The Making of Asian America: A History

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2015

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction, Part 1, Chapters 1-2

Part 2, Chapters 3-4

Part 2, Chapters 5-6

Part 2, Chapters 7-9

Part 3, Chapters 10-12

Part 4, Chapters 13-14

Part 4, Chapters 15-16

Part 5, Chapter 17-Epilogue

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Part 2, Chapters 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2: “The Making of Asian America During the Age of Mass Migration and Asian Exclusion”

Chapter 7 Summary: “South Asian Immigrants and the ‘Hindu Invasion’”

South Asians, such as the Sikhs, Hindus, and Muslims, comprised a small fraction of Asian immigration to the Americas but still faced “a virulent pattern of anti-Asian racism” such as the “Hindu Invasion” headlines” (151). Between 1910 and 1932, only 8,055 South Asians were admitted to the US. Between 1838 and the end of World War I, close to half a million South Asians worked as indentured laborers in the British Empire, especially Jamaica, British Guiana, and Trinidad. Most immigrants coming to North America in the early 20th century were young men from Punjab. Many left their wives and children and planned to eventually go home. Immigration policies and discrimination complicated women’s immigration.

Their jobs included the railroad, lumber, agriculture, and fishing, especially as East Asian immigration was banned. They stayed in Washington, Oregon, California, and British Columbia. On rare occasions, immigrants like Kala and Vaishno Das Bagai arrived as a family. Vaishno dressed in a Western manner and became a naturalized citizen in 1921, but the family still faced discrimination.

Multiethnic families that included South Asians were more common. Since their diaspora community was so small, it “constrained their choices” by sometimes not having ethnocultural organizations to help them settle. However, The Pacific Coast Khalsa Diwan Society facilitated the Sikh faith and established a temple (gurdwara) for the group. Similarly, California’s Moslem Association of America was founded in 1919.

In British Canada, Britain’s South Asian subjects faced discrimination and racism. In some cases, they actively framed their activities around the concept of independence from Britain, as was the case with the nationalist Free Hindustan newspaper published in Canada before getting banned. Canada introduced a Continuous Voyage law from the birth country to prohibit South Asian immigration: “This law achieved exclusion of South Asians without explicitly discriminating against British Indian subjects” (164). In 1914, Gurdit Singh chartered a Japanese ship Komagata Maru to transport people directly from India to Canada. The voyage led to local protests and a government intervention that had the passengers deported after several weeks of being docked in Vancouver.

The case made an impact on the US treatment of South Asians. The Barred Zone Act (1917) made it even more difficult for Asians to immigrate, as it excluded most of China, India, and other countries like Myanmar (Burma). The Supreme Court Case of United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923) determined that Bhagat Singh Thind could not become a naturalized US citizen because he was not white, even though he self-identified “as a descendant of the Aryans of India and belonged to the Caucasian race” (172). Some South Asians were denaturalized in 1924, including Vaishno Das Bagai. Not wanting to reclassify himself as a subject of the British Empire, he died by suicide in 1928, leaving his wife and family. In 1946, the Luce-Celler Act “allowed ‘natives of India” to apply for admission to the United States” (173).

Chapter 8 Summary: “‘We Have Heard Much of America’: Filipinos in the US Empire”

Following a victory in the Spanish-American War (1898), the United States acquired the former Spanish colonies Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. It also formally annexed Hawaii. As a result, Filipinos were neither foreign nationals nor US citizens, but rather an in-between category of US nationals who lacked citizenship rights. The early 20th century saw an estimated 150,000 Filipinos arrive in the continental US and Hawaii.

At home on the islands, “US rule transformed the Philippine economy in ways that benefitted the American investors but not the Filipinos” (175). The US government pursued a policy of “benevolent assimilation” (176). Abroad in the US, Filipinos were an attractive labor force because of their legal status. In Hawaii, they worked on sugar plantations like other Asians. They also worked in farming in California and the Pacific Northwest. Since farming was seasonal, they traveled to work in the Alaska canneries. Other jobs included dishwashers, janitors, and the service industry. Organizations like the Filipino Labor Union defended their right to decent working conditions and higher wages. Newspapers like the Philippine Examiner and Manila Grocery Company offered a sense of community in California.

Despite the Philippines being an American territory, many Filipinos experienced “rampant prejudice and discrimination” as colonized people (174). For instance, “Filipino men were constantly charged with having unbridled sexual passions” (185). These anti-Filipino attitudes turned into violence in the late 1920s, such as the 1930 bombing of the Filipino Federation of America’s building. The US government’s attempts to repatriate the Filipinos only delivered modest results.

Chapter 9 Summary: “Border Crossings and Border Enforcement: Undocumented Asian Immigration”

Undocumented Asian migration across the US borders with Mexico and Canada was an important feature of Asian immigration in the early 20th century. Some of the border-control enforcement mechanisms developed at this time by the US, Canada, and Mexico are still being used today. Estimating the number of undocumented immigrants is difficult because records only feature those who were caught. Sometimes, it is possible to identify their numbers indirectly. For example, of the close to 11,000 Japanese who entered Mexico between 1901 and 1907, only 2,465 remained.

