Asian American Religions from Chinese Exclusion to 1965

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne M. Blankenship
Keyword(s):  
Asian Americans ◽  
Asian American ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Asian Immigrants ◽  
Traditional Beliefs ◽  
Religious Minorities ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Chinese Exclusion ◽  
Asian Religions ◽  
Exclusion Act

This chapter charts the religious lives of South and East Asian Americans during the era of Asian exclusion—from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to the implementation of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965—and those of non-Asians who adopted elements of Asian religions to shape new approaches to those traditions. Religious organizations provided immediate social aid and fellowship, leadership opportunities, and a connection to immigrants’ homelands. Religious beliefs provided strength to Asian immigrants by helping them cope with discrimination, while social realities in America reshaped many of those traditional beliefs and practices. White sympathizers reimagined aspects of Asian religions and utilized them in new ways. The chapter follows four major themes: adaptation of religious minorities from Asia, the experiences of Christian Asian immigrants, Asian American religious responses to discrimination, and the ways in which non-Asians were drawn to Asian religions prior to 1965.

scholarly journals Communicating in the Face of Racism: Infinitive v. Gerund Verbal Complements in English

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Melody Pao
Keyword(s):  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
Asian Americans ◽  
Teaching Strategy ◽  
Lesson Plan ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Asian Immigrants ◽  
Asian Origin ◽  
Teaching Technique ◽  
The Face ◽  
Esl Learners

As COVID-19 continues to spread across the country, Asian Americans and Asian immigrants have experienced an increase in racist attacks. This paper presents a lesson plan that is intended to help English as a Second Language (ESL) learners of East Asian origin communicate in the face of racial discrimination. In addition to outlining this teaching technique, the article provides a linguistic analysis of the lesson plan’s grammatical focus: the distinction between infinitive and gerund verbal complements. The author argues that the Bolinger Principle, a theory that articulates the reasoning behind this distinction, provides an effective and meaning-informed teaching strategy for teaching infinitives and gerunds. The purpose of the article is to offer guidance for teachers who may wish to use this form-focused technique in their own classrooms. Keywords: ESL, racism, Asian immigrants, infinitive complements, gerund complements, Bolinger Principle

The Chinese Exclusion Act and Early Asian American Literature

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Railton
Keyword(s):  
American Literature ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Chinese American ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Chinese Exclusion ◽  
Yellow Peril ◽  
Laws And Policies ◽  
Immigration Station ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Exclusion Act

The 19th century featured two opposed yet interconnected historical trends: the growth of a multigenerational and deeply rooted Chinese American community; and the development of the cultural prejudices and fears comprised by the Yellow Peril narrative. Those xenophobic fears produced violence, social and political movements, and legal exclusions, culminating in the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act and its many follow-up laws and policies, all designed as much to destroy the existing Chinese American community as to restrict future immigration. But out of that period of exclusion and oppression came some of the first Chinese American literary and cultural works published in both Mandarin/Cantonese and English: the personal and collective poems carved into the walls of the Angel Island Immigration Station by detainees; auto-ethnographic memoirs of Chinese American life and community such as Yung Wing’s My Life in China and America (1909); and the journalistic, autobiographical, and fictional works of Edith Maude Eaton/Sui Sin Far, the first Chinese American professional creative writer. These works both reflect and transcend the realities of the Exclusion era, helping contemporary audiences understand those histories, connect them to later Chinese American writers, and analyze the exclusionary debates and proposals of the early 21st century.

scholarly journals The Impact of Structural Inequities on Older Asian Americans During COVID-19

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kris Pui Kwan Ma ◽  
Adrian Matias Bacong ◽  
Simona C. Kwon ◽  
Stella S. Yi ◽  
Lan N. Ðoàn
Keyword(s):  
Asian Americans ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Asian Immigrants ◽  
Language Diversity ◽  
Structural Racism ◽  
Vaccination Programs ◽  
Health And Wellbeing ◽  
Structural Inequities ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Racial Ethnic

