fuck yeah asian/pacific islander history

Nativity scene in Korean Sunday School at a Methodist church in...

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 11:29:00 -0700

Nativity scene in Korean Sunday School at a Methodist church in St. Anthony Park. Photograph Collection ca. 1974 (Minnesota Historical Society)

Gene’s Surf Riders. Filipino-American musicians playing...

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 10:30:06 -0700

Gene’s Surf Riders. Filipino-American musicians playing at the Crown Cafe, East Hennepin, Minneapolis. Photograph Collection 1937-1938.

Minnestoa’s Filipino community had its beginnings in a small group of 25 to 30 Filipino students — predominately males — who enrolled at the University of Minnesota and other colleges during the late 1910s and early 1920s. It was not until the late 1920s that systematic recruitment brought 150 to 200 Filipino laborers each spring and summer to Minnesota’s sugar beet fields, truck farms, and canneries. (Mason, S. R. (2003). They Chose Minnesota: A Survey Of The States Ethnic Groups. Minnesota Historical Society Press.)

San Francisco Chinatown’s First Demonstration,...

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 10:31:06 -0700

San Francisco Chinatown’s First Demonstration, 1968.

Adopting the tactics of the civil rights movement, 200 demonstrators marched through Chinatown to a rally at Portsmouth Square. They criticized the Chinatown establishment for promoting tourism instead of resolving social problems in the community, and they called for reforms in the areas of education, employment, health, housing, youth, senior citizens, and immigration. (Photographs by Harry Jew; courtesy of CHSA collection.)

Community picnic foot race, Seattle, c. 1918. Courtesy of Mamiya...

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 10:30:06 -0700

Community picnic foot race, Seattle, c. 1918. Courtesy of Mamiya Family Collection, Densho.

Corky Lee has captured images of some of the most vivid and...

Tue, 07 Jun 2011 10:30:00 -0700

Corky Lee has captured images of some of the most vivid and defining moments in APA history. His photo of a Chinese-American man bleeding from the forehead and being hauled away by the police wound up on the front page of The New York Post. It inspired 20,000 Chinese Americans in New York to protest police brutality in 1975.

Our Family is Healthy Because Our Home is Free from...

Wed, 25 May 2011 10:31:00 -0700

Our Family is Healthy Because Our Home is Free from Cigarette. Southeast Asian Health Project, 1988. The UC Irvine Libraries, Special Collections and Archives.

Children’s taiko (Japanese drum) group called The Zendaiko...

Tue, 24 May 2011 10:30:05 -0700

Children’s taiko (Japanese drum) group called The Zendaiko are ready to make a joyful noise when Los Angeles celebrates at the Nisei Week Japanese Festival, August 3, 1989.

Felix Taganas (front, center) was the owner of a Filipino diner...

Mon, 23 May 2011 10:30:00 -0700

Felix Taganas (front, center) was the owner of a Filipino diner in Los Angeles in the 1930s.

Filipino diners and cafes offered ethnic dishes and a place where Filipinos could dine without being confronted or refused service. (Courtesy of Jenny Ochale and Celina Taganas-Duffy)

Shipyard worker Lonnie Young during WWII (Courtesy of Connie...

Fri, 20 May 2011 10:30:00 -0700

Shipyard worker Lonnie Young during WWII (Courtesy of Connie Young Yu)

The demands of wartime production enabled Chinese Americans to move into the American workforce in large numbers. For the first time Chinese American women took on jobs as welders, riveters, burners and flangers.

Burmese protest at San Gabriel Municipal Park. Photo by Mike...

Wed, 18 May 2011 10:30:00 -0700

Burmese protest at San Gabriel Municipal Park. Photo by Mike Sergieff.

Lawyer Frank R. Oo speaks to group of approximately 350 Burmese who gathered at San Gabriel Municipal Park to demonstrate against Burma’s brutal military dictatorship. Photograph dated August 14, 1988.

Members of the Los Angeles Philippine Women’s Club during...

Tue, 17 May 2011 11:23:06 -0700

Members of the Los Angeles Philippine Women’s Club during a lunchtime meeting held at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Photo dated: May 6, 1966.

Staff of the Chinese Weekly, about 1925, Hennepin,...

Mon, 16 May 2011 15:39:26 -0700

Staff of the Chinese Weekly, about 1925, Hennepin, Minneapolis.

