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 4, Chapters 13-14Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 4: “Remaking Asian America in a Globalized World”

Chapter 13 Summary: “Making a New Asian American Through Immigration and Activism”

The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act ushered in a new era for Asian Americans. More lax immigration policies allowed new immigrants to come to the US from Asia. As the US sought to present itself as a superior choice in the context of the Cold War, the country was forced to address its racist past and race-based immigration policies. For example, John F. Kennedy’s 1958 A Nation of Immigrants addressed these questions and called for immigration reform. At this time, Asian Americans were also involved in many campaigns linked to civil rights: from women’s liberation and LGBTQIA+ rights to anti-war activism during the War in Vietnam (1955-1975).

The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act remains the foundation of 21st-century immigration policy. First, it transformed the character of immigration primarily coming from Asia and Latin America rather than Europe. In the 20th century, peak immigration occurred between 1911 and 1920, then after the 1980s with each following decade. In 2010, 13% of the total US population was born abroad. Second, the policy focused on family reunification and professional skills. Reasons for immigration varied: family-based immigration, work opportunities, war, foreign adoption, and political situation at home.

In this context, Asians have been “represented on both extremes of the educational and class spectrums” (287). For example, Chinese Americans both enjoyed “stunning economic success,” but also comprised 80% of the sewing machine worker force in 1990s San Francisco (289). Many Chinese immigrants who arrived, starting in the 1990s, were undocumented and subsequently faced “years of exploitation” (292). Chinese Americans established their own newspapers and banks in their ethnic enclaves. Immigration from the Philippines “continues to be shaped by the colonial and military relationships” between the islands and the US (293).

Filipino immigrants ranged from the military to healthcare professionals. In the medical field, additional requirements and examinations “often create employment barriers for new immigrants” (294). In South Asia, it is Indians that dominate the arrivals. Indeed, by 1998, it was the Indian and Chinese immigrants that launched 25% of businesses in the Silicon Valley tech industry. By 2010, over a million Koreans, 80% of whom were born abroad, resided in the US. Many relocated due to the economic conditions at home prior to the 1990s.

20th-century Asian American civil rights activism featured such figures as Philip Vera Cruz, Yuri Kochiyama, and Grace Lee Boggs. Asian American activists were inspired by a variety of movements, from Black Power and antiwar protest movements to foreign figures such as Mao Zedong and Che Guevara. They launched their own organizations, such as the Asian American Political Alliance (AAPA) founded in 1968. AAPA inspired other organizations, such as Asian Americans for Action (AAA). Much of the activism occurred on university campuses. For example, the Bay Area Asian Coalition Against the War (BAACAW) protested the war in Vietnam and perceived itself to be part of a broader anti-imperialist movement. Asian Women United focused on women’s rights.

Asian Americans also participated in the First National Third World Gay and Lesbian Conference in 1979. The 1988 Civil Rights Act signed by President Ronald Raegan “authorized a national apology for removal and incarceration, the payment of $20,000 to each surviving Japanese American affected by Executive Order 9066, and the establishment of educational and other programs” (313). Similar government actions took place in Canada. It was not until 1996 that the US government apologized for targeting Japanese Latin Americans.

Chapter 14 Summary: “In Search of Refuge: Southeast Asians in the United States”

During the Cold War, the US pursued an “aggressive anticommunist foreign policy” (314). In Southeast Asia, this foreign policy, in part, led to the Vietnam War which “transformed every aspect of life in Vietnam” (314). The US “replaced France as the major Western power in the region,” as the people of Vietnam went from being French colonial subjects to being engulfed in a war between the U.S.-backed South Vietnam and the North Vietnamese forces (314). As a result of this turmoil, over a million Vietnamese, Cambodians, Lao, and Hmong immigrated to the United States between 1975 and 2010.

French Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos) underwent the same decolonization process as many other European colonies after 1945. Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh sought independence for his homeland. 1954 saw the division of Vietnam along the 17th parallel into North and South Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh led the former, and the US established a South Vietnamese government under Ngo Dinh Diem.

The US military involvement in the region started with sending military advisors in the 1950s, escalated to using special forces, and, finally, full-scale boots on the ground in the 1960s. The Vietnamese population found itself between the Viet Cong guerillas and the North Vietnamese army, on the one hand, and South Vietnamese and American troops, on the other. US military engaged in unprecedented bombing raids targeting civilian infrastructure like dams and waterways. It also used napalm and chemical defoliants. Eventually, American combat failures led to the 1973 peace treaty signed in Paris. The North was victorious, and the two countries reunited in 1976. Cambodia and Laos eventually ended up under Communist rule.

