Definition of Asian American

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Definition of Asian American

• The term "Asian American" was mainly popularized
  by civil rights movement activists in the 1960s.
• This denomination underlined the common plight of
  all Asians in the United States and gave Asian
  Americans more prominence on the political scene.
  
• In the United States, the term has widely
  supplanted "Oriental" to describe East Asian
  people regardless of nationality, upbringing, or
  origin.
• Some have argued that "Oriental" is politically
  loaded and referenced a colonial "other. To many
  people, the term "Oriental" is often seen as an
  unfriendly, even derogatory term.

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A Controversial Term

• Asian American" is not a very precise or accurate
  term, and some people prefer it being replaced by
  the use of separate terms for each Asian cultural
  or geographical group.
• Additionally, although the term "Asian" in the
  United States is most popularly used as a term to
  group peoples with physical or cultural
  characteristics resembling East Asian people,
  Asians from the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast
  Asia (including the Philippines, Indonesia, and
  Malaysia) are also included in the Asian American
  grouping for cultural studies and academic works,
  as well as for official government and census
  purposes.
• To a lesser extent, some government agencies also
  classify Middle Easterners as "West Asians."
  Until recent times, South Asians were previously
  categorized in the white racial category together
  with immigrants from the Middle East. Lobbying by
  South Asian business groups resulted in their
  placement into the "Asian" category

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Metropolitan Areas with the Highest Proportion of
Asian Americans (2000 Census)
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Early history

• A large amount of Chinese and Japanese began
  immigrating to the U.S. in the mid 19th century.
  Many of these immigrants worked as laborers on
  the transcontinental railroad.
• A surge in Asian immigration in the late 19th
  century gave rise to a fear from some, referred
  to as the "yellow peril."
• In Hawaii, both Chinese and Japanese laborers
  were brought in during the 19th century to work
  on sugar plantations. Later, Filipinos were also
  brought in as laborers.

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Push Factors

• Most of these early Chinese workers were from the
  Guangdong (also called Canton) province in China.
  
• The most important factor was economic hardship
  due to the growing British dominance over China,
  after Britain defeated China in the Opium War of
  1839-1842.

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Pull Factors

• the first large-scale immigration of Asians into
  the U.S. didn't happen until 1848. gold was
  discovered in America. Lured by tales and dreams
  of making it rich on "Gold Mountain" (which
  became the Chinese nickname for California),
• The Gold Rush was one of the factors that led
  many Chinese to come to the U.S. to find their
  fortune and return home rich and wealthy.

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Transcontinental Railroad
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• Chinese workers constructed the Central Pacific
  Railroad, the first railroad to traverse the
  Sierra Nevada, in six years (from 1863 until
  1869). This 335 m (1100 ft) trestle spans the
  Secretown Ravine, 108 km (64 mi) east of
  Sacramento, California.

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• The speeches congratulated European immigrant
  workers for their labor but never mentioned the
  Chinese. Instead, Chinese men were summarily
  fired and forced to walk the long distance back
  to San Francisco -- forbidden to ride on the
  railroad they built. as Helen Zia points out in
  her excellent book Asian American Dreams The
  Emergence of an American People

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Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

• the Chinese increasingly became the targets of
  racial attacks and discriminatory legislation
  because their labor was no longer needed and
  Whites began seeing them as an economic threat.
  This anti-Chinese movement, which was accompanied
  by numerous anti-Chinese riots, lynchings, and
  murders
• Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. This act barred
  virtually all immigration from China and
  prevented all Chinese already in the U.S. from
  becoming U.S. citizens, even their American-born
  children. For the first time in U.S. history, a
  specific ethnic group was singled out and
  forbidden to enter the U.S.

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China Town

• Because they were forbidden from owning land,
  intermarrying with Whites, owning homes, working
  in many occupations, getting an education, and
  living in certain parts of the city or entire
  cities, the Chinese basically had no other choice
  but to retreat into their own isolated
  communities as a matter of survival. These first
  Chinatowns at least allowed them to make a living
  among themselves.
• This is where the stereotypical image of Chinese
  restaurants and laundry shops, Japanese gardeners
  and produce stands, and Korean grocery stores
  began.

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Racial Discrimination

• Ever since the first Asians arrived in America,
  there has been anti-Asian racism. This includes
  prejudice and acts of discrimination. For more
  than 200 years, Asian Americans have been denied
  equal rights, subjected to harassment and
  hostility, had their rights revoked and
  imprisoned for no justifiable reason, physically
  attacked, and murdered.

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Angel Island

• A largest island in San Francisco Bay, W Calif.
  Explored by the Spanish in 1775, it came under
  U.S. control in 1851. The U.S. army used the
  island as a base from 1863 to 1946, and from 1955
  to 1962 a radar and missile site was there.
• From 1910 to 1940 the island was also used to
  process mainly Asian immigrants to the United
  States, earning it the nickname Ellis Island of
  the West. During World War II, enemy prisoners
  of war were confined on Angel Island. The island
  is now a state park.

