--- title: 11 Asian American History Moments to Know for AAPI Month description: Much of Asian American history remains unknown to many Americans—including Asian Americans themselves. canonical: https://time.com/5956943/aapi-history-milestones/ author: Olivia B. Waxman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2021-04-30T16:00:59.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:43:10.528Z article:section: History og:title: 11 Asian American History Moments You Should Know og:description: Much of Asian American history remains unknown to many Americans og:url: https://time.com/5956943/aapi-history-milestones/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8ac739765e77cc4f/698a1938db298759dc266854/asian-american-history-moments-1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2400 og:image:height: 1350 og:image:alt: asian-american-history-moments-1 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 11 Asian American History Moments You Should Know twitter:description: Much of Asian American history remains unknown to many Americans twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8ac739765e77cc4f/698a1938db298759dc266854/asian-american-history-moments-1.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 11 Moments From Asian American History That You Should Know > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: The History You Didn't Learn: The Immigrants of Angel Island [Watch (HLS stream): The History You Didn't Learn: The Immigrants of Angel Island](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/246rXtQ4.m3u8) (11:35)  _Published 2021-05-03. When students learn immigration history in school, they often learn about Ellis Island, but they rarely learn about Angel Island, the immigration station on the west coast that was a hub for people arriving from Asia._ by [Olivia B. Waxman](https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/) and [Paulina Cachero](https://time.com/author/paulina-cachero/) Apr 30, 2021 4:00 PM UTC  Lillie Chin, mother of Vincent Chin, who was clubbed to death by two white men in June 1982, breaks down as a relative (L), helps her walk while leaving Detroit's City County Building. Lillie Chin, mother of Vincent Chin, who was clubbed to death by two white men in June 1982, breaks down as a relative (L), helps her walk while leaving Detroit's City County Building. Bettmann Archive/Getty Images by [Olivia B. Waxman](https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/) and [Paulina Cachero](https://time.com/author/paulina-cachero/) Apr 30, 2021 4:00 PM UTC More than 30 years after President George H.W. Bush signed a law that designated May 1990 as the first [Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month](https://time.com/5592591/asian-pacific-heritage-month-history/), much of Asian American history remains unknown to many Americans—including many Asian Americans themselves. Often [the Asian-American history taught in classrooms](https://time.com/5949028/asian-american-history-schools/) is limited to a few milestones like the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the incarceration of people of Japanese descent during World War II, and that abridged version rarely includes the nearly 50 other ethnic groups that make up the fastest-growing racial and ethnic group [in the U.S. in the first two decades of the 21st century](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/04/09/asian-americans-are-the-fastest-growing-racial-or-ethnic-group-in-the-u-s/). To many, the resulting lack of awareness was highlighted after the March 16 Atlanta spa shootings that left six women of Asian descent dead. The killings fit into a larger trend of violence against Asians [failing to be seen or charged as a hate crime](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/18/nyregion/asian-hate-crimes.html?), even as leaders lamented that “racist attacks \[are\]…[not who we are](https://whro.org/news/local-news/18557-atlanta-spa-shootings-bring-attention-to-racism-against-asian-americans)” as Americans. But in fact, while the shootings represented the peak of more than a year of increased reports of anti-Asian harassment and discrimination, the tragedy was also part of a more than 150-year-old history of anti-Asian racism and violence in the U.S. “Students can go through their whole educational life, not hearing a single fact or historical reference to Asians in America. We need to teach how Asian Americans experience life and race in America, and how Asian Americans have stood up not just for other Asians, but for all Americans to fight against racism,” Helen Zia, a Chinese American activist and former journalist, tells TIME. “This kind of learning is essential for all of us to see the humanity of each other.” To help fill the knowledge gap, TIME asked historians and experts on Asian American history nationwide to pick one milestone from this history that they believe should be taught in K-12 schools, and to explain how it provides context for where America is today. Here are the moments they chose. [_Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter_](http://time.com/newsletter-history) ## 1765: The first Filipino Americans settle in Louisiana As early as the year 1765 and through the 1800s, Filipino sailors, known as “Manilamen,” who worked as crew or indentured servants aboard Spanish galleons, jumped ship in the Gulf of Mexico and established the first Filipino American communities in what is now known as the continental United States of America. According to historian Marina Espina, author of Filipinos