laborers never quit. Thanks to their hard work, America became the first continent to have a coast-to-coast railroad in 1869.

Immigration from India began in 1907. In 1941, Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japan. This caused the Japanese on the Pacific Coast hardships and discrimination. They were ordered to internment camps. In 1989, President George H.W. Bush signs into law an entitlement program to pay each surviving Japanese-American internee $20,000.

Today’s Asian and Pacific Americans are the fastest growing racial group in the U.S.; they do not feel the same sting of racial discrimination or the burden of culturally imposed “otherness” that was so much a part of their predecessors who came in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Madeline McWilliams