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War History

• Asian participants in the American Civil War were
  not given citizenship, voting rights, or access
  to public schools because they were legally
  declared "neither black nor white."
• The Japanese American Internment refers to the
  controversial, forcible relocation of
  approximately 112,000 to 120,000 Japanese and
  Japanese Americans, 62 percent of whom were
  United States citizens, from the west coast of
  the United States during World War II to hastily
  constructed housing facilities called War
  Relocation Camps in remote portions of the
  nation's interior. President Franklin Roosevelt
  authorized the internment with United States
  Executive Order 9066.

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Japanese American Prison CampsDuring World War
II

• Fresno, CAManzanar, CAMarysville, CAMerced,
  CAPinedale, CAPomona, CASacramento,
  CASalinas, CASanta Anita, CAStockton,
  CATanforan, CATulare, CATule Lake, CATurlock,
  CA
• Amache, Colorado

• Gila River, ArizonaHeart Mountain,
  WyomingJerome, ArkansasMayer, ArizonaMinidoka,
  IdahoPortland, OregonPoston, ArizonaPuyallup,
  WashingtonRohwer, ArkansasTopaz, Utah

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Naturalized Citizens in the war

• On the other hand, after the war began, Chinese
  Americans and to a lesser extent, those of
  Korean, Filipino, and South Asian descent, were
  beginning to be portrayed in a much more positive
  light. For example, a 1942 Gallup poll
  characterized the Chinese as "hardworking,
  honest, brave, religious, intelligent, and
  practical." The U.S. was feeling so charitable
  that in 1943, it revoked the provisions of the
  Chinese Exclusion Act passed 61 years earlier.
• This finally gave Chinese residents the right to
  be naturalized citizens. Because the U.S.
  government decided to portray them that way since
  China was now the U.S.'s wartime ally.

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After the War

• After the war finally ended in 1945, the U.S.'s
  attitudes towards the Japanese and Chinese once
  again flip-flopped.
• After the communists took control, China became
  the evil enemy while Japan, rebuilding under the
  direction of the U.S. military, was seen as
  hardworking, friendly, and intelligent.
  Reflecting this change of opinion, Japanese
  Americans officially received the right to become
  naturalized U.S. citizens in 1952.

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The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965

• represents a significant watershed moment in
  Asian American history.
• Reversing decades of systematic exclusion and
  restrictive immigration policies, the Act
  resulted in unprecedented numbers of immigrants
  from Asia, Mexico, Latin America, and other
  non-western nations entering the U.S.
• In the process, these new arrivals, particular
  from Asia, have transformed the demographic,
  economic, and cultural characteristics of many
  urban areas, the larger Asian American community,
  and mainstream American society in general.

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New Immigrants

• First, in the wake of World War II, immigration
  preferences favored family reunification. This
  may have helped attract highly skilled workers to
  meet American workforce deficiencies.
• Secondly, the end of the Korean War and Vietnam
  War or so-called "Secret Wars" in Southeast Asia
  brought a new wave of Asian American immigration
  as people from Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia
  arrived. Some of the new immigrants, as in the
  case of the Korean War, were war brides, who were
  soon joined by their families.
• Others, like the Southeast Asians, were either
  highly skilled and educated or part of subsequent
  waves of refugees seeking asylum. Some factors
  contributing to the growth of sub-groups such as
  South Asians and mainland Chinese are higher
  family sizes, higher use of family-reunification
  visas, and higher numbers of technically skilled
  workers entering on H-1 and H-1b visas.

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Scapegoat

• It seems that whenever there are problems in
  American society, political or economic, there
  always seems to be the need for a scapegoat --
  someone or a group of people who is/are singled
  out, unjustifiably blamed, and targeted with
  severe hostility. Combined with the cultural
  stereotype of Asian Americans as quiet, weak, and
  powerless, more and more Asian Americans are
  victimized, solely on the basis of being an Asian
  American.

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Continued

• Two incidents have energized some Chinese
  Americans and other Asian Americans, particularly
  American-born Chinese in recent years -- the
  murder of Vincent Chin by white automotive
  workers in 1982
• The unsubstantiated charges of spying against
  Chinese American nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee at
  Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1999, whom many
  believe was a victim of racial stereotyping.