in Louisiana, by the 1880s, the Manilamen set up eight villages in the bayous of Louisiana. The Manilamen fought alongside the U.S. in the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812, built houses on stilts similar to the nipa huts of the Philippines, became fishermen who caught and “danced the shrimp” on drying platforms, established ethnic organizations, and intermarried with local Cajun and Creole families, now spanning eight to ten generations of Filipino Americans. _—_[_Emily P. Lawsin_](http://www.emilylawsin.com)_, National President of the_ [_Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS)_](http://www.fanhs-national.rog) _and Lecturer IV in Women’s and Gender Studies, American Culture, and Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies at the University of Michigan_ ## 1854: _People v. Hall_ determines that Chinese people cannot testify against white defendants With hate crimes against Asian Americans skyrocketing during the pandemic, many choose the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act as a historic marker for how they are treated in the U.S. Rather, it is the notorious 1854 California Supreme Court case of _People v Hall._ George Hall had been convicted of murder through the testimony of three Chinese eyewitnesses. On appeal, the court disqualified the testimony. California banned specific groups (“Negros, blacks, Indians, and mullatoes”) from testifying against whites, but “Chinese” was not included. This judge became legislator by interpreting, through his convoluted logic, that the Chinese were “Indian” and/or “Black.” The opinion spewed vile racism citing the eminent threat that if Chinese people can testify against whites, they would become full equal citizens. This marks the beginning of how discrimination against Asians became the norm. Hall got away with murder. _—Andrew Leong, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Legal Studies, Latinx and Asian American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston_ ## Feb. 19, 1862: President Lincoln makes California’s ‘coolie trade’ ban national The federal “Act to prohibit the ‘Coolie Trade’ by American Citizens in American Vessels” put the exclusion of Chinese immigrants at the center of debates about race, slavery, immigration and freedom at the close of the Civil War. The so-called “coolie trade” began in the 19th century and became a global system by the 1830s to circulate indentured Asian workers to plantations that enslaved Black Africans had previously labored upon. Coolies were thought of as suitable replacements to enslaved labor as the Atlantic slave trade was being dismantled. While the indenture system claimed the legitimacy of consent through a labor contract, these formalities concealed the brutal and deadly nature of trafficking workers to dangerous sites like the [guano islands of Peru or exploitation in Cuba’s sugar cane plantations](https://public.tableau.com/views/CoolieVoyages/Story1?:language=en&:display%5Fcount=y&:origin=viz%5Fshare%5Flink). The same [reckless and cruel disregard for human life](https://public.tableau.com/views/CooliebyPortandFlag/Dashboard1?:language=en&:display%5Fcount=y&:origin=viz%5Fshare%5Flink) that characterized the Atlantic slave trade was also common in the Pacific coolie trade. Because of this practice, racist perceptions of Asian immigration were fused with the notion of cheap, foreign, disposable labor. President Lincoln’s passage of the anti-coolie legislation codified this racist idea about Asians, even as it condemned any form of unfree labor, as would be declared in the Emancipation Proclamation in the following year. —_Jason Chang, Associate Professor of History and Asian American Studies at the University of Connecticut and author of_ Asian America: A Primary Source Reader. **_Read more:_** [_In 1968, These Activists Coined the Term ‘Asian American’—And Helped Shape Decades of Advocacy_](https://time.com/5837805/asian-american-history/) ## March 28, 1898: The Supreme Court upholds birthright citizenship in _United States vs. Wong Kim Ark_  Portrait of Wong Kim Ark, 1904. Getty Images Wong Kim Ark is a Chinese American born in San Francisco to Chinese parents in 1873\. When he returns from a visit to China in 1895, immigration authorities deny his re-entry, citing Chinese exclusion laws that barred Asians from both immigration and U.S. citizenship. Wong, however, asserted his right as a U.S. citizen to be permitted back into his country. Birthright citizenship is a product of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution that’s passed right after the Civil War. Originally, birthright citizenship was meant to benefit persons of African descent, and formerly enslaved African Americans in particular. But the question is whether that principle applies to all people regardless of race—and the case goes all the way to the Supreme Court. In a landmark decision in 1898, the court rules that Wong acquired citizenship at birth and therefore should be allowed entry into the U.S., since the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act doesn’t apply to him. With the _Wong Kim Ark_ decision, the Supreme Court upholds the principle of birthright citizenship and affirms the universality of American national identity—the idea that anyone born on U.S. soil can be American regardless of race. For Asian Americans this is particularly important because it allowed for US-born Asian Americans—the children and grandchildren of immigrants—to have U.S. citizenship during a time when foreign-born Asians were barred