Asian American activism
For instance, with the popularization of the "Yellow Peril" narrative, multiple Japanese restaurants and bathhouses were vandalized by a group of white supremacists in San Francisco in May 1907.
Asian Americans lamented the harsh regulations and discrimination which had been imposed upon them by the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882 – 1943) and the Angel Island Immigration Station (1910 – 1940).
Amid the industrial capitalist expansion, a large number of Asian immigrants were admitted to the United States to fulfill the labor shortage.
In face of the labor exploitation and exclusion, Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Japanese and South Asian immigrants actively resisted through legal means, strikes and protests, and letter writing to show they also deserved U.S. citizenship and protection of rights as White Americans.
[19] Others took advantage of the checks and balances of the American political system by using litigation in the federal courts to combat the forces that opposed their entry.
[26] Trapped in what Manuel Buaken described as "a pit of economic slavery," Filipino workers started to organize collectively against labor exploitation and poor working and living conditions.
However, the stoppages were not sufficient to alleviate the mistreatment, which eventually led to the "Great Strike of 1909" when thousands of Japanese workers across Hawaii protested against the plantation owners and demanded better pay and welfare.
In response to the growing racism stimulated by the "Yellow Peril" trope, Japanese immigrants formed their own organizations and social clubs to advance their interests as a group.
While some vocally opposed to the discriminatory laws claiming that they were unconstitutional, some attempted to mold the mass of Japanese as respectable subjects that were assimilable to the mainstream American community.
In 1922, Takao Ozawa, a Japan-born immigrant who had lived in the United States for more than twenty years, countered the US ban on naturalized citizenship on Japanese by filing his case to the Supreme Court.
Some protested against the poor working and living conditions, as seen in the strike at Tule Lake, but ended up being violently suppressed by the War Relocation Authority.
The rise of liberal, radical ideas especially among college students prompted a series of social and political movements against racism, colonialism, imperialism, gender inequality and so on.
[36][37] The Movement spanned from the 1960s to the mid-1970s, and it signified an uptick in representation and activism within the Asian American community, a response to the discriminatory policies and sentiments which it had faced for a very long time.
[40] Not only was the strike beneficial for the representation of Asian Americans in the political and activist sphere, but achieved widespread, tangible results for labor rights and the unionization of minorities in the United States.
The movement was met with backlash and hostility from growers and police, but received support from figures like Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F Kennedy.
The battle for the International Hotel in San Francisco involved UC Berkeley students and different groups of activists, who protested the rapid urban renewal of largely minority communities.
[51] A result of the Killing of Vincent Chin and the trial that ensued was that there was now a larger population of people who could identify with the new pan-Asian American community and protest violations of their civil rights.
For instance, Crystal Jang was among the earliest Chinese Americans who publicly challenged anti-LGBTQ laws by speaking up against the Briggs Initiative, a California proposition that legalized the firing of all LGBTQ teachers.
Their mission is built on the Ferguson National Demands,[60] which call for the elimination of discrimination and police brutality and support in employment and housing for oppressed people in the US.
The slogan "Stop Asian Hate" was frequently used in February 2021 and the usage of it became more popular due to an increase in the number of attacks which were committed against elderly Asian-Americans, like the killing of Vicha Ratanapakdee, which occurred one month earlier.
Make Us Visible is a volunteer-driven organization empowering local communities to advocate for the inclusion of Asian American and Pacific Islander history in K-12 classrooms.
In January 2022, New Jersey became the 2nd state the require the inclusion of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) history in public school curriculum after Governor Phil Murphy signed bill S4021/A6100 into law.
[70] These legislative acts were led by the New Jersey chapter of Make Us Visible (MUV NJ), which has advocated for the teaching of Asian American history and worked to create state resources.
In August 2022, Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee signed legislation mandating public elementary and secondary schools to include a unit of Asian American history in their curriculum.
[72] This legislation was led by Rhode Island's chapter of Make Us Visible (MUV RI) and introduced by Representative Barbara Ann Fenton-Fung.
The bipartisan bill was introduced by Cuban American legislators Representative Susan Plasencia and Senator Ana Maria Rodriguez.
[81] For example, during the February 2016 protests against Peter Liang's conviction of manslaughter for the shooting of Akai Gurley, Chinese Americans organized rallies primarily through WeChat.
The 1930 strike led to the founding of the Alaska Canneries Worker Union, which aims to mandate 8 hour work-days that supports overtime.
[93] The painful experiences of her internment, coupled with her father's death made Kochiyama aware of governmental abuses the violations of human rights that have been experienced by minority groups in the United States.
Kochiyama's activism started in Harlem in the early 1960s, where she participated in the Asian American, Black, and Third World movements for civil and human rights, ethnic studies, and against the war in Vietnam.
