Asian American Stories

This is one of the broader identity categories featured in the Service, Citizenship, and Civil Rights exhibit. In the U.S. census demographics, Asian American is combined with Pacific Islander.  However, for the purposes of this exhibit, we decided to focus on Asian American identity due to its unique relationship with the history of U.S. immigration legislation and legal codes. Like Latino people and American Indians, most people of Asian American descent prefer to refer to their specific national or cultural heritage, such as “Chinese American,” “Hmong,” or “Indian.” The blanket category of Asian American often derives its meaning through generalizations imposed from the outside, but like many identities, that has led it to be embraced as a category for the purpose of civil rights advocacy. Organizations such as Asian Americans Advancing Justice and the Center for Pan Asian Community Services derive from this advocacy orientation. 

For more background on this topic, please see:

Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta. “Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta.” Accessed May 6, 2022. https://www.advancingjustice-atlanta.org.

“Asian Pacific Americans in the U.S. Army | The United States Army.” Accessed October 21, 2021. https://www.army.mil/asianpacificamericans/history/.

Boissoneault, Lorraine. “Literacy Tests and Asian Exclusion Were the Hallmarks of the 1917 Immigration Act.” Smithsonian. Accessed May 7, 2018. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-america-grappled-immigration-100-years-ago-180962058/.

“Center for Pan Asian Community Services.” Accessed May 6, 2022. https://cpacs.org/.

Hsu, Madeline Y. The Good Immigrants: How the Yellow Peril Became the Model Minority. Reprint edition. Princeton University Press, 2017.