Asian Americans
Learning Outcomes
- Describe the historical context and current experience of Asian Americans in the United States
Asian Americans
Like many groups discussed in this module, Asian Americans represent a great diversity of cultures and backgrounds. The experience of a Japanese American whose family has been in the United States for three generations will be drastically different from a Laotian American who has only been in the United States for a few years.
The most recent estimate from the U.S. Census Bureau (2017) suggests that about 5.8 percent of the population identify themselves as Asian. While this number may be a relatively small percentage of the current U.S. population, Asians are projected to become the largest immigrant group in the country, surpassing Hispanics in 2055. In 50 years, Asians are projected to make up 38 percent of all U.S. immigrants, while Hispanics will make up 31 percent of the nation’s immigrant population[1]
How and Why They Came
The national and ethnic diversity of Asian American immigration history is reflected in the variety of their experiences in joining U.S. society. Asian immigrants have come to the United States primarily in the third wave (1880-1914) and fourth wave (1965-present), but also in the second wave (1820-1860). The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act removed national-origin quotas established in 1921, resulting in marked population growth during this period with 491,000 Asian immigrants in 1960 and 12.8 million Asian immigrants in 2014, which accounts from a 2,597 percent increase[2]. As of 2014, the top five origin countries of Asian immigrants were India, China, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Korea.
Japanese immigration began in the 1880s, on the heels of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Many Japanese immigrants came to Hawaii to work in the sugar industry; others came to the mainland, especially to California. Unlike the Chinese, however, the Japanese had a strong government in their country of origin that negotiated with the U.S. government to ensure the well-being of their immigrants. Japanese men were able to bring their wives and families to the United States, and were thus able to produce second- and third-generation Japanese Americans more quickly than their Chinese counterparts.
Filipinos migrated to the United States after the U.S. annexed the Philippines in 1899. As U.S. nationals, they were not subjected to the same restrictions as other groups. Many settled in California and Hawaii and worked in agricultural jobs. Immigration slowed as a result of restrictions for several decades, but after World War II “war brides” began to arrive with returning U.S. servicemen. Although the Philippines obtained its independence in 1946 in the Treaty of Manila, the U.S. still became home to a large number of Filipino immigrants, with the number of immigrants quadrupling from 501,000 in 1980 to 1,942,000 in 2016.[3]
Fourth wave Asian immigration included immigrants from India, Korea