from naturalization on racial grounds. This would not change until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 abolished racial restrictions on U.S. citizenship once and for all. _—Jane Hong, Associate Professor of History at Occidental College and author of_ Opening the Gates to Asia: A Transpacific History of How America Repealed Asian Exclusion ## 1905-1906: Chinese businesspeople boycott American goods In 1905, businesspeople in Shanghai and Guangzhou organized a boycott of U.S. products. At the time, the racist Chinese Exclusion Act barred Chinese laborers from entering the United States, but American immigration officials often turned back even those Chinese whom the law allowed in: merchants, students and diplomats. Inspired by growing Chinese nationalism, the boycott sought to change this frustrating situation. The boycott did prompt some improvements in the treatment of Chinese immigrants but eventually fizzled in 1906\. By then, however, it had inspired a wide range of young Chinese American citizens, who saw in the movement an empowering response to the racism and discrimination they faced in almost every aspect of their lives. Many now began to consider traveling to China to contribute to its future, and hundreds even enrolled in universities for advanced training in fields they saw as crucial to China’s modernization. By the 1930s, close to half of all second-generation Chinese Americans had moved to China—though most eventually returned to the United States because of World War II. _—Charlotte Brooks, author of_ American Exodus: Second-Generation Chinese Americans in China, 1901–1949 _and professor of history at Baruch College, CUNY._ ## Sept. 4, 1907: The Bellingham Riots Spurred on by the inflammatory rhetoric of the nativist Asiatic Exclusion League, hundreds of white workers swept through the coastal town of Bellingham, Wash., at night, looking for Indian immigrants. The Indians, who were laborers in Bellingham’s lumber mills, were predominantly Sikh men from Punjab. The rioters pulled Indian workers out of their bunks, set their bunkhouses on fire, stole their possessions and beat them. Some Sikh men were beaten so badly they had to be hospitalized. Local police rounded up groups of Indians as they escaped the violence, placing them in Bellingham’s City Hall and jail. The next day, the entire population of Indian immigrant lumber workers left for their own safety, walking northward across the border into Canada. This is the first known incidence of large-scale, organized anti-South Asian violence in the United States, and was part of a wave of attacks against Asian immigrants that occurred up and down the U.S. and Canadian West Coast in the early part of the 20th century. The Asiatic Exclusion League and other allied organizations, politicians and labor leaders ultimately succeeded in convincing Congress to pass the 1917 Immigration Act, banning the entry of labor migrants from Asia. —_Vivek Bald, historian and filmmaker; author of_ Bengali Harlem and the Lost Histories of South Asian America ## 1913: California passes the Alien Land Act In spring 1913, the California state assembly passed a bill that prohibited “aliens ineligible to citizenship” from owning agricultural land and limited their lease term to three years. Although this racial category—“aliens ineligible to citizenship”—applied to all immigrants from Asia, the architects of this bill specifically had the Japanese in mind. They worried that Japanese immigrants were achieving upwards social mobility and wished to prevent them from becoming independent land owners, a status that many California politicians wished to preserve for the future of the white working class. The passage of this bill led to a diplomatic conflict between Japan and the United States, and U.S. President Woodrow Wilson attempted to prevent the governor of California from signing the bill into law. But California decided to implement the Alien Land Act, and various Western states including Washington, Oregon and Arizona followed its lead. Japanese immigrants and their white allies contested these acts in the courts, but the Supreme Court upheld these laws in 1923\. It was not until after World War II that the Supreme Court and California reversed their decisions. _—Chris Suh, Assistant Professor of History at Emory University_ ## January 1943: The first War Relocation Authority field office opens in Chicago Most students will learn something of the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II, when 112,000 people were removed from homes; lost careers, income, and savings; were confined in desolate inland camps managed by the War Relocation Authority (WRA); and suffered multigenerational trauma that lingers to this day, despite decades of community care and activism. Less well known is the program to resettle Japanese Americans out of camps and off the West Coast during and after the war. Fumbling to reconcile the blatantly undemocratic incarceration with a war waged for democracy, officials promoted the resettlement of the incarcerated as benevolent, government-led assimilation. Despite its many ironies and hypocrisies, this interpretation motivated officials to smooth the transition for resettling Japanese American citizens and noncitizens alike. The Chicago WRA field office (one of the dozens eventually established) shows this process on the ground. Staffers waged a PR campaign to convince Chicagoans of Japanese American innocuousness; they connected resettlers to housing and jobs pre-screened for citizenship, language and racial