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Vincent Chin
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Wen Ho Lee
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Model Minority

• The reference to Asian Americans as "model
  minorities" has to do with the work ethic,
  respect for elders, and high valuation of family
  and elders present in their culture. Despite the
  fact that this concept seems to valorize Asian
  Americans, it comes with an underlying notion of
  their apoliticality.
• Moreover, such a label one-dimensionalizes Asian
  Americans as having those traits and no other
  human qualities, such as vocal leadership,
  negative emotions, or intolerance towards
  oppression.
• Asian Americans are labeled as model minorities
  because they have not been as much of a "threat"
  to the U.S. political establishment as blacks,
  due to a smaller population and less political
  advocacy. This label seeks to suppress potential
  political activism through euphemistic
  complements.
• (Reference Asian Americans and Politics
  Perspective, Experiences, Prospects by Gordon H.
  Chang.)

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Model Minority Myth

• Due to popular labeling of Asian Americans as
  model minorities, the critical issues of poverty
  and low educational attainment among southeast
  Asian immigrants and their Asian American
  children do not receive the attention that such
  issues receive in the African American and
  Hispanic communities

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Asian American Status in Affirmative Action

• Because of their high degree of success as a
  group, Asian Americans do not generally benefit
  from affirmative action policies the way other
  minority groups do. In fact, some schools
  routinely choose lower-scoring applicants from
  other racial groups, even European American, over
  Asian American, in an attempt to promote racial
  diversity and to maintain some proportion to the
  society's racial demographics.
• According to a 2005 Princeton University study,
  if affirmative action were eliminated in college
  admissions, nearly four out of every five spots
  lost by African Americans and Hispanic Americans
  would be given to an Asian American

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Chinese Holidays
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Spring Festival (The Chinese New Year)

• Chinese New Year, pronounced in Chinese as "xin
  nian", always falls on the date of marking the
  beginning of the spring and thus it is also
  called the "Spring Festival".
• "xin" means "new" and "nian" means "year". There
  are many stories told about the origin of "nian",
  which actually is a name of animals.

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Spring Festival (The Chinese New Year)

• The celebration of the Chinese New Year may last
  only a few days including the New Year's Eve.
• The New Year season actually starts on the 15th
  of December and ends at the 15th of January.
• By tradition, Chinese will be busy in buying
  presents, decorating their houses, preparing food
  and making new cloths for the New Year.
• During that period, all transportation, in
  particular railway, will be busy in bringing
  Chinese back to their own home town for a family
  reunion on the Chinese New year Eve.

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Spring Festival (The Chinese New Year)

• Supper is a feast, and all the Family member
  return just for this Holiday.
• Chinese food, especially during the New Year, is
  rich with symbolism and is a very important part
  of Chinese social culture.
• The Chinese people shop for seasonal specialties
  and typical New Year favorites.

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Spring Festival (The Chinese New Year)

• You will see a lot of Chinese New Year Cake,
  sesame balls, almond cookies and other
  irresistible sweet and other treats.
• Some other foods that our served during this
  special event are dim sum, noodles, seafood,
  Chinese Herbs and medicinal products, B.B.Q.
  meats, Bubble Teas and other treats.

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Mid-Autumn Festival (Moon Festival )

• This is the second most important holiday other
  then the New Year in.
• The moon on this day is the fullest and largest
  to the eye. Viewing it by the whole family while
  feasting on good wine, fruits and moon-cakes
  features the night event.
• There is also a story behind this, children are
  told that there's a fairy on the moon living in a
  open but cold crystal palace with her sole mate,
  a jade rabbit.
• A heavenly general and friend would occasionally
  pay her a visit, bringing along his fragrant
  wine. She would then dance a beautiful dance and
  the shadows on the moon made the story all the
  more credible to the young imaginative minds.

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Chinese Food

• Chinese cuisine is one of the greatest methods of
  cooking. Many elements that have influenced its
  development
• They prepare all types of food, from fish to
  chicken to pork and Beef.
• They also use a lot of vegetables in there meals,
  which helps to make a health dish for them to
  enjoy.
• They have all different types of soups to which
  they uses dumplings, vegetables, meat and
  noodles.

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Chinese Foods

• Seafood, goes from crabs to prawns, from fresh
  water fish to deep ocean fish, and from shark fin
  to squid.
• Given the right ingredients and to the right
  cook, all these can be turned in to a tasty meal
  .
• seafood is considered a high end product that
  does not figure highly in the Chinese-American
  diet compared to other meats.
• Such as pork and chicken products, these are the
  dominant sources of protein for Chinese-American

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Chinese Food

• Sweet and Sour Pork is one of the most known
  dishes to the American. Chinese actually have
  many very tasteful dishes with pork.
• Barbecue pork is another one and Chinese will
  cook without the fats so that they can retain the
  taste of the pork. Which makes the dish very
  healthy and delicious
• Also Chicken and Beef are pretty know in the
  American-Chinese culture. Most of the dish we
  know of have these types of meat. Which this
  makes them very tasty.