Structural racism manifests as an historical and continued invisibility of Asian Americans, whose experiences of disparities and diverse needs are omitted in research, data, and policy. During the pandemic, this invisibility intersects with rising anti-Asian violence and other persistent structural inequities that contribute to higher COVID-19 mortality in older Asian Americans compared to non-Hispanic whites. This perspective describes how structural inequities in social determinants of health—namely immigration, language and telehealth access, and economic conditions—lead to increased COVID-19 mortality and barriers to care among older Asian Americans. Specifically, we discuss how the historically racialized immigration system has patterned older Asian immigrant subpopulations into working in frontline essential occupations with high COVID-19 exposure. The threat of “public charge” rule has also prevented Asian immigrants from receiving eligible public assistance including COVID-19 testing and vaccination programs. We highlight the language diversity among older Asian Americans and how language access remains unaddressed in clinical and non-clinical services and creates barriers to routine and COVID-19 related care, particularly in geographic regions with small Asian American populations. We discuss the economic insecurity of older Asian immigrants and how co-residence in multigenerational homes has exposed them to greater risk of coronavirus transmission. Using an intersectionality-informed approach to address structural inequities, we recommend the disaggregation of racial/ethnic data, meaningful inclusion of older Asian Americans in research and policy, and equitable investment in community and multi-sectoral partnerships to improve health and wellbeing of older Asian Americans.

Post-1965 Changes in Asian America

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Hinnershitz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Asian Americans ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
The United States ◽  
Asian Immigrants ◽  
World War ◽  
Chinese Exclusion ◽  
The 1960S

After World War II and through the 1960s, Asian Americans began a transformative process, from being the “yellow peril” to becoming the model minority, and Asian Americans in the South experienced, to some degree, the same transformation. The war and its mottos of fighting for freedom and democracy at home and abroad affected the way Americans viewed their own hypocrisy toward minorities in the United States. African Americans were the largest minority group to use the aims of the war to demand attention to their plight with Jim Crow, prompting the growth of a nationwide civil rights movement, but Americans also came to view the century-old forms of legal discrimination against Asian immigrants and Asian Americans in a new light. Not only did Congress repeal the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943 (making it legal for some Chinese to naturalize and allowing a small number of Chinese immigrants to enter the United States), but Filipino Americans and Indian Americans received similar treatment during and after World War II. In 1952, the McCarran-Walter Act (or the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952), although designed to protect American security during the early Cold War by prohibiting and deporting subversive aliens, also made it possible for Asian immigrants of all ethnicities to become American citizens (while the number of Asians admitted to the United States did not drastically increase). Americans also viewed the ability of Japanese Americans to overcome the massive civil rights violations of wartime imprisonment and achieve economic and educational success as a model for all minorities to follow. Asian Americans came through the fires of World War II and proved that they were loyal Americans and deserving of equal treatment and respect, and while more subtle and sometimes not so subtle forms of racism and discrimination ...

The New Gold Mountain

Trespassers? ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Willow S. Lung-Amam
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Asian Americans ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Growth And Development ◽  
Asian Immigrants ◽  
World War ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Look Back ◽  
Innovation Economy

This chapter explores why the valley became such an important hub of racial and ethnic diversity, especially among recently arrived Asian immigrants in the latter half of the 20th century and the early 21st century. Beginning with a brief look back at the pathways forged by early Asian American pioneers, the chapter focuses on the sweeping changes that occurred in the region economically, spatially, and socially after World War II. The chapter shows how Asian Americans navigated their new terrain and put down roots in working- and middle-class neighborhoods, in particular underscoring how the Fremont suburb's rapid growth and development were prefaced on the valley's booming innovation economy and Asian Americans' own suburban dreams.

Why Asian Americans are Becoming Mainstream

Daedalus ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 142 (3) ◽  
pp. 65-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor Nee ◽  
Hilary Holbrow
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Asian Americans ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
The United States ◽  
Asian Immigrants ◽  
Socioeconomic Attainment ◽  
Residential Communities ◽  
Asian Immigration ◽  
Asian American Immigrants

In contrast to earlier waves of immigration, the post–1965 Asian immigration to the United States has not spawned an exclusionist backlash among native whites. Rather, the new Asian immigrants and their children are rapidly gaining access to the American mainstream. Whether in integrated residential communities, in colleges and universities, or in mainstream workplaces, Asian Americans' presence is ever more the rule, not the exception. The success of so many Asian American immigrants suggests that race may not be as decisive a factor in shaping socioeconomic attainment as it was in the American past; civil rights reform has been incorporated in a more inclusive American mainstream. As a group in which those of legal status predominate, Asian Americans have enjoyed more open access to mainstream institutions, paving the way to their rapid assimilation.

