Timeline

AN ASIAN AMERICAN TIMELINE

In order to better understand the Korean American experience in the context of the larger Asian Pacific American community, the following timeline is provided below.

499	A Chinese priest named Hui Shen reportedly travels to the North American continent.

1587	The Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de Esperanza (Our Lady of Hope) lands in California, bringing Filipino crewmembers who act as scouts for the landing party.

1790	The first U.S. Naturalization Act allows only “free White persons” to become U.S. citizens.

1830	The first U.S. Census notation of Chinese in America – the count is three. In 1840, the Census number eight; by 1850, the figure is 758. These early Census figures probably did not include other Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States.

1843	May 7. The first Japanese arrive in the United States.

1848	Chinese begin to arrive, some as indentured servants, during the California Gold Rush. Many of these immigrants later become a source of cheap labor for railroads, mines, fisheries, farms, orchards, canneries, garment and cigar factories, bootmakers, etc.

1854	California Supreme Court rules that no Chinese person could testify against a white person in a California court. California has the largest Chinese population in the United States. This ruling stood until 1873.

1856	Foreign miners are harshly taxed to prevent Chinese from panning for gold. Unemployed whites feel that Chinese are stealing their jobs because the Chinese are willing to work for lower wages.

1868	149 Japanese contract workers arrive in Hawai’i to work on sugar plantations.

1869	May 10. The Transcontinental Railroad is completed by driving a golden spike to join the two ends. Ninety percent of the laborers who built the Central Pacific section from California to Utah are Chinese immigrants.

1870	The Naturalization Act excludes Chinese from becoming citizens and later prohibits the wives of laborers to enter the country (1910). Asian-born immigrants are not allowed the right to citizenship for almost a century until World War II and after.

	The Asian population in the United States exceeds 105,000.

1880	A treaty between the United States and China gives the United States the right to limit Chinese immigration.

1882	The Chinese Exclusion Act prohibits entrance of Chinese laborers, and prohibits courts from issuing citizenship. The Exclusion Act was intended to last for only 10 years, but was later extended to 1902 and became permanent until its was repealed in 1943. The Chinese become the first ethnic group to be barred from immigration to the United States.

	Chinese merchants, particularly launderers and miners, are excessively taxed and certain occupations are restricted: medicine, teaching, dentistry, mining, railroading, and manufacturing.

1883	The Japanese replace the Chinese as a source of cheap labor after the Exclusion Act.

1890	Significant Japanese immigration begins, mostly male laborers from Hawai’i.

1898	Wong Kim Ark challenges the Supreme Court, and establishes all American-born Asians the irrefutable right to citizenship.

1900	Executive Order 589, one document commonly referred to as the “Gentlemen’s Agreement,” is issued by President Theodore Roosevelt. The Japanese government agrees to stop issuing passports for laborers emigrating to the American mainland, but through this agreement, allows departure for Hawai’i. The agreement becomes law in 1907.

	Several Japanese become naturalized subjects of the kingdom of Hawai’i, but the U.S. territorial government, imposed in 1898, refuses to recognize them as U.S. citizens.

1901	January 9. The first Korean immigrant, Peter Ryu, arrives in Hawai’i on a Japanese ship, Kongkong Maru.

	California’s anti-miscegenation law is amended to bar marriages between whites and “Mongolians,” which means people of Asian heritage. This law remains in effect until 1948.

1903	January 13. The first significant group of Korean immigrants (103 men, women and children) arrive in Honolulu Harbor on the S.S. Gaelic as contract laborers in Hawai’i.

1904	Congress amends the 1882 anti-Chinese immigration law to exclude immigrants from the Philippines, Guam, Samoa, and even Hawai’i.

1907	The Gentlemen’s Agreement becomes law, preventing Japanese immigrants from entering the United States.

1908	Buntaro Kumagai, honorably discharged from the U.S. Army, is denied naturalization on the grounds that the words “any alien” means those who are not “free white persons or those of African descent.”

1910	Japanese and Korean picture brides begin arriving in substantial numbers in the United States.

	With U.S. support, Japan officially declares Korea its colony. [Result: Korean immigrants are recognized by the U.S. government as Japanese nationals.] President Teddy Roosevelt accepts the Nobel Peace Prize in May, becoming the first American to achieve the Nobel prize in any category, which was awarded to him for helping to maintain the balance of power in the East by bringing the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05) to an end. He achieves that alleged balance by “giving” the country of Korea to Japan.

