Asian American activism

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was a federal law that prohibited the immigration of Chinese laborers for 10 years.  The law was extended for another 10 years by the Geary Act of 1892.  In 1902, the law was extended again. The Chinese Exclusion Act was enforced by the U.S. Bureau of Customs. In the 1890s, enforcement of the law was transferred to the newly created Bureau of Immigration.[12] The Chinese Exclusion Act represented a widespread anti-Asian sentiment that had perpetuated since the Asian immigration had first began in the United States.[13] The Chinese Exclusion Act was the first, and remains the only, law to have been implemented passed that limits the entry of one specific nationality from entry to the United States. The Chinese Exclusion Act was created as a direct response to anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States, and on grounds of labor disruption like in the North Adams Strike and the Panic of 1873.[14]

The Anti-American Boycott, or the Chinese Boycott of 1905, which spanned from 1905 to 1906, was a boycott of U.S. goods and services in China and a handful of cities in Southeast Asia to protest the Chinese Exclusion laws.[15] Primarily, the boycott was focused on the enforcement of the laws by the Immigration Bureau, which sought to deny entry to Chinese people legally exempt from the law, such as diplomats, merchants, students, tourists, and merchant family members.[16] On May 10, 1905, the Shanghai Chinese Chamber of Commerce called for a boycott of American goods if certain conditions were not met regarding immigration and trade policies.[17] The conditions were not met, and that summer, a unified boycott spread to ports up and down the Chinese coast. Throughout the boycott, Chinese consumers refused to buy, merchants refused to sell, and dockworkers refused to handle exports from the U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt attempted to sooth Asian American frustration by issuing an executive order requiring the Immigration Bureau to uphold U.S. laws and respect the entry rights of the exempt classes, however, no meaningful legislation was passed in support of new Chinese-American immigration laws.[18]

Sofia de Veyra and the wives of the Second Philippine Parliamentary Mission at the White House with First Lady Harding

The United States played an active role in Asian politics throughout the early 20th Century. Following the Spanish-American War, the U.S. gained colonial control over the Philippines in 1901. Philippine nationals held no political rights in the United States and could not vote or participate in U.S. politics.[19] While Filipino men gained the right to vote in local Filiipino elections in 1907, Filipina women did not gain the same rights until 1937. To advocate for Philippine independence a group of Filipino politicians and their wives visited President Warren G. Harding in 1922. The wives of these delegates were led by Sofia de Veyra and were advocating not only for independence from the United States but also for suffrage rights in the Philippines. Although not much is known about this delegation, the women would spend decades advocating for their right to vote and other human rights causes.[20]

The Asian American Movement was a nationwide movement, started by Asian Americans, whose goal was initiate racial, social and political change in the U.S. This movement spanned from the 1960s to mid-1970s, and signified an uptick in representation and activism within the Asian American community that had faced discriminatory policy and sentiment for so long.[21] The Asian American Movement promoted the Anti-war movement during the 1960s and 1970s, and anti-imperialist activism.[22]

The Delano Grape Strike was one of the first nationwide demonstrations initiated by Asian Americans. The Delano Grape Strike significantly impacted labor rights and unionization opportunities in the United States. On September 8, 1965 over 2,000 Filipino-American farm workers went on strike and refused to pick grapes in the valley north of Bakersfield, California.  This strike initiated a series of activist and labor-related events that would occur over the next 5 years. At the height of the Civil Rights Era, the Delano Grape Strike aimed to improve rights for laborers and minorities in the United States, especially Filipino and Mexican Americans [23] Not only was the strike beneficial for the representation of Asian Americans in the political and activist sphere, but achieved widespread, tangible results for labor rights and the unionization of minorities in the United States.[24] Lifelong activist, Larry Itiliong, spearheaded the movement and garnered the support of fellow activist Cesar Chavez to strike for better pay, adequate medical care, and retirement funds. The movement was met with backlash and hostility from growers and police, but received support from figures like Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F Kennedy. Many households nationwide stopped buying grapes in support of this civil rights movement, and union workers in California dockyards let non-union grapes rot in port rather than load them. By the summer of 1970, many of the major California grape growers were forced to pay grape pickers an increase in wages to $1.80 an hour, plus 20 cents for each box picked, contribute to the union health plan, and ensure that their workers were protected against pesticides used in the fields.[25] The Delano Grape Strike represented a turning point in Asian American activism and an exercising of constitutional rights that had been denied to Asian Americans for many years.[26]

