Asian Discrimination By Thomas Step and Hans Chen

Japanese Internment At first Japanese people that immigrated to the United States only went to Hawai'i to become cheaper replacement workers for earlier Chinese people that had been there. They also immigrated from Japan because of Commodore Matthew Perry and his “black ships” that threatened war if Japan did not open up for trade with the west. In 1907 the Gentleman’s Agreement was made in which Japan agreed to the U.S. that they would stop issuing passports for emigration to the U.S.; however this did not decrease the amount of emigrants.

Japanese Internment Continued While the Japanese Americans were trying to fight for there rights the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in This, of course, made Americans become racist against the Japanese Americans and ended up with the Executive Order Executive Order 9066 resulted in the Japanese Americans right taken away and about 112,000 Japanese thrown into prison camps. However, some “campers” were drafted and one regiment, the 442 nd Regimental Combat Team, made up of all Japanese American males became the most decorated unit in the entire U.S. military.

Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 The Chinese Exclusion Act was the peak of 30 years of racism against Chinese and Chinese immigrants. This racism started with the California Gold Rush when all the Chinese immigrants came to the U.S. in search of gold. Sadly, people put extra taxes and laws on the Chinese to hinder them from success. In 1943 China became an important ally against Japan, so the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was repealed. However, the impact of the racism is still there and the Chinese Americans could never really come back from it.

Asian Stereotypes  While some stereotypes can be good, others are negative. Here are some negative stereotypes:  Asians are unable to assimilate.  Asians all look the same.  Asians are bad athletes.  Asians are all Chinese.

Asian Stereotypes  Even though there are bad stereotypes we thought that we should share some good ones with you:  Asians are all smart.  Asians are ambitious.  Asians are all good at martial arts.  Even though some are good and some are bad they are usually never completely true.

Game Shows  Japanese people can make a funny game show.  Watch Watch

Interviews  We asked different Asian-Americans the question “How do you feel, and how have you been affected by Asian discrimination?”, and this is how they responded.  Hans Chen- “Honestly, it doesn’t affect me as much as some Asians. I still feel that it is ridiculous though.”  Hans Chen’s father- “Many educational accomplishments through my life have been harder to achieve due to the fact that I am Chinese. This has given me some hard times, when it shouldn’t have.”

Interviews Continued  Joseph Lee- “Asian discrimination sucks. People expect too much from Asians. It has made me feel down on myself sometimes.”  Richard Yang- “There are all different types of discrimination, and many are much worse than Asian discrimination, so I never really feel affected by it. But sometimes, it feels like everyone expects me to know everything, which can become annoying.”

Works Cited   exclusion_act/ exclusion_act/ 