	Angel Island is set up as a detention center for non-laboring Asian immigrants. There are long waiting periods under inhumane conditions, and some even commit suicide.

1913	May 19. The California legislature passes the Alien Land Act, and it is signed into law. According to the statute, a person ineligible for U.S. citizenship is forbidden to purchase land for agricultural purposes, and may lease property for no more than three years. Similar laws are adopted in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Arizona, New Mexico, Nebraska, Texas, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, and Minnesota.

1917	February 5. President Woodrow Wilson vetoes a bill passed by Congress on December 14, 1916, but Congress overrides his veto. The Asiatic Barred Zone Act establishes a zone of countries that excluded immigrants from most of Asia, the Pacific Islands, as well as parts of Russia, the Middle East, and Afghanistan.

1922	September 22. Congress passes the Cable Act, which revokes the U.S. citizenship of any woman citizen marrying an alien ineligible for U.S. citizenship. The law is predominantly aimed at American-born Asian women marrying immigrant Asian men.

1923	Citing anthropologists who declare Indians “biologically Caucasian,” Bhagat Singh Thind applies for naturalization, but the U.S. vs. Bhagat Singh Thind decision officially bars Asian Indians as well as other Asians from citizenship.

1924	May 26. President Calvin Coolidge signs into law the Immigration Act of 1924, also known as the Quota Immigration or National Origins Act. It excludes the immigration of all Asian laborers, except from the Philippines, which was by then a U.S. territory. But that, too, comes to a virtual end with the 1934 Tydings-McDuffie Act, which promised independence to the Philippines in 10 years but limited Filipino immigration to a mere 50 individuals a year.

	Congress passes the American Indian Citizenship Act, finally allowing Native Americans to become citizens in their own homeland.

1925	May 25. The Supreme Court rules on the case of Chang Chan et al. V. John D. Nagle, declaring that Chinese wives of U.S. citizens are not allowed to come to the United States in accordance with the Immigration Act of 1924.

1934	March 24. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Tydings-McDuffie Act, which prohibits Filipino immigration. The Act declares the Philippines a commonwealth, although independence will not be granted until 10 years after the passage of the bill. All foreign-born Filipinos are now aliens, not nationals and their immigration is restricted to 50 a year. This results in the long-term separation of many families.

1941	December 7. Japan attacks Hawai’i. The first casualty in the United States as a result of anti-Japanese fervor is actually a Chinese American in Seattle who is mistakenly assumed to be Japanese and consequently murdered.

	December 9. 160 issei (first generation) Japanese community leaders are sent to the Sand Island (Honolulu) detention camp.

1942	February 19. President Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066 authorizing the Secretary of War or his designated military commander to establish military areas and to exclude civilians from these areas. This action is responsible for removing and imprisoning 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast. Ironically, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, predominantly made up of second-generation Japanese Americans and led by a Korean American, Colonel Young Oak Kim, becomes the most decorated military unit for its size and length of service in U.S. history.

	April 20. At the request of the U.S. government, 141 South American civilians of Japanese ancestry arrive in San Francisco aboard a U.S. vessel. By the end of 1943, 2,100 persons of Japanese ancestry, most from Peru, have been brought to the United States fro possible future prisoner exchanges.

1945	August 14. Japanese Emperor Hirohito broadcasts Japan’s decision to surrender.

1946	The War Brides Act of 1946 admits the alien wives and children of U.S. servicemen on a nonquota basis.

1946	March 20. The last of the Japanese American internment camps, Tule Lake, closes.

1948	The California Supreme Court declares California’s ban on interracial marriage unconstitutional.

	Platform diver Sammy Lee, the son of Korean immigrants who had already earned his medical degree, becomes the first Asian American to win an Olympic gold medal. Four years later, he would become the first male diver to win back-to-back gold medals.

1950	June 25. The Korean War begins. The conflict eventually brings both Korean War brides and Korean War orphans to the United States.

1952	The McCarran-Walter Immigration and Nationality Act goes into effect, repealing the National Origins Act of 1924 and allowing immigration quotas to Japan and other Asian countries. This Act gives the rights of naturalization and eventual citizenship for Asians not born in the United States and sets a quota of 105 immigrants per year for each Asian country.

1953	May 2. The day is declared Korean Day in the United States, and U.S. citizens are encouraged to make donations in money and materials to assist Koreans.

