Answers: The Asian American Experience
Advertisement from 1886 in which the manufacturer seeks to displace Chinese laundry operators. Source: Wikimedia Commons
The expansive term ‘Asian American’ covers people with roots in East and South Asia, encompassing divergent political, economic, cultural, linguistic and religious strains derived from their countries of origin. Immigrants have also been shaped by their home country’s historic relationship with America, ranging from American colonialism in the Philippines to Cold War and conflict in Vietnam. This quiz explores the complicated history of Asian American immigration, which gathered pace in the mid-19th century with the arrival of the Chinese during the California Gold Rush. They went on to play a major role in the building of railroads but a racist backlash resulted in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the only major U.S. law to bar immigration for a particular nationality. That was followed by the Johnson-Reed Act of 1924, which cut off all immigration from Asia.
While the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed during the Second World War, the door to citizenship for Indians and Filipinos was narrowly opened by the Luce-Celler Act of 1946. But the quota system that favoured Western Europe was repealed only in 1965. The immigration bill signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson welcomed immigrants from Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America for the first time. Its framework focused on reuniting families and attracting skilled workers continues to guide U.S. immigration policy today.
Answers
1) Which phrase was defined and popularised by the sociologist William Petersen in a New York Times article in 1966 titled ‘Success Story, Japanese-American Style’? Especially in recent years anti-racism activists say this phrase has shaped a narrative that pits minority groups against each another. (Question revised from initial version that said ‘Which phrase was first used’)
Model minority. Peterson did not directly use the phrase in the article, but explained the success of Japanese Americans in terms of hard work and self-reliance, contrasting them with those he called ‘problem minorities’. More here and here. Just months after Petersen’s piece, the ‘model minority’ definition was given another boost by an anonymously written article in the U.S. News & World Report on Chinese Americans titled ‘Success Story of One Minority Group in U.S’.
2) In May 1964, this high-profile Indian opposition politician and MP was turned away from a ‘whites-only’ restaurant in Jackson, Mississippi. He returned the next day and refused to leave, forcing the police to arrest and drive him away from the restaurant before releasing him. The State Department formally apologised to the Indian ambassador but the politician retorted “it may go to hell”. On hearing the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations had apologised, he said the ambassador should instead apologise to the Statue of Liberty. Name the Indian politician.
Socialist leader Ram Manohar Lohia. More here and here
3) The first actor of Asian descent to make a mark in the U.S. hailed from Japan. His first film in 1914 was a hit and he was soon directed by the likes of Cecil B. DeMille. He had a big following among white women but anti-miscegenation laws meant that he was unsuccessful in love on the screen unless his co-star was Asian. He also launched a briefly successful studio in 1918. Name the actor. (Hint: he is remembered today primarily for an Oscar-nominated best supporting actor role in a 1957 film that was both a commercial and critical success)
Sessue Hayakawa, Oscar nominee for Best Supporting Actor for The Bridge on the Riwer Kwai. More on Hayakawa’s silent era stardom here and here.
4) General Vang Pao had held the highest military rank ever achieved in his country by his community. He was recruited by the CIA to lead a failed anti-Communist offensive. By 1975 he was forced to flee to the U.S. and tens of thousands from his community followed him. He was effectively the community’s leader-in-exile until his death in 2011. Name Vang Pao’s community and the country he was forced to leave.
Hmong and Laos. More here, here and here. More on General Vang Pao here and here.
5) About one-third of all foreign-born nurses in the U.S. are from which country? (Hint: The existence of Americanised nursing programmes in this country helped it gain an advantage when immigration restrictions were eased in the 1960s)
Philippines. Multiple reports about Filipino nurses in the U.S. being disproportionately affected by the coronavirus have highlighted their role in healthcare. More here, here and here.
6) In 1988 the U.S. government officially apologised and President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act , which involved reparations to more than 100,000 people. Canada issued a similar apology and set up a compensation package the same year. Who did the governments apologise to?
Japanese Americans who were moved to internment camps during the Second World War. Among those detained as a child was Norman Mineta, who later was elected to the House of Representatives as a Democrat from California. Mineta was among the architects of the 1988 Civil Liberties Act. In 2000 President Bill Clinton picked him for Commerce Secretary, making him the first Asian American cabinet member.