barriers as well as skills or training. Resettlers in turn shaped the process as they themselves joined the staff and boards of these local social welfare, municipal, and funding agencies, reshaping Chicago’s social services to accommodate their specific needs. Resettlement demonstrates a paradoxical model of inclusion, useful as our country struggles for an understanding of our obligations towards resident noncitizens, detained migrants, religious minorities and others. _—Meredith Oda, Associate professor of history at the University of Nevada, Reno, and author of_ The Gateway to the Pacific: Japanese Americans and the Remaking of San Francisco ## 1965-1970: Filipino Farmworkers lead the Delano Grape Strike  From left to right: United Farm Workers (UFW) officer Julio Hernandez, UFW director Larry Itliong, and Cesar Chavez at the 1966 Huelga Day march in San Francisco. Gerald L. French—Corbis/Getty Images Successive anti-Asian immigration laws that began in the late 1800s resulted in a massive labor shortage in Hawaii and on the West Coast. However, Filipinas/os/xes could enter freely because their colonial status marked them as United States “nationals,” not aliens. Labor recruiters from the Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association flocked to the poorest parts of the Philippines for cheap labor. By the 1920s, thousands of Filipinas/os were arriving annually at West Coast ports. Many of them hoped to attend universities and bring their families out of poverty. However, the vast majority of these immigrants found that the only jobs open to them were in cannery and farm work. They were barred from citizenship, owning land, living in white neighborhoods and marrying white women. From the 1920s-1940s, Filipino farm and cannery workers formed unions and went on strike throughout the United States. One of the leaders who came out of that movement was Larry Itliong. On Sept. 7, 1965, he led members of the Agriculture Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), a predominantly Filipino union, to go on strike against Delano grape growers. Larry had the foresight and vision to realize that justice for farm workers could never be realized unless the two biggest groups of farm workers, Filipinas/os and Mexicans, could unify. One week later, Larry called [Cesar Chavez](https://time.com/3749516/cesar-chavez/) to ask him if his organization, the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), an association made up of Mexican American farmworker families, would join AWOC in the strike. This led to the joining of the two organizations, which ultimately created the United Farm Workers (UFW). The strike, which was supposed to be a short-lived worker’s action of several days, turned bloody and agonizing when the growers refused to budge. The UFW was relentless and didn’t give up. After five years, the global campaign of the Delano Grape Strike was won, and new contracts were signed in 1970. _—Dawn Bohulano Mabalon, Associate Professor, History, San Francisco State University; Gayle Romasanta, Founder and Writer, Bridge and Delta Publishing; Allyson Tintiangco-Cubales, Professor, Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University_ ## June 19, 1982: The killing of Vincent Chin In the late 1970s and early ’80s there was a global oil crisis that drove the U.S. economy into a recession and led to the collapse of the auto industry. The American manufacturing sector blamed Japan for that. In this climate of anti-Asian hate—one that is eerily similar to today—a Chinese American named Vincent Chin was killed in Detroit because he looked Japanese. This is part of a historical pattern in which Asian Americans are attacked whenever there is a crisis in America. His killers, who are white, never spent a day in jail. The judge said, “These are not the kind of men you sent to jail.” But Vincent’s family was denied the right to speak up and say he was a good man who had a whole life ahead of him and was about to celebrate his wedding. In fact, he was killed on the night of his bachelor party. Anybody who was Asian knew that they could be killed like Vincent Chin, and their killers would be let off scot-free. When the killers of Vincent Chin were given probation, Asian Americans across the country came together in a national civil rights movement with Detroit as its unlikely center. Prior to that, there was no mass movement uniting Americans of East Asian, South Asian or South East Asian descent. This movement contributed to the passing of the Hate Crimes Prevention Act that eventually expanded the notion of who is protected by federal civil rights law, and the idea that all people in America should be protected against hate violence. It not only brought Asian Americans together to fight for justice. The Vincent Chin case was a landmark moment where people of all different Asian backgrounds came together with other Americans from other races to fight racism, to stand up for justice and to make an impact that affects all Americans. _—Helen Zia, Chinese American activist, former journalist and author of_ [Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People](https://www.amazon.com/Asian-American-Dreams-Emergence-People/dp/0374527369/ref=mt%5Fpaperback?