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Chinese Foods

• Soups have been a part of Chinese meals for a
  long time, which there are many different types
  of Chinese soups.
• Sweet corn and hot/sour soups are the most
  popular soups to China.
• Here in America, most of us are use to eating
  soups that have dumplings and different spices,
  which arent as healthy as the traditional soups
  from the home country.
• Chinese make their soups with chicken, meat or
  vegetable stock.
• Chinese soups are very tasteful and can be light
  in both texture and flavor. Yet some of the soups
  are filling enough to be a meal by themselves
  too.

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Chinese Foods

• Did you know the Fortune Cookie was invented by
  Americans, they never had cookies that told them
  if something was going to happen to them or today
  is there lucky day.
• So you know its not an authentic Chinese dessert,
  but no restaurant meal at a North American
  Chinese restaurant would be complete without them.

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Chinese Foods

• Most of Dishes that our cooked in Chinese
  restaurants, are consider works of art just
  because they take their time and appreciate, what
  they are doing.

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Asian-American Art
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Asian-American Architecture

• One prominent Asian-American art form is
  Architecture. There are several important figures
  in American Society, which included I.M. Pei and
  Maya Lin.

http//images.encarta.msn.com/xrefmedia/sharemed/t
argets/images/pho/t037/T037539A.jpg
http//prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/lin/images
/mayalb.jpg
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I.M. Pei

• Leoh Ming Pei was born in Canton in1917.
• Canton China that is!
• Studied architecture at MIT and Harvard.
• Between 1942 and 1945, he worked as a concrete
  designer for Stone and Webster.
• In 1946 he began work in the office of Hugh Asher
  Stubbins, in Boston.
• Pei worked as an instructor and then as an
  assistant professor at Harvard.
• He joined Webb Knapp Inc. in New York in 1948.
• In 1960 he founded his own architectural office,
  I. M. Pei Partners, New York.

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Important Works

• I.M. Pei has worked on many high scale projects
  in the United states including
• Christian Science Center in Boston
• East Wing, National Gallery in Washington D.C.
• Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, New York
• The Hancock Place in Boston
• Javits Convention Center in New York
• Johnson Museum of Art in Ithaca, New York
• National Center for Atmospheric Research in
  Boulder, Colorado
• Rock and Roll Hall of fame in Cleveland.

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• http//www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/fa267/pei/p
  ei_xsci1.jpg

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ei_east_wing20ngw2.jpg
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ancock2.jpg
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03-0329_IMG.JPG
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es/Johnson_Art_Museum_by_IM_Pei.jpg
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all/honors_papers_2000/Image8.jpg
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http//www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Rock_and_R
oll_Hall_of_Fame.html
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Maya Lin

• Maya Lin was born in Athens on October 10, 1959.
• Athens Ohio that is!
• Chinese-American woman.
• BA, Architecture, Yale College, 1981.
• Master's of Architecture from Yale, 1986.
• Honorary doctorates from Yale.
• Most famous work is the Vietnam Veterans
  memorial.
• Interest in nature.

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Maya Lins Works
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er.jpg
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/5_9.jpg
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/5_6.jpg
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Performing arts

• There are many famous Asian actors and actresses
  that appear in American movies.
• Some of these performers are
• Bruce Lee
• Jackie Chan
• Jet Li
• George Takei
• Pat Morita
• Victor Wong
• Nancy Kwan
• Anna May Wong
• Daniel Dae Kim
• Lucy Liu

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Bruce Li Jet Li Jackie Chan
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li_03.jpg
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Pat Morita George Takei
http//www.regent.edu/news/story20pics/patmorita2
.jpg
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3204.jpg
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Daniel Dae Kim Nancy Kwan Yunjin
Kim
http//nancy-kwan.com/nancy19.jpg
http//www.danieldaekim.org/graphics/gallery/lost/
jinandsun.jpg
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Lucy Liu Anna May Wong
http//www.silentladies.com/Wong/Wong40.jpg
http//www.amayhew.com/images/Lucy20Liu20a17.jpg
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Bibliography

• "I. M. Pei's Construction Innovation", by
  ArchitectureWeek, ArchitectureWeek No. 143,
  2003.0423, pN1.1.
• Maya Lin. Maya Lin Public/Private. Distributed
  Art Publishers, October 1994
• Michael T. Cannell. I.M. Pei Mandarin of
  Modernism. Clarkson Potter, October 1995
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_minority
• http//www.asian-nation.org
• http//www.index-china.com/index.html
• http//www.greatbuildings.com/architects/I._M._Pei
  .html
• http//www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/fa267/pei.h
  tml
• http//www.greatbuildings.com/architects/Maya_Lin.
  html
• http//www.pbs.org/art21/artists/lin/
• http//movies.yahoo.com/
• Links to Pictures stated below them.