Reorienting America: Race, Geopolitics, and the Repeal of Asian Exclusion, 1940-1952
Journal: Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University)
Year: 2013

This dissertation examines the movement to repeal the Asian exclusion laws in the United States during World War II and the early Cold War years. It situates campaigns for repeal in the context of two interrelated developments: African American civil rights activism in the United States and shifting U.S. geopolitical interests in post-1940 Asia. As U.S. foreign policy priorities pivoted toward Asia beginning in World War II, Americans' view of the world changed in ways that, at times, allowed ge