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Timeline of Asian American History

16th Century | 18th Century | 19th Century | 20th Century

16th Century
1587		Filipino crew members aboard the Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de Esperanz land in present-day California
18th Century
1763		Filipino seamen settle in Louisiana.

1778		British Captain James Cook arrives in the Hawaiian islands, calling them the Sandwich Islands. Captain Cook's death

1781		Antonio Miranda, one of the 46 founders of Los Angeles, is of Philippine ancestry.

1785		Three Chinese seamen are stranded in Baltimore for a year.

1790		The first U.S. Naturalization Act only permits free white persons to become American citizens.
19th Century
1802		A Chinese sugar master arrives in Hawaii.

1806		Eight shipwrecked Japanese sailors arrive in Hawaii.

1810		Kamehameha I proclaims himself the ruler of the Kingdom of Hawaii.

1815		Filipino settlers in Louisiana assist the American army in the Battle of New Orleans.

1820		Protestant missionaries arrive in Hawaii.

1835		The first American sugar plantation is established in Hawaii.

1839-42		A British victory in the Opium War forces China to open up to foreign trade and to cede Hong Kong to Britain.

1840		Hawaii adopts a written constitution, providing for a two house legislature.

1842		The United States recognizes the Kingdom of Hawaii.

1843		The first Japanese arrive in the United States.

1848		Chinese immigrants arrive in the United States.

		Hawaii allows land to be bought, sold, and leased, opening the door to the expansion of sugar plantations.

1850		Hikozo Hamada (also known as Joseph Heco) becomes the first Japanese naturalized as an American citizen.

		California imposes the Foreign Miners’ Tax, a $20 per month levy payable by every foreign miner.

		Chinese participate in the funeral procession for President Zachary Taylor in New York.

1851-64		The Taiping Rebellion, a clash between China’s Manchu government and forces inspired by a mystic named Hong Xiuquan, leaves 30 million dead.

1852		20,000 Chinese immigrants, almost all males, migrate to San Francisco.

1853		The Four Houses—an umbrella group of huiguan (groups of Chinese immigrants with a common regional origin—is founded.

1856		Yung Wing graduates from Yale College, becoming the first Chinese American to graduate from an American college.

		In Hall v. People, the California Supreme Court overturns the conviction of a white man who had murdered a Chinese man, ruling that the testimony of Chinese witnesses was inadmissible because the Chinese were "a race of people whom nature has marked as inferior, and who are incapable of progress or intellectual development beyond a certain point, as their history has shown; differing in language, opinions, color, and physical conformation; between whom and ourselves nature has placed an impassable difference" and as such had no right "to swear away the life of a citizen" or participate "with us in administering the affairs of our Government."

1859		California excludes Chinese from San Francisco schools.

1860		The first Japanese delegation visits the United States.

1862		The Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, commonly known as the Chinese Six Companies, is established in San Francisco to arbitrate disputes, contest discriminatory laws, curb prostitution, and organize public events.

1863		Recruitment begins for Chinese laborers for the Central Pacific Railroad Across the continent, the Frank Leslie transcontinental excursion

1868		The first Japanese workers are transported to work in Hawaii, California, and Guam.

1870		The Naturalization Act excludes Chinese from citizenship and prohibits the wives of Chinese laborers from entering the United States.

1873		Zun Zow Matzmulla becomes the first Japanese midshipman at the U.S. Naval Academy.

1874		King Kalakaua ascends to the Hawaiian throne. He reinstates customs that had been banned by missionaries, such as the hula and the wearing of grass skirts.

1875		The Bing cherry, named for Ah Bing, is developed.

		The Page Law forbids the entry of Chinese, Mongolian, and Japanese contract laborers, prostitutes, and felons.

1876		The U.S.-Hawaii Reciprocity Treaty allows Hawaiian grown sugar to enter the United States duty-free.

1882		The Chinese Exclusion Acts prohibits the entry of Chinese laborers into the United States.

1884		The Japanese government permits Japanese to work as contract laborers in Hawaii.

1885		The Irwin Convention makes it illegal for U.S. citizens to help alien laborers migrate to the United States or its territories.

		Korean political refugees arrive in San Francisco

1886		In Yick Wo v. Hopkins, the Supreme Court rules that a San Francisco ordinance that is seemingly neutral but which has a disparate impact on a specific group violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

1887		The renewal of the U.S.-Hawaii Reciprocity Treaty allows the United States to lease a naval base at Pearl Harbor.

1889		In Chae Chan Ping v. United States, the Supreme Court rules that the United States could prevent Chinese from immigrating to the United States.

1891		Liliuokalani becomes queen of Hawaii upon the death of King Kalakaua.

1892		The Geary Act extends the Chinese Exclusion Act for another ten year. All Chinese in the United States are required to carry registration certificates.

1893		Queen Liiuokalani is overthrown.

1894		The Republic of Hawaii is established with Sanford B. Dole as its president.

1898		Seven crewmen of Japanese ancestry die in the sinking of the USS Maine.

		The United States annexes the Hawaiian Islands.