7) In 1923, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against India-born Bhagat Singh Thind’s bid for citizenship. Thind had moved to the U.S. in 1913 and served in the U.S. army during World War I. What was Thind’s argument? (the case hinged on the definition of the word ‘Caucasian’)
Bhagat Singh Thind unsuccessfully argued that as an ‘upper caste’ ‘Hindu’ he descended from Aryans and was therefore Caucasian and ‘white’. The U.S. Supreme Court decided to rely on the ‘common man’ understanding of the term Caucasian and not a ‘scientific’ definition. More here, here and here. A critique of Thind’s ‘upper caste’ oriented argument here.
8) This measure backed by President Eisenhower was volubly opposed by segregationist southern Democrats. A House member complained that “the vote of one Chinaman in ————— would be worth as much as votes of 31 citizens of New York state when it came to electing Senators”. A Senator remarked “Perhaps we should become the United States of the Pacific, and finally should become the United States of the Orient.” This issue played into the Cold War as well, with the Soviet Union drawing attention to segregation and racism in the U.S. Finally in 1959 both houses of Congress overcame southern Democratic opposition and Eisenhower signed the bill into law. What resulted in 1959?
Hawaii with an Asian American majority became the 50th state of the U.S. in 1959. More here, here and here. Two years later Barack Obama was born in Honolulu.
9) Starting in the 1950s and peaking in the mid-1980s, this country was the largest source of internationally adopted children. More than 200,000 children born here have been adopted abroad, with adoption by Americans accounting for about two-thirds. The country has adopted tighter restrictions on adoption over the last three decades, substantially slowing the trend. Which country?
South Korea. Adoptions in the aftermath of the Korean war were initiated by Harry and Bertha Holt, an evangelical couple from rural Oregon who set up an orphanage in South Korea. They paid particular attention initially to orphans with Black American fathers and Korean mothers who were particularly shunned in Korean society. More here, here, here and here.
10) A farmer-turned elected local judge in California, he ran for Congress in 1956. His Democratic primary opponent tried to get him disqualified, arguing he had not been a U.S. citizen long enough to serve in the House. After winning the primary, he faced off against Republican Jacqueline Cochran, a pioneering woman aviator in a nationally-watched race. Cochran, a friend of President Eisenhower, outspent her opponent and vilified him using racial slurs. But she was outsmarted by her rival’s tireless on-the-ground campaigning. Who made history with his victory?
Dalip Singh Saund, the first Asian American elected to the U.S. Congress. Saund was born in Punjab, India and arrived in the U.S. as a student, securing a PhD in Mathematics. Denied citizenship and academic opportunities, he took up farming in California. In the 1940s he set up the India Association of America, which was among the groups that successfully pushed for the 1946 Luce-Celler Act, that opened the door to U.S. citizenship for Indians. More here and here. Reports from the 1950s here, here and here.
11) Last year, California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed a lawsuit against tech giant Cisco over allegations that an employee had been discriminated against by his supervisors. The state used sections from the Civil Rights Act to make its case, though the U.S. does not have laws specifically addressing this particular form of discrimination. What is this historic lawsuit all about?
Caste-based discrimination. A Dalit immigrant employee with Cisco of Indian descent accused his supervisors of Indian heritage from ‘upper castes’ of discriminating against him. More here, here and here.
February 2023 update: Seattle has become the first U.S. city to ban caste discrimination and the first in the world to pass such a law outside South Asia. More here.
12) A ballot measure pushed by California’s Republican Governor Pete Wilson in 1996 was backed by a majority of voters and became law. This impacted hiring and contracting by the state government as well as university admissions. Developments in the summer of 2020 gave momentum to a statewide vote to repeal the 1996 law, or so supporters hoped. But the bid failed, despite a funding advantage, high-profile endorsements and a dramatic change in the state’s political landscape compared to 1996. What is the issue?
Affirmative action. The 1996 vote blocked state agencies and universities in California from enacting affirmative action measures in hiring, contracts and admissions. The 2020 bid to overturn the 1996 vote failed, in part due to a divided Asian American vote. More here and here.
13) Dr. Haing S. Ngor was a surgeon in his home country before being imprisoned in a concentration camp. In 1979, he and his ten-year-old niece escaped and made it to Thailand and eventually the U.S. Five years later, he played the role of a photojournalist in an Oscar-winning film and made history with the best supporting actor prize. Name the film and the country Dr. Ngor hailed from.
The Killing Fields and Cambodia. More here, here, here and here.
14) The Workingmen's Party of California led by Ireland-born Denis Kearney spoke out against capitalism and monopolies and was briefly influential in the San Francisco Bay Area during the 1870s. Kearney achieved prominence for a time with his appeals to the disaffected white working-class. His party succeeded in inserting discriminatory laws into the state constitution and this soon had nationwide implications. His fiery speeches often ended with a slogan. What was the slogan?