Asian-Americans and Poverty

1
Asian-Americans and Poverty

• By Alan Christopher,
• Peter Lawson,
• Joe Schlotterer, and
• Ezra Whateverthehellyournameis

2
Asian-American History

• Asians began immigrating to the United States in
  the mid to late 1800s, most of them from China,
  which had become unstable and could no longer
  keep its citizens from leaving.
• Asian populations skyrocketed in the West as
  Chinese came to find work. Many prospected for
  gold, while others worked on railroads, including
  the Transcontinental Railroad.

Chinese railroad workers.
White Americans, fearing they would be overrun by
poor Asians willing to labor for lower wages,
passed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1888 to stop
Chinese immigration. A similar act, the
Immigration Act of 1924, discriminated against
Asians in general.
3

• After Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, bringing the US
  into WWII in 1941, the American people feared
  that Japanese-Americans might defect to their
  origins and sabotage the US war effort from
  within.
• Therefore President
• Roosevelt passed
• Executive Order
• 9066, ordering all
• Japanese-Americans
• rounded up and put
• in internment camps.
• 110,000 Japanese-Americans
• were interned from 1942-1944.

Crystal City internment camp.
4

• The conditions of these camps were often
  deplorable, and in the years that the
  Japanese-Americans were stuck there they often
  lost their houses or their businesses and had to
  start over again.
• Ironically, Hawaii, the state with the highest
  Japanese-American population interned the fewest
  number of Japanese-Americans, and had no accounts
  of Japanese-American sabotage in Pearl Harbor or
  any of their other naval bases.

White and Japanese-American children saying the
Pledge of Allegiance together before deportation.
A Japanese-American put up this banner after
Pearl Harbor. He had to sell his store before he
was deported.
5

• History has been kinder to Asian-Americans since
  WWII. In 1952 the McCarron-Walter Immigration
  Act forbade race as a discriminating factor in US
  immigration and citizenship, allowing Asians to
  come to America in greater numbers than before.
  In 1988 President Reagan officially
• apologized for the internments of
• WWII and awarded reparations to
• the families of those interned,
• though the payments didnt come close
• to paying off what was lost.
• During the Vietnam War, many of those with ties
  to the South Vietnamese government became
  refugees as they were forced to flee, many coming
  to America, where they became skilled,
  hard-working members of society. The old
  immigration station on Angel Island, where one
  million Asian immigrants passed into the US and
  could be held for days before entering, was shut
  down and a new one opened in San Francisco.

President Reagan writing the order for
reparations to the families of surviving
internees.
6
Asian-Americans in Culture

• A few decades ago, especially in poor,
  racially-divided areas, Asian-Americans werent
  really sure where they stood. It was whites
  against blacks, and they fit into neither group.
  Nor were they Asianthey thought of themselves as
  American, and to this day most Asian-Americans
  are born in America.
• Yet they are caught in the middle, having
  removed
• themselves from Asian culture but still seen as
  Asian by Americans. For this
• reason, they are more likely
• to cling to family and other
• Asian-Americans, limiting
• interactivity with other groups
• and integration into American
• culture. Many also find it hard to
• overcome the language barrier
• learning enough English to do well.

7
Many Asian-Americans are forced to overcome
stereotypes about their heritage in order to gain
acceptance in American society. Here, some
influential Asian-Americans talk about how being
an Asian-American sets them apart from mainstream
American culture, both in good ways and in
bad. Another prominent Asian American today is
Bobby Jindal, the first non-white governor of
Louisiana and second Asian-American governor.
http//www.youtube.com/watch?vhWey0hhi3Dwfeature
fvw
8
Asian Americans in Poverty

• Of all the American ethnic groups,
  Asian-Americans are the richest, with a median
  household income of 64,238 and a poverty rate of
  10.3.
• This is in part because 47 of adult
  Asian-Americans work in management, professional
  and related occupations, such as financial
  managers, engineers, and other positions less
  vulnerable to layoffs in times of economic
  turmoil.

9

• It seems that Asian-Americans are growing more
  comfortable with their status. From the 14.9
  million US residents who described themselves as
  Asian-American in 1996 (5 of the US population),
  numbers are rapidly increasing, and it is
  predicted that 33.4 million people will describe
  themselves as Asian-Americans in 2050 (49 more
  than the actual growth of that population in that
  time).

• Asian-Americans take education
• very seriously. 49 of adults have
• bachelors degrees, and 86 have
• a high school diploma.
• They have founded the Asian
• American Federation to improve
• quality of life for all Asian-Americans.

10
A Model Minority

• Asian-Americans have been called the model
  minority because they exemplify all the traits
  traditionally seen as being important to
  Americanseducated, hard-working, and dedicated
  to family. Today there are many Americans of
  Asian ancestry in respected places in our
  culture, marking how the minority has risen above
  discrimination into a place of acceptance in
  American society.

11

• There are still poor Asian-Americans, however.
  These are overlooked generally because of the
  overwhelming success of certain Asian
  ethnicities. For example, while 88 of
  Japanese-Americans have a high school education,
  only 33 of Hmongs do. Furthermore, many
  households have as many as eight children, and
  have trouble succeeding because they speak poor
  English. While as a general group
  Asian-Americans seem to be succeeding, there are
  still many problems there that need to be sorted
  out. As always, the problem is just getting the
  word out about poverty.

12

• http//itcphotos.utsa.edu/photos/098-0953.gif
• http//www.jamsj.org/newsletter/Fall07/reagan.gif
• http//www.chinasmack.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/
  04/pretty-asian-girl.jpg
• http//www.aalead.org/content/Report20-20Invisib
  le20Americans.pdf
• https//www.lssu.edu/faculty/jswedene/images/chine
  se-railroad.jpg
• http//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a
  /JapaneseAmericansChildrenPledgingAllegiance1942.j
  pg
• http//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83
  /JapaneseAmericanGrocer1942.jpg
• World Book 2008. A-1. Chicago World Book, Inc.,
  2008. Print.
• Lee, Joan. Asian Americans. New York New Press,
  1991.