Undocumented migrants used known smuggling routes to bypass the restrictions. They relied on a “lucrative underground business” comprised of labor agents, transportation companies, and other types of accomplices (197). The same businesses “were longtime smugglers of opium, liquor, and other contraband goods” (197). Some Asians attempted to “pass” for other races, such as disguising themselves as Native Americans. Others traveled hidden on ships transporting fruit from places like Cuba. Others yet used forged documents, like the Canadian head tax receipts, adapting to border restrictions.

The developments in border restrictions were gradual. First, additional stations and guards were introduced on the largely unguarded US-Canada border. Second, legal restrictions, such as Canada’s 1908 Gentlemen’s Agreement targeting the Japanese and the 1923 Chinese Exclusion bill, made it more difficult to cross the border into the US. Third, the US increased its numbers of border patrol inspectors and expanded the US Bureau of Immigration. The US also worked with the Canadian authorities to meet US goals.

The situation was different in Mexico because of “tense relations and a long history of conflicts between the two countries” (201). As a result, the US government relied on a network ranging from immigration officers to train conductors and informants to track undocumented Asian immigrants. By the second decade of the 20th century, “US officials resigned themselves to creating a border that might serve as a deterrent, rather than a barrier” (204). In 1931, in Sonora, Mexico, officials expelled Chinese immigrants into the US, making it a US problem. The Chinese immigrants in question “described the helplessness and despair” of “being caught between two hostile nations” (208).

Chapters 7-9 Analysis

Overall, Chapters 7-9 focus on the early 20th-century immigrant experiences of South Asians and Filipinos in the US and Canada in a comparative framework. The development of border enforcement seems to be a separate subject, yet it is directly linked to Asian Exclusion laws that translated into the establishment of transnational businesses facilitating undocumented migration and capitalist structures relying on cheap, undocumented labor.

The theme of Empire, Colonialism, and Asian Immigration pertains to the experiences of both South Asians and Filipinos in different ways. First, South Asians, such as the Indians from Punjab, were British subjects. As such, they were allowed to travel throughout the vast British empire uninhibited. Canada was Britain’s self-governing colony, yet under pressure from Canadian nativists, the government introduced a “creative” Continuous Journey law to prevent most South Asians from arriving directly from their home countries. Such examples highlight the extent to which Asian exclusion was about race, as South Asians “realized that their equal status was merely a fiction” (161).

Second, like Koreans, some South Asians were also seeking independence from their colonizers:

The Komagata Maru incident had primarily been a challenge to Canada’s Continuous Journey law. But it was also part of a larger anticolonial movement in which South Asians challenged British rule throughout the empire in 1913 and 1914 (169).

For example, South Asians tried to publish the Free Hindustan newspaper until the British government intervened. South Asians also shared their experience as colonized subjects with the Filipinos, only their colonizers were the Americans, as they were transferred from Spain to the US after the Spanish-American War (1898). Like the South Asians, the Filipinos realized that being in American-controlled territory did not come with the benefit of full citizenship rights and societal acceptance, because the US perceived them as “uncivilized savages” at worst, and “as children in need of (U.S.) guidance” at best (175). Despite the different rule by Britain and the US, these two Asian groups had an inferior status within their respective empires and faced similar challenges and discrimination as immigrants.

The theme of Asian Immigration in the Framework of Race, Gender, and Class underscores the fact that South Asian immigrants were part of the same trend in which a cheap labor force from Asia moved to the Americas within the framework of capitalist demand for surplus workers. Like the Chinese coolies, South Asians also initially worked as indentured laborers in the different parts of the British Empire. Furthermore, like all previously discussed Asian groups, South Asian immigrants were largely male, which demonstrated traditional gender divisions. Indeed, they left their wives and children at home in the hopes of eventually returning. Another shared aspect of the immigrant experience was the establishment of South Asian diasporic communities. Even their smaller numbers did not prevent the South Asians from doing so.

The Impact of Immigration Law on Asian Americans theme focuses on the Supreme Court case of the United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923). This case is exceptional because Thind, a Punjabi American and a World War I veteran, claimed to be of Aryan descent. This type of thinking would have matched the racial science of the time. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court ruled that Thind could not naturalize because the proverbial “man on the street” would not recognize him as white. The aftermath of his case was devastating to other South Asians who had their naturalized citizenship revoked: Vaishno Das Bagai even died by suicide.

Finally, the growth of the border enforcement agencies and border infrastructure on the US-Canada US-Mexico borders, respectively, is directly linked to the age of Asian Exclusion. These developments occurred to control undocumented immigration—the result of these laws. At the same time, they also show the leading role that the US played on the continent to create international border controls. The latter is in line with Canada following in the US footsteps of issuing its own Asian Exclusion laws. Overall, immigration law left a significant impact on the flow of labor, the everyday lives of Asian immigrants, and even the development of border controls in this period.