The CIA relied on Hmong soldiers in Laos and had them carry out “espionage, sabotage, and propaganda missions” in the 1960s (318). The latter led to the use of child soldiers and a high death toll among the Hmong men in relation to the total Hmong population. Later, the Hmong faced reprisals from the new government in Laos.

In 1969-1970, the US also subjected Cambodia to unprecedented bombing campaigns, with a significant death toll of up to 150,000. Between 1975-1978, Cambodia was under the Khmer Rouge regime, whose rule “would result in one of the greatest human tragedies in the modern age” (320). The rule involved mass-scale arrests and killings of perceived dissidents.

As these turbulent events occurred in Southeast Asia, the 1975 Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act allowed for the Vietnamese, Lao, Cambodians, and Hmong to be classified as refugees in the US “Operation Babylift” airlifted thousands of orphans in April 1975, including those “fathered by the US military personnel” (325). By the 1980s, 50,000 refugees from the region arrived annually.

Chapters 13-14 Analysis

Whereas the first half of the book discussed—thematically and chronologically—the age of Asian Exclusion, the second half of the book is focused on the gradual liberalization of US immigration law and the related sociocultural developments. More specifically, this set of chapters reveals the relationship between civil rights activism and immigration law as part of Lee’s The Impact of Immigration Law on Asian Americans theme.

Since the time period in question occurred during the Cold War, the author also targets The Impact of Immigration Law on Asian Americans (a theme related to the historical aspects of Empire, Colonialism, and Asian Immigration). It is worth noting that the US foreign policy during the Cold War departed from formal imperialism and relied on military, economic, and cultural means that bypassed the formal colonization of the relevant regions. For this reason, this theme is separate from its historical counterpart.

First, the changes to the US immigration law occurred within the broader framework of the civil rights movement at home and the Cold War abroad. For this reason, the US was concerned with its public image in the international arena and sought to present itself as a superior system to its ideological rival, the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union presented itself as based on “the friendship of the peoples” and class egalitarianism at home while aiding the anti-imperialist struggle abroad. As such, the USSR presented a powerful alternative to the broad socioeconomic disparities under capitalism in the US with its history of systemic racism and discrimination on top of it. In the author’s view:

At a time when the United States emphasized its virtues of freedom and democracy over the totalitarianism of communism, the unequal treatment of immigrants based on race exposed the hypocrisy in American immigration regulation (283).

The concern with its international image and smaller-scale precedents like the Magnuson and Luce-Celler Acts coalesced into the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act—a watershed moment in immigration law. The law brought with it liberalization and more diverse immigration, and continues to serve as the general framework for immigration in the 21st century.

This liberalization of immigration occurred against the general backdrop of civil rights, women’s rights, the sexual revolution, and LGBTQA+ movements that first gained momentum in the mid-20th century. Civil rights specific to Asian American causes, including the 1988 Civil Rights Act, came to be thanks to the work of such activists as Fred Korematsu. This legislation offered an official apology to the Japanese along with reparations.

Accepting more refugees in the US was one of the consequences of the immigration reform. In the words of President Ford, this US policy showed “heritage as a charitable and compassionate people” (325). However, the very status of these Asian immigrants as refugees was linked to the American wars of aggression, as The Impact of Immigration Law on Asian Americans theme reveals. Indeed, as a Cold War superpower, it is the US foreign policy that often shaped the experiences of Asian immigrants in this period.

Specifically, in the case of the Vietnam War, the US used the policy of containment to check the Soviet Union. In contrast to Europe, where containment worked reasonably well, it was a failure in Southeast Asia. This was because US foreign policy often confused, deliberately or otherwise, the leftwing movements that independently arose in the context of postwar decolonization outside the West with the domino theory of Communism. As a result, the US believed that political agency in the Global South would automatically invite Soviet influence.

The gradual US entanglement in the Vietnam War led to unprecedented bombing campaigns in Cambodia. Laos became the most-bombed country on earth per capita, according to some estimates. The US used napalm, defoliants, and committed atrocities like the 1968 Mỹ Lai massacre of unarmed civilians. The CIA’s use of the Laotian Hmong people for its own purposes led to terrible consequences for them and, in part, was responsible for turning them into refugees.

It is thus important to note that sometimes the author uses such terms as “containment” uncritically, for instance, “During the Cold War, the United States invested heavily in the South Korean economy to help contain communism” (298). She also prefers the term “totalitarianism” to “authoritarianism.” The book therefore does not fully address the direct relationship between US Cold War policies and the refugees they created.