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Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month: Open Access Articles from JSTOR

Making Asian and Pacific America

Making Asian and Pacific America

Licensed under Public Domain via <a  data-cke-saved-href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chinese_American_Fishermen_b.jpg#/media/File:Chinese_American_Fishermen_b.jpg" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chinese_American_Fishermen_b.jpg#/media/File:Chinese_American_Fishermen_b.jpg" target="_blank">Commons</a>

The Making of Asian America

Asians are on track to become the fastest growing U.S. population by the next half-century. We look at the history of Asian immigration, past and present.

Khmer Rouge guerilla accepts a gift of cigarettes from a waiting French official, May, 1975.

How the Vietnam War Shaped U.S. Immigration Policy

The makings of our modern resettlement system can be traced back to the fallout of the Vietnam War, a cascade of international crises stoked by the U.S.

Ho Chi Minh, 1921

The First Vietnamese in America

Before 1945, many Vietnamese migrants to the United States were laborers. One was Ho Chi Minh.

Portrait of a woman looking at the camera

On Hyphens and Racial Indicators

The AP dropped hyphens from expressions of heritage such as "Asian American." Some scholars are asking, with or without hyphens, aren't we all "American"?

Arts & Culture

Anna May Wong

Hollywood’s Asian American Heroes

Asian American detectives played by actors Anna May Wong and Keye Luke had a minor but notable place in 1930s and 40s Hollywood.

The Filipino Novel That Reimagined Neocolonial Gender

Revisiting an essential Asian American work, beloved for its synthesis of neocolonialism, postmodernism, and central queer and female characters.

Kim Jong-hyun

What Exactly is K-Pop, Anyway?

Since the late 90s, K-Pop has been one of South Korea's most important cultural exports. Fans have a deeply emotional attachment to the music.

Eddie Aikau

Eddie Aikau: The Rad Life of a Hawaiian Surfing Legend

Eddie Aikau was a surfing legend during a time when Hawaiian legends were being resurrected. As a lifeguard, he attempted more than 500 daring rescues.

Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu

Chien-Shiung Wu, the First Lady of Physics 

Chien-Shiung Wu disproved a fundamental law of physics—a stunning achievement that helped earn her male colleagues (but not her) a Nobel Prize.

Racism and the Myth of the Model Minority

Two Filipino men in Los Angeles

1930s Filipinos Were Hip to American Style. There Was Backlash.

Filipinos, newly arrived to West Coast cities, displayed a mastery over American cultural life thanks to their knowledge of Hollywood films.

Police officer Peter Liang leaves the courtroom at the end of the day in his trial on charges in the shooting death of Akai Gurley, Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2016, at Brooklyn Supreme court in New York. Jurors are scheduled to start discussing their views of Liang’s actions as soon as Tuesday. Closing arguments are expected in the morning, and deliberations are likely to begin in the afternoon. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

The “Model Minority” Myth and the Hidden Discrimination of Asian Americans

Identifying Asian Americans as a "model minority" often erases the continued discrimination faced by Asians in America. 

An image of lettuce from 1926

The Lettuce Workers Strike of 1930

Uniting for better wages and working conditions, a remarkably diverse coalition of laborers faced off against agribusiness.

Native Hawaiian schoolchildren around 1900.

How Public Schools “Americanized” Hawai’i

Colonial education administrators recruited teachers from the mainland, but soon realized another strategy was in order.

Photograph showing Waldemar Mordecai Wolffe Haffkine (1860-1930), Bacteriologist with the Government of India, inoculating a community against cholera in Calcutta, March 1894.

Anti-Asian Racism in the 1817 Cholera Pandemic

We should learn from, instead of repeating, the racist assignations of the past.

 

Japanese American school children

Lessons From a Japanese Internment Camp

Trump ally Carl Higbie recently cited Japanese internment camps during World War II as a “precedent” for a proposed registry of Muslims in the U.S.

Uncle Sam holding paper "Protest against Russian exclusion of Jewish Americans" and looking in shock at Chinese skeleton labeled "American exclusion of Chinese" in closet.

How the Chinese Fought Discrimination in 19th Century Arizona

Chinese immigrants in the American West faced legal discrimination and fought back against it using other laws.

Food

Steamed dumplings Dim Sum

The Cookbook That Brought Chinese Food to American Kitchens

The groundbreaking 1945 cookbook, How to Cook and Eat in Chinese, that introduced Chinese cooking to white American cooks.

Chicken Tikka and lamb samosas

Indian Food is Not a Monolith

When you eat Indian food, what are you really eating? Chicken tikka masala was originally created to appease the palates of the British during the Raj.

A postcard for Ruby Foo's Den in Boston

Have Chinese Restaurants Always Looked “Chinese”?

In some places, that red-and-gold flair might not fly.