%5Fencoding=UTF8&me=&qid=1538452730) **_Read more:_** [_Violence Against Asian Americans Is on the Rise—But It’s Part of a Long History_](https://time.com/5834427/violence-against-asian-americans-history/) ## March 28, 1983: Chol Soo Lee’s release from San Quentin’s Death Row  Supporters of Chol Soo Lee at the Hall of Justice in San Francisco on Aug. 9, 1982. Jerry Telfer—San Francisco Chronicle/Getty Images In June 1974, Chol Soo Lee, a young Korean immigrant, was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for a San Francisco Chinatown murder. While serving his life sentence in state prison, Lee was convicted and sentenced to death in May 1979 on a first-degree murder charge for defending himself during an armed prison-yard assault by an Aryan Brotherhood gang member. Two years earlier in 1977, Sacramento Union investigative reporter K.W. Lee began to shed light on a problematic police investigation and subsequent trial for the San Francisco Chinatown murder. His investigative series generated widespread support for a remarkable grassroots social movement, known as the Free Chol Soo Lee movement, which brought together diverse groups of immigrant and American-born Asians in a common cause of justice and freedom for Lee. The efforts of the Free Chol Soo Lee movement eventually led to a retrial of the San Francisco Chinatown murder case, in which a jury acquitted Lee in September 1982\. Despite this acquittal, Lee remained on Death Row in San Quentin due to his first-degree murder conviction for the prison-yard killing, which was also set for a retrial. However, faced with the prospect of high legal expenses and the uncertainty of yet another trial, Lee agreed to a downgraded second-degree murder charge without admission of guilt in the deadly prison-yard altercation and was released from San Quentin’s Death Row on March 28, 1983, based on time served. There are many reasons why this pivotal movement has been largely forgotten, but one is that the life of Chol Soo Lee, who unexpectedly passed away in 2014, problematizes idealized norms of moral virtue often expected of those who are symbols of racial justice movements, especially as Lee continued to experience significant trauma after serving nearly ten years in state prison. Yet, the Free Chol Soo Lee movement also highlights the politicization and empowerment of young people who formed the backbone of this incredible pan-Asian movement. Many of these young activists went on to distinguished public service careers guided by an enduring vision of social change and justice. The history of the Free Chol Soo Lee movement thus provides us with valuable lessons in imagining new and different possibilities for our present and future, particularly in relation to contemporary social movements, coalition building, and the criminal justice system in the United States. _—Richard S. Kim, Professor of Asian American Studies at UC Davis_ ## Transcript I teach classes in East Americans in public policy. And one of my first lessons, is actually my family history of six Generations in the US and how public policy has shaped my family's personalized. So, my family face exclusion face segregation face, being detained, face being deported. If you have the political is personal on the personal is political, When students learn about immigration history in school, they're often introduced to Ellis Island the processing center in New York Harbor, where millions of immigrants arrived in the US mainly from Europe. But the history of Angel Island is less known. Angel Island is now a National Historic Landmark, its sits in the middle of San Francisco's Bay, but it was originally an immigrant Detention Center this station, which operated between 1910 and 1940 was a hub for people arriving from Asia. When is Milan was first thing built, the newspapers had all of these really flowery descriptions, they describe Angel Island as being the future Ellis Island of the west but with palm trees, with a pleasant Sea Breeze and it really could not be more different The US has a long history of limiting immigrants from Asia exclusionary laws against babe and are seen as being prostitutes in traffic for sex. Mhhe they pass the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1917. There was the easy a task cards on that was created by Congress that which basically Bard 500 million people from from Asia, from entering the United States. So on Ellis Island about 20% of the immigrants are detained. When they are. Detained is for relatively short. Just one to two days. When we look to Angel Island, we see that 60% of all immigrants were detained. Chinese immigrants were the group that had the the most detentions in relation to their population. They counted them. Detentions not in one to two days, but in weeks and months, the longest attention that we have found on record was 756 days. Being equally between Beast to immigration station, since is really start when we look at the numbers, but also at the store is as well. I live in San Francisco. So I knew about Angel Island. Sweet Spot all the time when we drove across the bridge. And I probably learned about it from my family who told me that my grandmother respond to Angel Island. The Russell Jones grandmothers came through, Angel Island and were detained in the 1920s, got her immigration records where she went through, Angel Island, and they actually had to have three Witnesses or white in order to prove that my Grandfather was born in the US and was an American citizen entitled to bring a wife back, man to interview. I saw a lengthy and difficult songs. Family story is typical of the Discrimination that many Asian immigrants coming through. Angel Island faced. In fact, the walls of Angel Island are covered with lines of Chinese poetry written by detainee's that describe their hardships Immigration station was known to be overcrowded known to the unsanitary. Known