Members of the Twin Cities Chinese community, under the leadership of Henry Yep, published a Chinese-language newspaper called Sing Kee Po (Chinese Weekly). Each issue included foreign and domestic news as well as advertisements for Chinese businesses.

Interior view of the barbershop owned and operated by Soishi...

Thu, 12 May 2011 10:30:05 -0700

Interior view of the barbershop owned and operated by Soishi Kusumoto in Anaheim, 1918. (Anaheim Public Library)

Minoo Netervala, on far right, rides a carousel with friends,...

Mon, 09 May 2011 10:30:06 -0700

Minoo Netervala, on far right, rides a carousel with friends, 1952.

The women are from the University of California Los Angeles, and the men are from the University of Southern California. The female student wearing the sari would have been rare in this period since most students from India were men.

On July 2, 1946, partly due to the assistance India provided to the Allied Forces in World War II, Congress passed the Luce-Celler Bill. This removed restrictions on Asian Indian immigration and gave India an annual immigration quota of one hundred. Asian Indian immigrants now had naturalization rights. Asian Indian men who had not seen their wives and children in over thirty years were now able to send for their families and build a new life in the United States.

Vincent Chin Protest The murder of Vincent Chin and the...

Fri, 06 May 2011 10:55:00 -0700

Vincent Chin Protest

The murder of Vincent Chin and the subsequent sentence of his attackers (probation and a fine) brought Asian Americans together in protest and supported the growing realization that they could be a more effective political force if they worked together. (Courtesy of Helen Zia)

Samoan American women at Los Angeles International Airport. L to...

Thu, 05 May 2011 10:30:06 -0700

Samoan American women at Los Angeles International Airport. L to R, Ese Ese Ah Soon, Jackie Wilson Momoli, Julie Wilson Fiatoa, Fa’aeseina Wilson. (Courtesy of LAPL)

Filipino plantation laborers arriving at the dock in Honolulu....

Wed, 04 May 2011 10:31:06 -0700

Filipino plantation laborers arriving at the dock in Honolulu. The tags around their necks identified the plantations of their destiny. (Hawaii State Archives)

Over 300,000 Asians entered the islands between 1850 and 1920. Brought here as “cheap labor,” they filled the requisitions itemizing the needs of the plantations. To control their workers, planters utilized a divide-and-conquer strategy through a multitiered wage system, paying different wage rates to different nationalities for the same work. Japanese cane cutters, for example, were paid ninety-nine cents a day, while Filipino cane cutters received only sixty-nine cents. (“Strangers From A Different Shore”, Takaki)

New York City protest of the racist and sexist images in Miss...

Tue, 03 May 2011 10:30:06 -0700

New York City protest of the racist and sexist images in Miss Saigon, April 1991. The photograph of “My Sister” is of a Vietnamese National Liberation Front fighter from the Vietnam War era. Photo by Corky Lee.

Miss Saigon is a Broadway musical about the romance between an American GI and a Vietnamese bar girl in Saigon during the Vietnam War. Originally, Jonathan Pryce and Keith Burns, white actors playing Eurasian/Asian characters, wore eye prostheses and bronzing cream to make themselves look more Asian. From April 1989 to May 1990, nearly 100 shows were produced under the agreement between Equity and the League of American Theaters and Producers. 33 of the shows, with 504 roles, had no ethnic minority actors and 12 other productions had only one or two ethnic actors.

An FBI agent looks for contraband at this Palos Verdes...

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 10:30:06 -0700

An FBI agent looks for contraband at this Palos Verdes farmer’s house, 1941.

Another Japanese local had been arrested for forgotten ammunition used for shooting rodents. Broken car headlights from an old car and an empty flashlight case were grounds for “signaling the enemy.” In FBI reports, prefectural association membership was boldfaced. Almost all Issei belonged to these hometown organizations. (Photo courtesy of LAPL-NARA)

1935 Los Angeles City College Field Hockey Team at Griffith...

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 10:30:05 -0700

1935 Los Angeles City College Field Hockey Team at Griffith park. Susan Ahn is in front row, 3rd from right.

The U.S. Navy initially rejected Susan Ahn Cuddy when she applied for officer training because she was Asian and anti-miscegenation laws in Virginia prevented her from marrying Frank Cuddy, an Irish American. The type who doesn’t take no for an answer, Cuddy became the Navy’s first female gunnery officer (that means she trained male pilots how to shoot 50-caliber machine guns) in 1944, went on to work for the National Security Agency where she had 300 intelligence specialists under her command, and did marry her Irishman with whom she had two children.