scholarly journals "Chinese Girl Wants Vote"

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Grace Li
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Political History ◽  
Women's Suffrage ◽  
Chinese People ◽  
Chinese Exclusion ◽  
Chinese Girl ◽  
Exclusion Act ◽  
Women’S Suffrage

American suffrage history is dominated by white suffragettes; however, this essay aims to bring to light another vibrant dimension of the American women’s suffrage movement. Mabel Ping-Hua Lee turned tides when she marched horseback at a women’s suffrage parade at the age of sixteen, and further entrenched herself as a prominent Asian-American suffragette as she continued to fight for women’s suffrage throughout her lifetime, although the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 barred her and all Chinese people from voting or obtaining citizenship until the act was repealed in 1943. This article explores many dimensions of Mabel through several of her primary environmental and personal influences, from Guangzhou, China to New York City’s Chinatown, which all shaped her into an admirable, and selfless social justice advocate that claims an unforgettable chapter in American and Asian-American political history.

Epilogue

2019 ◽  
pp. 264-270
Author(s):  
Nancy E. Davis
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Public Perception ◽  
Chinese Women ◽  
Asian Immigrants ◽  
Chinese Exclusion ◽  
Global Commerce ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Made In China ◽  
Exclusion Act ◽  
Made In

The author uses the theory of parsimony to explain Afong Moy’s final years. The epilogue relays the changes occurring in the later nineteenth-century marketing, public perception, and use of “oriental” goods with the opening of Japan in 1854. The author considers the lives of other Asian immigrants such as Chang and Eng Bunker (called the Siamese Twins) and several known Chinese women who came after Afong Moy. The epilogue addresses the position of the Chinese immigrant in the nineteenth century with the passage of the 1884 Chinese Exclusion Act. A comparison of the “Made in China” goods of the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries with those of the earlier trade provides an understanding of China’s place in the golden chain of global commerce.

Stepping Aside for Elderly Persons in American versus East-Asian Cultures

2001 ◽  
Vol 88 (3) ◽  
pp. 664-666
Author(s):  
Broshel Lenea Baker ◽  
Jay Hewitt
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Group ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
Asian Americans ◽  
Asian American ◽  
East Asian ◽  
The Other ◽  
European American ◽  
Elderly Persons ◽  
European Americans

In the current study, younger (15–30 years of age) and older (60+ years of age) Asian-American and European-American individuals ( N = 160) were observed as they approached someone of the same ethnic group on a walkway at a city market. The interaction was recorded if one stepped aside and let the other pass. Younger Asian-Americans tended to step aside for older Asian-Americans. No such trend was observed among European-Americans. Results were discussed in terms of cultural values.

Transpacific Worlds: Visualizing Asian America in Chan is Missing and Dim Sum

Prospects ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 569-593
Author(s):  
Edward Tang
Keyword(s):  
Asian American ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Manifest Destiny ◽  
The United States ◽  
Asian Immigrants ◽  
Bharati Mukherjee ◽  
Asian America ◽  
The West ◽  
Cultural Experiences ◽  
Cultural Order

In a 1990 interview for the Bill Moyers television series A World of Ideas, the Asian-American writer Bharati Mukherjee assessed the cultural experiences of Asian immigrants in the Americas. Playing on the rhetoric of 19th-century Manifest Destiny, she asserted that Asian immigrants should come to America to “conquer” it, to possess the nation and make its ideals their own. After all, she argued, many of the original Euro-American pioneers and settlers had been “hustlers” capable of great violence in their westward conquest of the land and native peoples. Arriving from the East, Asian immigrants metaphorically would have to do battle to make the nation more inclusive, and actively overthrow their colonized images as “outsiders” or “Orientals” that have dominated American culture to this day. Doing so, however, requires that these newcomers to the West also “murder” their old selves. In her novel Jasmine (1989), Mukherjee elaborates: “There are no harmless, compassionate ways to remake oneself. We murder who we were so we can rebirth ourselves in the images of dreams.” Because America represents a “stage for transformation,” as she tells Moyers, these dreams of hope, of having choices and opportunities, are being claimed and reinvented continuously as different waves of new arrivals modify or challenge the rules of interaction. Asian immigrants must therefore cast off their stifling Old World traditions, ones that perpetuate “cynicism, irony, and despair” when reconstructing and negotiating through a cultural order now altered by their very presence in the United States.

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