From: mike@clubmezz.Berkeley.EDU (Michael T. Itamura)
Subject: Re: The Clinton Cabinet
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 22:59:58 GMT

In article <1gsvbvINNeo@news.aero.org> helfman@aero.org (Robert S. Helfman) writes:
>
>The Chinese were the first Asian Americans to arrive here in the 1800's. They
>were employed in massive numbers in the building of the Union Pacific's
>transcontinental railroad (the "Golden Spike" and all that). At Donner Summit,
>for example, many hundreds of Chinese laborers were involved in the
>blasting of 'Cape Horn'. Many Chinese ended up staying in the Sierra
>foothills and settling in Gold Country towns like Placerville. (I worked in
>the '60s with a Chinese guy who was FOURTH generation - from Placerville. He
>told me a lot of lore from pioneer days.)

  There have been Chinese living in Hawaii for over 200 years.  Chinese
immigration was halted to the United States in 1882.  Immigration continued
to the Kingdom of Hawaii until the annexation.

>Japanese immigrants began arriving in the last days of the 1890's. I believe
>the major flow was in the early 1920's. It was in the late 1920's that
>the white majority began getting panicky about the ASIAN HORDES and passed
>an exclusion act which choked off further immigration and severely restricted
>property and other civil rights of Asians. Almost all Japanese-Americans one
>encounters in California have ancestors who came over before the Exclusion
>Act (the exceptions are those who ancestors came through Hawaii).

  In the 1868/9 time frame, two immigration ships set sail from Japan - one
headed to Hawaii and headed for California.  The Japanese government was
not happy with the treatment that the Japanese immigrants to Hawaii
received so immigration to Hawaii was suspended after that one ship.  I
have heard that being a decendent of one of the Japanese on that ship
is somewhat like being a member of the DAR or SAR.  Immigration resumed
in 1885 to Hawaii.  Immigration to the United States was quite small until
the late 1890's.  Immigration of Japanese laborers was cut off in 1908
(Gentleman's Agreement).  The wives and children of immigrants were
allowed to immigrate until 1924.  Hawaii came under US control since 1898.
Japanese immigration stopped at the same time in Hawaii as it did in
the United States.

>In the late 1800's, many Filipino workers came to Hawaii to work the
>sugar cane fields. They became a major component of Hawaii's population.

  I think that they came here in large numbers in the 20's and 30's.

>A trickle of Koreans began showing up in the US after the Korean War.
>I began seeing Korean restaurants in L.A. in the late '60s and knew a few
>Korean kids in the early '60s, but clearly the great bulk of the arrivals
>have been in the last 15 years, at least as far as L.A. is concerned.

  Early Korean immigration begain in the early 1900's.  It stopped
after the annexation of Korea by Japan.  There are quite a few third and
fourth generation Korean Americans who are descended from this group of
immigrants.

>Although Asian Americans are a tiny minority in the U.S. (certainly under
>5% nationwide), ....

  There are something like 3% nationally.  Chinese are something like
1.5 million in the US.  Japanese 1.0 million in the US.  Someone help
me with the other numbers...   I have heard that the Japanese American
group has a smaller fraction of foreign born people than the national
average.

			Mike Itamura

Newsgroups: soc.culture.asian.american