Asian American History: Prewar, WWll, Postwar - Essay Example

Asian American History Asian American History in MLA form Asian American History 2 America is known as "The Melting Pot" because its citizens consist of many who migrated from different countries and nationalities. These various peoples "melted" together to form a new group of people know as Americans. Moving to a new country and "melting" down cultures, beliefs, religions, etc. to fit into the American culture is not easy. Change, whether good or bad, is difficult to accept.

As you will find in this essay, Asian American history faced many challenges as it evolved into its current status. Before World War II, the California Gold Rush (1848) brought an influx of Chinese immigrants. These Asian immigrants faced many hardships, laws that limited their freedom, and even experienced violence and abuse. Johnson (2005) in an article titled, Asian-American History, states that "In 1850, just over 1,000 Asian immigrants entered the U.S., but ten year later, the figure had jumped to nearly 37,000 mostly Chinese".

Due to the overwhelming amount of new arrivals, "which had swelled to nearly 65,000 in 1870, and over 107,000 in 1880" according to Johnson, many areas passed laws against Asians, especially the Chinese because of their number. In one instance, California passed a law in 1913, prohibiting "aliens ineligible to citizenship" from buying land or leasing it for longer than three years. Riots and protests against Asians broke out in many cities.

During World War II, life obviously got harder for Asian immigrants. Executive Order 9006 was signed by President Roosevelt authorizing military commanders to Asian American History 3 designate areas "from which any and all persons may be excluded". This was meant mainly for the Japanese. There were many strikes including the Protest at Topaz Relocation Center in 1943. This crisis led to the naming of the Center as a segregation center.

Le speaks in more detail about life during this era: The lives of Japanese Americans were devastated -- not only were their economic lives destroyed, their emotional security was shattered, but their cultural traditions were severely damaged as well. That is, their tradition of self-reliance was replaced by being forced to rely on the government for their most basic needsEvery Japanese American who was imprisoned was eventually forced to prove their loyalty by answering two questions -- (1) whether or not they would be willing to be drafted to fight in the war or volunteer as a nurse and (2) whether they would swear to obey all the laws of the U.S. and not interfere with the war effort.

(Le 2005.) The end of the war meant changes for Asians in America. Laws that were written were repealed. In 1952, it was passed that Japanese Americans could become United States citizens through the process of naturalization. Le's statement below best concludes this essay of the present and Asian American History 4future status of Asian Americans: For the 20 or so years after the war, the entire Asian American population tried to rebuild their lives, develop their communities, and tried to assimilate as best as possible.

It helped that the U.S. was experiencing a huge economic boom, which not only provided these Asian American groups with new opportunities, but also gave the native White population enough opportunities as well so that they didn't see Asian Americans as threats. However, a new and important piece of legislation was passed in 1965 that again fundamentally changed the landscape of Asian America.

Today Asian Americans enjoy all the rights and freedoms of every citizen, regardless of where they came from and how they choose to live, and they are a great contribution to America's "Melting Pot".Asian American History 5Works CitedJohnson, David. "Asian-American History". Copyright 2000-2005. Pearson Education. 11 Dec. 2005, http://www.infoplease.com/spot/immigration1.html.Le, C.N. "Construction & Destruction". Asian-Nation: The Landscape of Asian America. 11 Dec. 2005.

Asian-Nation. 11 Dec. 2005 http://www.asian-nation.org/internment.shtml.