1956	South Asian American Dalip Singh Saund becomes the first Asian American to be elected to the U.S. Congress; during his term, he forged a measure through Congress that allowed Indians to become U.S. citizens

1959	Chinese American Hiram Fong becomes the first American of Asian descent to be elected to the U.S. Senate when he becomes Hawaii’s first senator

1960	June 13. McCarthyism hits the Asian American communities with Kimm vs. Rosenberg, in which the U.S. Supreme Court rules that a Korean national should be deported for refusing to answer whether or not he is a Communist.

1962	Wing Luke, the son of an immigrant laundryman, is elected to the Seattle City Council, becoming the first Asian American elected official in the Pacific Northwest. After his tragic death in a 1965 plane crash, the community fulfilled his dream by establishing a multicultural Asian American museum bearing his name in 1967.

1964	August 7. In the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, Congress authorizes President Lyndon Johnson to take military action again North Vietnam.

1965	October 3. President Johnson signs a new immigration law that not only repeals the National Origins Act of 1924, but also establishes a new immigration policy to enable Asian immigrants to come to the United States.

	Rapid population growth, urbanization, and the increasingly authoritarian character of the Korean government fuels Korean immigration to the United States. By 1976, Korean immigration exceeded 30,000, leading to the emergence of “Koreatowns” in Los Angeles and Chicago.

	Japanese American Patsy Takemoto Mink becomes the first Asian Pacific American woman elected to Congress.

1967	June. Anti-miscegenation laws are ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court ( Loving v. Virginia ).

1968	Students at San Francisco State University go on strike to demand establishment of an Ethnic Studies program.

1969	January 11. The University of California at Berkeley’s “Yellow Identity” conference draws 900 attendees.

	January 19. UC Berkeley students strike for three months to urge instituting Ethnic Studies.

	March 4. The UC Berkeley faculty votes 550 to 4 in favor of establishing an Ethnic Studies Department.

1969	Demonstrating in union with the Civil Rights Movement throughout California, which is happening concurrently with the events that take place on the campuses of SF State and UC Berkeley, “Orientals” claim their new identity as Asian Americans.

1975	Communist victories Vietnam and Cambodia initiate large-scale immigration of Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian refugees to the United States.

1976	Executive Order 9066, responsible for the evacuation, removal, and detention of persons of Japanese ancestry during World War II, is officially rescinded.

1982	June 22. Vincent Chin, a 27-year-old Chinese American in Detroit, is bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat by two unemployed autoworkers who blame layoffs in the auto industry on the Japanese. The two assailants mistake Chin for being Japanese. Although arrested, the two white men do not serve any jail time and are, in effect, given a mere slap on the wrist; they eventually violate probation and “disappear.”

1985	Ellison Onizuka becomes the first Asian Pacific American in space. He later died in the Challenger tragedy in 1986.

1987	July 1. The first Ivy League Asian American Studies program is established at Cornell University, with a budget of $100,000 and staff of three.

1988	August 10. The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 (Redress Bill HR 442 for Japanese Americans) is signed by President Reagan. It recognizes the grave injustice done to Japanese Americans with the nation’s apologies. Each of the approximately 60,000 surviving persons who were sent away from their homes into the detention camps is offered $20,000 in compensation.

1990	President George Bush designates May as Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. The tradition continues, stronger than ever.

1992	April 29. Riots erupt in Los Angeles after the verdict came down from the first Rodney King trial. The announcement of the police officers’ acquittal triggered rioting and looting in South Central Los Angeles, eventually spreading to Koreatown and other areas. The violence was so intense that more than 50 persons were killed, and over 14,000 were arrested; property losses were estimated to be $1 billion. When the uprising subsided four days later, about 2,300 Korean-owned businesses had been looted or burned, and Korean American businesses suffered roughly half of the estimated $1 billion loss. Known among Koreans as “Sa-I-Gu” (literally, four-two-nine, or April 29), the riots shattered the faith of Korean Americans who had slowly built their dreams in search of a better life in the United States.

1993	June 8. After a 36-day hunger strike that began in May, Asian American students at UC Irvine finally get the administration to agree to establish an Asian American Studies program.

1996	November 5. Democrat Gary Locke is elected the 21 st Governor of Washington state, making him the first Chinese American governor in the United States, and the first Asian American governor on the U.S. mainland. He is reelected to a second term on November 7, 2000. In July 2003, Locke announces that he will not seek a third term.

