[2][3] The first Asians documented in the Americas arrived in 1587, when Filipinos landed in California;[4][5] from 1898 to 1946, the Philippines was an American possession.
[13] In 1898, Guam was ceded to the United States;[14] beginning in the 1900s, Chamorros began to migrate to California and Hawaii.
[19] A former congressional staffer in the 1970s, Jeanie Jew, first approached Representative Frank Horton with the idea of designating a month to recognize Asian Pacific Americans, following the bicentennial celebrations.
[21][22] A similar bill was introduced in the Senate a month later by Daniel Inouye and Spark Matsunaga.
[24][25][26] More than two decades later, on May 10, 1869, the golden spike was driven into the first transcontinental railroad, which was completed using Chinese labor.