In 1968, in the San Francisco Bay Area, activists from college campuses such as the University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco State University protested the absence of Asian American experiences from university curricula, and the Eurocentric curriculum employed by universities.[27] College activists focused on a variety of issues, including improving the conditions of San Francisco's Chinatown, participating in Third World Liberation Front strikes, and protesting the eviction of Filipino and Filipina residents from the International Hotel (San Francisco). The battle for the International Hotel in San Francisco involved UC Berkeley students and different groups of activists, who protested the rapid urban renewal of largely minority communities. Predominantly Filipino and Filipina citizens were affected by these urban renewal policies, but the evictions were experienced by a number of different minority groups as well. The protests of these evictions started in late 1977, and symbolized the unification of the Asian American community to protest civil rights.[28]

Throughout the 1970's in the Midwest, college students of Asian descent organized communities of support, and many eventually migrated to coastal cities that had stronger Asian communities.[29] Asian American college students nationwide also protested the model minority framework that many Americans had used to view Asians. Opponents of this framework considered the challenges faced by Asian Americans in a white-dominated society nonexistent.[30]

On June 19, 1982, a Chinese American man named Vincent Chin went out with friends in Detroit to celebrate his upcoming wedding. Two white men, Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz, thought Chin was Japanese beat him to death with baseball bats. Vincent Chin's murder was the first federal civil rights trial for an Asian American, and the two men responsible for Vincent Chin's murder were given a $3,000 fine and zero prison time.[31] The sentencing incited national outrage and fueled a movement for Asian American rights. Vincent Chin's murder was the first federal civil rights trial for an Asian American. At the time the American auto industry was struggling due to increased competition from Japanese import cars and mass layoffs happening across the country.[32] Led by activist Helen Zia, several Asian American lawyers and community leaders banded together to create American Citizens for Justice. This group gathered several diverse groups like churches, synagogues, and black activists to protest the murderers sentencing.[33] This movement inspired other Asian Americans across the country to hold their own demonstrations. Vincent Chin's death and the demonstrations that followed provided inspiration for a group that has faced a long history of discrimination in the United States.[34] A result of the Killing of Vincent Chin and the trial that ensued was that there was now a larger population of people who could identify with the new pan-Asian American community and protest violations of their civil rights.[35]

Asian Americans showing support for the Black Lives Matter movement in December of 2014.

Asians 4 Black Lives is a coalition of Asian Americans with diverse ethnic backgrounds such as Filipino Americans, Vietnamese Americans, Indian Americans, Chinese Americans, Pakistani Americans, Korean Americans, Burmese Americans, Japanese Americans, who serve as advocates for the Black Lives Matter Movement, which was established in 2014.[36] Their objective is to stand in solidarity with people of color and to mainly support Black communities facing racial injustice. Their mission is built on the Ferguson National Demands,[37] which call for the elimination of discrimination and police brutality and support in employment and housing for oppressed people in the US. These demands also address the school to prison pipeline: mass incarceration of people of color, and other demands regarding racial issues plaguing the American society.[38]

Asians 4 Black Lives focuses primarily on supporting the issues within African American communities as they believe that finding justice for this community is the foundation that liberation for other minority groups can be built upon. Their activism includes blockading Home Depot in response to the Emeryville Police Department's murder of Yuvette Henderson,[39] and protesting in front of the Oakland Federal Building[40] and the Oakland Police Department.[41] They have also initiated action to build houses for impoverished people. In addition, they are involved in the work of groups such as the Blackout Collective, #BlackBrunch, and Onyx Organizing Committee among many others.[42]

Asians 4 Black Lives is also working with Letters for Black Lives[43] in a combined effort to root out “anti-blackness” (the notion that African Americans are inferior) in communities. Its goal is to encourage discussion between older and younger generations about issues regarding racism and discrimination.