2000	April. The 2000 U.S. Census shows that the Asian Pacific American population is approximately 12.5 million, or approximately 4.5% of the total U.S. population, a growth of 7.3 million from the 1990 Census. [For highlights, check http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/2003/cb03-ff05.html] Other findings include:
	APAs had the highest median family and household incomes APAs owned the most expensive homes APAs are the best-educated among all groups, topping even non-Hispanic whites during the past decade.
	HOWEVER, what the numbers did NOT show:
	APA per capita income lagged more than 10% behind that of non-Hispanic whites (while Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders were 40% lower), also the average household size is larger among APAs Higher home values are in large part because of the propensity of APAs to live in expensive urban areas in high cost-of-living states like Hawai’i, California, and New York Higher education can be explained by the fact that the Asians allowed to immigrate to American under U.S. policies have been those with technical backgrounds and better education (hence one of the causes of the model-minority myth, as well).
	Moreover, the 2000 Census data showed that many APAs remained impoverished, unemployed, and less educated than the average American.

	July 19. Norman Y. Mineta is confirmed as the U.S. Secretary of Commerce in the last six months of the Clinton Administration, making him the first Asian American Cabinet member in U.S. history. On January 25, 2001 Mineta is confirmed as the U.S. Secretary of Transportation in the George W. Bush Administration, making him the first Democrat member of the Bush’s Republican Cabinet.

	September 13. Dr. Wen Ho Lee, a physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratories, is finally freed in Albuquerque, NM after spending 9 months in solitary confinement following his wrongful arrest on December 10, 1999, after his unfair termination from Los Alamos in March, just nine months short of his retirement. The U.S. government brought a 59-count indictment against Lee for espionage. Lee eventually pleaded guilty to a single felony count of copying classified documents onto computer tapes without authorization. The FBI, however, acknowledged that it botched the investigation by focusing on Lee to the exclusion of others, and in 2000 dropped all 59 counts of felony espionage against him.

2001	January 29. Elaine Chao is confirmed as the 24th U.S. Secretary of Labor, as part of the Bush Administration, making her the first Asian American woman appointed to a President’s Cabinet in U.S. history

	April. A landmark national survey, “American Attitudes Toward Chinese Americans and Asian Americans” is released by the Committee of 100, a non-partisan, national organization, founded in 1989 by a group of Chinese Americans who are leaders in their fields. Most importantly, the survey showed that 25% of Americans showed very negative attitudes and stereotypes towards Asian Americans . Other significant findings include:
	23% of Americans are uncomfortable voting for an Asian American to be President of the United States. This is in contrast to 15% for an African American candidate, 14% for a woman candidate and 11% for a Jewish candidate. 24% of Americans would not approve of inter-marriage with an Asian American. This number is lower than that compared to an African American (34%), but higher than a Hispanic (21%) and a Jew (16%). 7% of Americans would not want to work for an Asian American CEO. This is in contrast to 4% for an African American, 3% for a woman and 4% for a Jew.

	September 11. Two hijacked airplanes crash into both towers of the World Trade Center, downtown New York City. A third hijacked plane crashes into the west wing of the Pentagon, Washington, D.C. A fourth plane, destined for D.C., crashes in Pennsylvania, 80 miles from Pittsburgh.

	September 11, post attack. Almost immediately following the terrorist attacks on September 11th, a Sikh American gas station owner is shot and killed in Mesa, Arizona by a white male who fired shots at the victim from a pickup truck and sped away. A suspect arrested by the police is reported to have said as he was being handcuffed, “I stand for America all the way.” In another incident, a 46-year-old male Pakistani American store owner is shot and killed in Dallas, Texas. There is no evidence of a robbery, and the police investigate the incident as a hate crime.

	October 26. Congress passes the USA Patriot Act barely six weeks after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The bill is passed with little debate at the height of the anthrax contamination scare when many lawmakers did not have access to their offices.

2002	March 11. The National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium (NAPALC) releases “Backlash: When America Turned on Its Own,” which shows a significant spike in racial violence against Asian Americans nationwide since the events of 9-11. As a result of a zealous form of patriotism, people who might vaguely resemble the enemy – including Asian Americans, especially South Asian Americans and Sikh Americans – are being locked away without due process.

2003	The Smithsonian Institution celebrates the Korean American Centennial with a year-long series of events every month that highlight aspects of the Korean American experience. The Korean American Centennial Commemoration is the first-ever focus on the Korean American throughout the Smithsonian complex and the first-ever sustained focus on any ethnic group throughout Smithsonian history.

	June 27. The U.S. Senate passes a historic resolution (S.R. 185), recognizing the 100th anniversary of Korean immigration to the United States. President George W. Bush issues a proclamation recognizing the centennial on January 13, 2003, commending Korean Americans for their “important role in building, defending, and sustaining the United States of America.”