to have unhealthy food, detainees were very limited and their freedom. They were not allowed to be outside for many hours of the day. And even after immigrants left, Angel Island, racism and racist laws, made building a life here, difficult, that can be seen clearly in the story of the guy family from India. There were many South Asians to come to the United States during this time. Even before the 1917, Immigration Act, and there were hardly any women. But in 1915, the Buckeye family made up of fish. No. The guy father. And husband and his wife, Paula. And there's three young boys. Came to the United States through San Francisco. And my grandmother did not know a word of English at that time. She didn't know anything about American culture. My grandfather did, he had learned English school in India, he was wearing American clothes, he had Capital. Unlike most volcanoes as laborers vaishno is also an Indian nationalist. He opposed British colonialism of his homeland that America was supposed to guarantee and that they didn't have in India established a, a business. In San francisco-based show also became a naturalized citizen. He was adopted western dress and manners. He was doing everything, right? What you're supposed to do when you come as an immigrant, but they could Not escape the virulent and violent anti-asian discrimination and racism. That was injuring in the United States. In the early 20th century, When they try to move into their home and in Berkeley, they found a group of angry white neighbors, who prevented them from moving into the home. But they had he found out that new laws in the United States. New court rulings, made him ineligible for citizenship, and government officials went around the country. Denaturalizing South Asian Americans who had already been naturalized felt by the 1920s that as he wrote in a letter, their obstacles behind me blockades in front of me, he could not find a way forward and in 1928, he took his online My grandmother on the story. Kind of to it and sometimes you just didn't even want to go there and say, all right, that's enough for now, I don't want to talk about the rest and, you know, my heart would kind of tug for her. She would take off her glasses, kind of wiped her her glasses and look away And I know that that tragedy of those early days when my grandfather took his life, just always remained with her. As you can imagine, it was incredibly difficult for this young family to to persevere. But she did, she did, she became a community leader after the laws change G and her three sons became naturalized citizens. She saw them off for college and into careers, guy story of perseverance, became such a source of inspiration that in February 2021 a street in Berkeley was named after her. The Salvation American activist who fought for the name change that they felt compelled to do so after hearing how the family was driven out of Berkeley by their neighbors in, maybe 2012 or 2013, and it's really stuck with me. So when the opportunity came up, I really wanted this to be a way to talk about those from our community, who have not been allowed to live in the city of Berkeley. You know this history of the first Indian immigrants to California is just not now and the emphasis I think I'm like Ellis Island, you know, European immigration as the Great American story of how America came together as this Melting Pot or Salad Bowl what you think is what's important. And so when we continue to highlight, you know, just the Ellis Island Story, it helps to obscure the ways in which white supremacy works and works in our immigration system. One of the reasons why the Ellis Island immigrants were able to become so successful was because existing laws in a privilege their entry into the country. Allow them to become naturalized citizens. Which meant That they had the power of the boat. It's, it's really a story about white supremacy being extended White Privilege, being extended to certain immigrant, even though they certainly face hardships and struggles as well. But when we compare it to the Angel Island Story, it causes us to question, how equal our nation of immigrants has really been my family's been here for six generation, but we're still not seen as belonging for still being excluded and attacked for being Outsiders and threats. SSA word at Angel Island, I hate tracker, Which documents the sharp rise in racist incidents against Asians in America today, the government legitimate exclusion. And also, when government uses rhetoric like the term, Chinese virus, That gives people a signal, it gives them license to hate Asians has led to increased national awareness of the issue and in April 2021 the Senate passed a bill to help combat anti-asian hate crimes. This has been going on for a long time, in some ways we have evolved but deep inside in our Humanity, how do we feel about others who look different who come from different countries or cultures that we know little about? And I feel that education helps bridge that defied. That once you get past ignorance, you can feel that you share a certain Humanity ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5956943/aapi-history-milestones/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5956943/aapi-history-milestones/"},"headline":"11 Moments From Asian American History That You Should Know","datePublished":"2021-04-30T16:00:59.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:43:10.528Z","description":"More than 30 years after President George H.W. 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