The Year Of the Rat: Moments In History
February 19, 2008
1912 | Three thousand cherry trees are given as a gift to the city of Washington, D.C., from Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo to celebrate the growing friendship between the United States and Japan. First Lady Taft and Viscountess Chinda, wife of the Japanese ambassador, ceremoniously plant the first two trees in the city on the bank of the Tidal Basin.
1924 | The U.S. Immigration Act of 1924 restricts all Asians from coming into the U.S. by instituting a quota system for each country. Western and Northern European countries are given large quotas, while Asian and Eastern European countries are assigned very restrictive quotas.
Led by labor organizer Pablo Manlapit, some 600 Filipino workers hired to work on the sugar plantations of Kaua‘i begin a strike and clash violently with police, ending with 16 strikers and four policemen dead. Paid the lowest wages among immigrant workers, the Filipinos are on strike for more pay and better working conditions.
1936 | American Federation of Labor grants a charter to a Filipino-Mexican union of fieldworkers. Facing oppressive racial discrimination by employers and other workers, they band together and fight for unionization.
1948 | California’s Supreme Court effectively lifts the ban on interracial marriage by ruling that the California law against interracial marriage violated the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution. California becomes the second state after Ohio to repeal its anti-miscegenation laws.
Sammy Lee overcomes great obstacles to become the first Korean American to win a gold medal at the London Games and the first Olympic diver to win back-to-back gold medals. Lee goes on to coach Olympic diving greats Bob Webster and Greg Louganis.
Harold Sakata becomes the first Japanese American to win an Olympic medal by capturing a silver medal in weightlifting at the Olympic Games in London. Sakata later becomes famous for playing the role of Oddjob in the James Bond film, Goldfinger.
Congress passes the Japanese American Claims Act. The law authorizes the settlement of property loss claims by people of Japanese descent who were forcibly removed from their homes during World War II.
1960 | In Kimm v. Rosenberg, the Supreme Court rules that a Korean national should be deported for refusing to answer whether or not he is a Communist.
1972 | First national conference of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders is held in San Francisco. In Seattle, a national organization for Filipino Americans is established.
Connie Chung, news anchor and correspondent for NBC News, becomes the first Chinese American woman to be seen regularly on national television. She becomes one of the first minority women to break into the media field when she is hired by CBS in 1972 on the basis of both affirmative action and merit considerations.
Federal legislation repeals two “anti-Oriental” laws, an 1872 law prohibiting entry of “Orientals” without a permit and a 1905 law banning “the import of an Oriental woman with the intent to sell her.”
1984 | Jesse Jackson becomes the first presidential candidate to visit New York City’s Chinatown.
Judge June Patel vacates the conviction of Fred Korematsu, who challenged the Japanese American evacuation during WWII. In its decision, the federal district court states that the internment of Japanese Americans “stands as a caution that in times of international hostility and antagonisms our institutions, legislative, executive and judicial, must be prepared to exercise their authority to protect all citizens from the petty fears and prejudices that are so easily aroused.”
1996 | Gary Locke becomes the first Asian American elected governor of a mainland state when he wins the Washington state governorship by a wide margin.
The National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum is formed to advance social justice and human rights for APA women and girls.
In San Francisco, Vietnamese American families in housing projects tell of race-targeted threats and beatings. There are 188 hate crimes against Asians in California in 1996, according to the state attorney general’s office.
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Why does someone discriminate black? I don’t think love is just belongs to white. I’m a black and but my hubby is white. We met at mixedfriends.com which tell us love is color blind. Our love proved this. I hope each one will not discriminate blacks.
I know sometimes we behave how society influences us. We should also use our own judgement on the individual rather than who he or she is. I know it is true, the same as, I as an Asian American male, people don’t think I am muscular or as romantic. That’s wrong, me and my other Asian American male friends, for example open to get to know other non-Asian female friends. We occasionally go out to dance. We love to dance with White, Hispanic, Asian, or Black girls.