The Making of Asian America: A History

In the early 21st century, Asian Americans are approximately 6% of the US population. Their position is “constantly shifting” between “privilege and poverty” and “foreign and American” (8). Politicians and the media describe them as either “model minorities” or “bad Asians” (8). The first documented Asian immigrants came to the US from China, then Japan. The author’s maternal great-great-great-grandfather arrived during the mid-19th-century Gold Rush. More recently, the great diversity of Asian immigrants include Korea, the Philippines, Pakistan, India, and Vietnam, thanks to new immigration rules, wars, and globalization. However, Asian American history began much earlier, with migration to the Americas that became “connected through European colonization” from the time of Columbus and following “the ebbs and flows of global history” (3).

Asian American immigration is typically viewed as a “push and pull” concept, such as poor economic conditions pushing people to emigrate to more stable places, such as the US (4). However, the reasons are far more complex: “Asian immigration has been particularly tied to the US presence in Asia,” such as the “US colonial and military occupations and engagements” from the Philippines to Japan and Korea (4). In turn, US relations with other countries—allies and rivals—"continue to affect both Asian immigration patterns and the treatment of Asian Americans” (5).