Discrimination and Violence Against Asian Americans in the 20th Century
Brief Background
The discrimination against what is now collectively known as the AAPI population in the 19th century continued into the 20th century. In 1913, California enacted the Alien Land Law, barring Asian immigrants from owning land or renting it for more than three years. A decade later, the 1924 Oriental Exclusion Act, as part of the 1924 Immigration Act, banned all Chinese, Japanese, and Korean people from immigrating to the U.S.
Based on the 1924 Oriental Exclusion Act, except for Filipino nationals, Asian immigrants were denied citizenship and naturalization and prevented from marrying white Americans or owning land. The reason for the exception of Filipino nationals was due to the Spanish-American War. In 1898, under the Treaty of Paris, defeated Spain transferred its colony of the Philippines to the U.S., and rather than acknowledging the Philippines’ declaration of independence, the U.S. annexed the Philippines. For the next three years, Filipino nationalists fought against America, seeking independence instead of a change in colonial rulers, without success. During the 1920s, single Filipinos migrated in large numbers to the West Coast to work, providing cheap labor. However, in 1935, the Tydings-McDuffie Act was passed, limiting an annual quota of fifty on Filipino migration.
In Asia, Japan continued to expand its imperialistic influence, and in July 1941, the U.S responded to the growing power of Japan by seizing all Japanese assets in the U.S. The U.S. also put an embargo on sales of oil and scrap metal to Japan. On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. About two months after the attack, an estimated 120,000 Japanese Americans were forced into what was then called “internment camps,” where men, women, and children endured harsh conditions, discrimination, and violence. ESJF’s intern Esmé Lee-Gardner researched gender and race-based discrimination in particular that incarcerated multiracial Japanese Americans faced at the camps. Read below.
The discrimination against what is now collectively known as the AAPI population in the 19th century continued into the 20th century. In 1913, California enacted the Alien Land Law, barring Asian immigrants from owning land or renting it for more than three years. A decade later, the 1924 Oriental Exclusion Act, as part of the 1924 Immigration Act, banned all Chinese, Japanese, and Korean people from immigrating to the U.S.
Based on the 1924 Oriental Exclusion Act, except for Filipino nationals, Asian immigrants were denied citizenship and naturalization and prevented from marrying white Americans or owning land. The reason for the exception of Filipino nationals was due to the Spanish-American War. In 1898, under the Treaty of Paris, defeated Spain transferred its colony of the Philippines to the U.S., and rather than acknowledging the Philippines’ declaration of independence, the U.S. annexed the Philippines. For the next three years, Filipino nationalists fought against America, seeking independence instead of a change in colonial rulers, without success. During the 1920s, single Filipinos migrated in large numbers to the West Coast to work, providing cheap labor. However, in 1935, the Tydings-McDuffie Act was passed, limiting an annual quota of fifty on Filipino migration.
In Asia, Japan continued to expand its imperialistic influence, and in July 1941, the U.S responded to the growing power of Japan by seizing all Japanese assets in the U.S. The U.S. also put an embargo on sales of oil and scrap metal to Japan. On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. About two months after the attack, an estimated 120,000 Japanese Americans were forced into what was then called “internment camps,” where men, women, and children endured harsh conditions, discrimination, and violence. ESJF’s intern Esmé Lee-Gardner researched gender and race-based discrimination in particular that incarcerated multiracial Japanese Americans faced at the camps. Read below.
___________________________________________________
Treatment of Biracial Japanese Americans During Japanese American Incarceration of the 1940s
Esmé Lee-Gardner
Rates of interracial marriage between white Americans and Asian Americans have continued to rise in the modern era, attributed to both the easing of white prejudices toward Asians as well as the length of time Asians have lived in the U.S. This has led to an increase in the population of multiracial Asians.[1] However, often throughout U.S. history, those with Asian ancestry haven’t been given a choice in how they identify with or express their race.
During World War II, white Americans forced Japanese Americans into concentration camps based on their ancestry. While the War Relocation Authority (WRA) ordered all monoracial Japanese Americans on the West Coast into the camps, a small number of multiracial Japanese Americans were also incarcerated while the federal government figured out what to do with them. The government’s policy was confused and ambivalent; this group of individuals posed an inconsistency within the dominant narrative of a racial binary. The question was asked: Did these people ally more with their Japanese ancestry, or should they retain their freedom and human rights along with their non-Japanese parent?
Eventually, the WRA ruled that this could be answered by examining their “pre-war environment,” based on the gender of their Japanese parent. If the multiracial child’s father was white, they could leave the concentration camp and return to their Caucasian pre-war home. However, if their father was Japanese, they were said to be dominated by their father’s ethnicity, and while they were permitted to leave the prison camp, they could not return to the West Coast. For adult multiracial Japanese Americans, they could leave if they had fifty percent or less Japanese blood and could prove that their home was a Caucasian environment.[2]
This example provides evidence of white ideas that uphold the dominance and superiority of the white race, naming people of color as subhuman and undeserving of human rights. This human rights violation is also gendered, making assumptions about individuals’ lives based on patriarchal and masculine ideas.
[1] Spickard, Paul, et al. “What Must I Be?: Asian Americans and the Question of Multiethnic Identity.” Race in Mind: Critical Essays, University of Notre Dame Press, 2016, pp. 177–209.
[2] Ibid.
Esmé Lee-Gardner
Rates of interracial marriage between white Americans and Asian Americans have continued to rise in the modern era, attributed to both the easing of white prejudices toward Asians as well as the length of time Asians have lived in the U.S. This has led to an increase in the population of multiracial Asians.[1] However, often throughout U.S. history, those with Asian ancestry haven’t been given a choice in how they identify with or express their race.
During World War II, white Americans forced Japanese Americans into concentration camps based on their ancestry. While the War Relocation Authority (WRA) ordered all monoracial Japanese Americans on the West Coast into the camps, a small number of multiracial Japanese Americans were also incarcerated while the federal government figured out what to do with them. The government’s policy was confused and ambivalent; this group of individuals posed an inconsistency within the dominant narrative of a racial binary. The question was asked: Did these people ally more with their Japanese ancestry, or should they retain their freedom and human rights along with their non-Japanese parent?
Eventually, the WRA ruled that this could be answered by examining their “pre-war environment,” based on the gender of their Japanese parent. If the multiracial child’s father was white, they could leave the concentration camp and return to their Caucasian pre-war home. However, if their father was Japanese, they were said to be dominated by their father’s ethnicity, and while they were permitted to leave the prison camp, they could not return to the West Coast. For adult multiracial Japanese Americans, they could leave if they had fifty percent or less Japanese blood and could prove that their home was a Caucasian environment.[2]
This example provides evidence of white ideas that uphold the dominance and superiority of the white race, naming people of color as subhuman and undeserving of human rights. This human rights violation is also gendered, making assumptions about individuals’ lives based on patriarchal and masculine ideas.
[1] Spickard, Paul, et al. “What Must I Be?: Asian Americans and the Question of Multiethnic Identity.” Race in Mind: Critical Essays, University of Notre Dame Press, 2016, pp. 177–209.
[2] Ibid.