History repeats itself!
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 is one of the earliest forms of Systematic Racism against Asian peoples. This banned Chinese and other Asian immigrants and prevented current residents from becoming naturalized citizens.
They were also barred from owning property. In 1852, a Foreign Miner’s Tax of $3 per month was introduced, targeting Chinese miners and in 1854 Chinese people along with African Americans were not eligible to testify in court. Over $5 million in Foreign Miner Tax was collected by 1870.
The 1924 Immigration Act limited the number of immigrants from a country to be 2% of the population of that nationality in the United States.
In 1942, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President F. Roosevelt signed executive order 9066, which called for the internment of Japanese and Japanese-Americans living in the United States.
Many Japanese Americans were held in internment camps, forced to move with nothing but the clothes they could carry, and often times lost their businesses and homes. They came back to nothing but vandalized homes with hateful slurs graffitied onto them.
Families were torn apart, as parents were deported because they weren’t allowed to become naturalized citizens, while the children enlisted for the military to show their loyalty to the US.
Vincent Chin was a 27-year-old Chinese American who was brutally killed by two white unemployed men in 1982. The men were given a lenient sentence of 3 years probation and a $3000 fine. Unequal punishment for the crime of murder, which was racially motivated.
In 2020, many Asians and Asian Americans are at threat of being attacked on the street because the COVID-19 pandemic was called “The China Virus” or “Kung Flu.” This led to many uneducated people attacking Asian people on the street, treating them as scapegoats for the pandemic.
Elderly Asian people are being brutally attacked on the street, which is facing no sentiment or empathy from most people, but if they were white they would be calling for legislation against this type of crime and more strict enforcement from the police.
