Race And EthnicityEssay Preview: Race And EthnicityReport this essayThe history of Asian Americans before 1946 has a hard working experience. Asians were brought in as workers during the 1800s. Asians were used in the Farms of California, railways, and industries as workers. Asians were not given an easy time, when they first appeared in America. They were discriminated politically as well as socially. They were not given the right to become citizens, to go to white schools, to testify in court, to earn equal wages, to own a land, to pay equal taxes. But they were found to be strong workers and humble people. They were hated in the society and their religion was not accepted and their religious places were attacked. But Asians never gave up. Throughout their history, Asian Americans have confronted a long legacy of exclusion and inequity in relation to school policies and practices, particularly during periods of changing demographics, economic recession, or war. In spite of historic, linguistic differences, distinct Asian nationalities have been grouped together and treated similarly in schools and in the larger society. Between 1800 to 1946 the Chinese, Japanese, Indians (Asian), Filipinos, Indonesian and all Asian community has played a very important role in giving the freedom and equal rights to Asians immigrants who migrated to America after 1946. It is the efforts and sacrifice of Asian ancestors that the Asians immigrants after 1946 can live a good life and make good money and pay equal taxes.
The 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act began to eliminate some of the anti-Asian racism. The act reunified families, protected the domestic labor force, and called for immigration of people with needed skills. Women also had the opportunity to work in industries. Many of Asians did not have necessary skills, and have trouble speaking English. Asians who were well educated, on the other hand, have found better jobs as engineers, scientists, mathematicians, and doctors. Asian kids are able to go to white school. Beginning in the 1980s, Chinese have been one of the fastest growing immigrant groups here in the United States.
The Asians fought the Immigration laws and finally the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 was well liked by my people for it allowed Asians to finally become citizens of the United States. The Filipinos, Chinese, Japanese, Indians (Asian) also benefited from the 1965 Immigration Act, as it allowed Asian immigrants to immigrate the U.S. Filipinos, however, were still not allowed to hold high professional positions such as lawyers or doctors during 1965. Many of Filipino men were recruited into the army or navy during 1950s and 1960s. In search of better economic opportunities, more and more men, women and children came to the US in search of jobs and also to find family members of previous immigrant waves. The U.S. began to become more and more popular to Filipino people as problems in their homeland grew worse. Despite the Filipino people serving as professionals in the U.S., some of them were
hated by society. They fought back against this criticism and the U.S. began to change the law more. For example, Filipino men who served and received promotions in Japan, the Soviet Union and the communist parties of East Asia were allowed to hold top positions in these countries, though the American government did not recognize the Filipino men who served in these countries and did not fully respect them as members of the Filipino immigrant community.
The United States would no longer allow such Filipino citizens to re-entry into the United States by the military to further their domestic activities and the new laws meant that the Filipinos, Chinese, Japanese and Indians of the U.S. would no longer be allowed to hold a position of political power in that country. It became clear that the U.S. government had to come up with a solution that was appropriate for Filipinos in the region. I am convinced that this was done. We had to have a system that only allowed Filipinos to participate in our national life rather than being forced to serve on the military. We could not deny Filipino-Americans the freedom of political activities (such as voting, for example) and many had been forced to do so by the military government in the past. But this legislation, in the early 1950’s only allowed Filipinos to vote in foreign elections. When the 1965 immigration legislation was passed and the Filipino people voted, they did so in a manner similar to what happened for Filipinos in other parts of Asia. This legislation, at least in part, benefited their citizens. They now did not need to serve overseas for their national citizenship. Since the new immigration laws were implemented it started to take on a more political nature. It also put the Philippines at risk at the beginning of what was supposed to be a very good time for Filipino people in the U.S., that is, for them to become politicians in their own right. We learned from previous years that the U.S. government was always worried that Philippine citizens will take more political risks for the nation. Yet, now even that can have a deleterious effect on the Philippine people. On one hand the country has a long history of the anti-immigrant sentiment. This is not a small trait to have in Philippine life, the fact is it has come as a tremendous shock to us and caused many Filipinos to take to the streets during the last two years. By allowing Filipinos to remain part of the American nation’s political system, we made ourselves and our Filipino allies in this country and gave Filipino people in the region a positive image. Many people in the United States did not want to support the Philippine government, but it is now clear how much such a feeling of support came from many Filipinos, who do not want to alienate anybody other than their own family or friends. In addition, the Filipinos had the power of national government if that were the case. Although that was not true of other countries and many had an opportunity to do so, it was still enough to encourage Filipinos to participate in the political process or to help with policy negotiations. It was important to show the Filipino people that they and their government should support a democratic system which would allow Filipinos to vote by a higher voice if elected office. It should also provide a positive image to the Filipino people. It should also be clear that we did not allow the country to become divided like Vietnam, which has been split up into two large and one small states by the U.S. government. We knew we had to go for such a break in our relationship with the United