Movements like "Wash the Hate", "Hate is a Virus," "Take Out Hate," and the non-profit organization Stop AAPI Hate were created to support Asians who were attacked during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. "Stop Asian Hate" was frequently used in February 2021 and had more traction due to the higher increase of Asian-American attacks against the elderly like the killing of Vicha Ratanapakdee that occurred one month before. Asian American celebrities like Daniel Dae Kim, Chrissy Teigen, Olivia Munn and others called out and condemned these attacks.[44][45] It later received more attraction after the 2021 Atlanta spa shootings in mid-March and further by San Francisco Bay Area and New York City violence against Asians. The movement is similar to Black Lives Matter for African Americans in that the support group specifically protects only one race (Asians and Pacific Islanders) which is likely to garner the same criticism as it does not address non-Asian hate crimes.[46]

See Us Unite is an activist movement designed to educate the public on Asian American history, increase cross-cultural solidarity with the AAPI community, and to "amplify voices as we unite to change people’s perception about what it means to be an American."[47] This campaign highlights historical and modern inequities including violence against Asian American women, anti-Asian discrimination, and Asian American stereotypes.[48] See Us Unite has launched a video campaign that seeks to bring attention to issues important to the AAPI community. These videos include informational segments on the Chinese Exclusion Act, Sammie Ablaza Wills, prejudices against Sikh Americans, and more.[49]

The May 19 Project is social media campaign designed to highlight cross-cultural solidarity between the AAPI and African American communities. May 19 is the shared birthday of Malcolm X and Yuri Kochiyama.

Larry Itiliong (October 25, 1913 - February 8, 1977) was a key figure in Civil Rights Era activism for the Asian American community, especially for people of Philippine descent. Filipino activism, largely fueled by the Delano Grape Strike, in the United States corresponded with worldwide "Third-World" national liberation movements, and Itiliong formed the United Farm Workers of America alongside Philip Vera Cruz.[61][62] Born in the Philippines, in 1913, Itilong moved to the United States in 1929 and joined his first strike in 1930. Itiliong had a sustained history of leadership in the unionization of workers, he started for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, he served as secretary of the Filipino Community of Stockton, then founded the Filipino Farm Labor Union, and was eventually leading the AFL–CIO union Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee.[63]

Yuri Kochiyama (May 19, 1921 – June 1, 2014) was a Japanese-American political activist who advocated for social justice and human rights movements, specifically during the Civil Rights Era. In 1943, Kochiyama and her family were sent to a concentration camp in Arkansas, for two years as a result of discriminatory World War Two policy in the United States. The internment of Japanese Americans resulted in the relocation and restriction of 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, most of whom lived on the Pacific Coast, and fueled Kochyiama to fight for human rights, specifically for Asian Americans.[64] The painful experiences of her internment, coupled with her father’s death made Kochiyama aware of governmental abuses the violations of human rights that have been experienced by minority groups in the United States. Kochiyama’s activism started in Harlem in the early 1960s, where she participated in the Asian American, Black, and Third World movements for civil and human rights, ethnic studies, and against the war in Vietnam. She also supported movements involving organizations such as the Young Lords and the Harlem Community for Self Defense. Kochiyama founded the organization Asian Americans for Action, and linked her activism to the more political Asian American movement. Kochiyama would continue to fight for movements including the struggle for Black liberation, Puerto Rican Independence, and communist revolutionary movements in Peru,.[65][66]