		The Treaty of Paris ending the Spanish-American War cedes the Philippines to the United States.
20th Century
1900		The Organic Act, which establishes a territorial government in Hawaii, prohibits Chiense in Hawaii from entering the U.S. mainland. It also forbids the entry of contract laborers into Hawaii.

1901		Dr. Jokichi Takamine isolates adrenaline at Johns Hopkins University.

		California’s anti-miscegenation law is amended to prohibit marriages between whites and “Mongolians.”

1902		234 Chinese in Boston are jailed for failing to carry registration certificates.

		The first group of Korean emigrants arrives in Hawaii.

1903		Some 2000 Japanese and Mexican sugar beet workers strike in Oxnard, California.

		Seito Saibara begins the rice growing industry near Houston.

		Under the pensionada program, the American government provides aid to Filipinos who study in the United States.

1905		Ting Chia Chen and Ying Shing Wen become the first Chiense to attend the U.S. Military Academy.

		The Asiatic Exclusion League is founded by 67 unions in San Francisco.

1906		Hawaiian sugar cane plantations begin to recruit indentured workers from the Philippines.

		The San Francisco Earthquake destroys municipal records allowing immigrants to claim to have been born in the United States, allowing them to bring wives and children to this country.

		The San Francisco School Board orders children of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean residents to attend a segregated school. President Theodore Roosevelt forces the school board to rescind its segregation order.

1907		Executive Order 589 bars Japanese from entering the continental United States from Hawaii, Canada, or Mexico.

1908		Under a “Gentleman’s Agreement,” Japan agrees to cease issuing passports to Japanese laborers if the United States did not name Japan specifically in immigration laws.

		The Japanese Association of America is founded in San Francisco to challenge discrimination.

		Buntaro Kumagai is denied citizenship even though an 1862 law allowed any alien honorably discharged from the U.S. military to apply for naturalization.

1909		Fred Kinzaburo Makino leads a strike of 8000 Japanese sugar cane workers in Hawaii.

1910		Angel Island in San Francisco Bay is opened as an immigrant processing center. More pictures

		Arthur K. Ozawa, a Hawaiian-born graduate of the University of Michigan Law School is admitted to the bar in Michigan and Hawaii and becomes the first Japanese American lawyer.

1912		Native Hawaiian swimmer Duke Kahanamoku wins the Gold Medal in the 100-meter freestyle at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm.

1914		California’s Alien Land Act forbids people ineligible for U.S. citizenship from purchasing land for agriculture and prohibits them from leasing property for more than three years. Similar laws were adopted in Arizona, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, and Washington.

		The Hindu Association is founded in San Francisco.

1917		The Asiatic Barred Zone Act, passed over President Woodrow Wilson’s veto, bars immigration by Asians.

1918		The Hindustrani Welfare Reform Society is established in California’s Imperial Valley.

1919		The First Korean Liberty Congress in Philadelphia protests Japan’s domination of Korea.

1920		Plantation workers in Hawaii wage a 6-month strike.

1921		The Philippine Independent News of Salinas, California, becomes the first Filipino newspaper in the United States.

		The Japanese government stops issuing passports to prospective brides.

		The Caballeros de Dimas-Alang, a fraternal organization of Filipinos, is established in San Francisco.

		Nisei (children of Japanese immigrants) found the Seattle Progressive Citizens League, to combat discrimination.

1922		The Cable Act revokes the American citizenship of any woman who marries an alien ineligible for U.S. citizenship.

		In Takao Ozawa v. United States, the Supreme Court upholds the Naturalization Law which declared Japanese and other Asian immigrants ineligible for citizenship.

1923		In United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, the Supreme Court declares Indians ineligible for U.S. citizenship.

1924		The National Origins Act excludes the immigration of all Asian laborers except for Filipinos.

1925		In Chang Chan et al. v. John D. Nagle, the Supreme Court rules that the Chinese wives of U.S. citizens were not allowed into the United States.

1927		In Weedin v. Chin Bow, the Supreme Court rules that a person board abroad to an American parent who has never lived in the United States is not a citizen of the United States.

		The Filipino Federation of Labor is founded in Los Angeles.

1930		The Japanese American Citizens League is founded.

1931		Congress amends the Cable Act to allow American women to retain their citizenship after marrying aliens ineligible for U.S. citizenship.

		The India Society of America is founded by Hari G. Govil.

1933		The Filipino Labor Union is founded and leads the Salinas Lettuce Strike the next year.

1934		The Tyding-McDuffie Act prohibits Filipino immigration.

1935		Under the Filipino Repatriation Act, Filipinos in the United States can be returned to the Philippines at government expense.

1936		The Cable Act of 1922 is repealed.

1940		The Metropolitan Museum of Art acquires a water color by Chinese American Dong Kingman, the first painting by an Asian American artist to be purchased by a major American museum.

		Leaders of the Japanese American Citizens League meet with the Army and Navy Intelligence Service to pledge their loyalty.

		The Alien Registration Act requires all aliens 14 and older to register with the Justice Department.

		The Japanese American Creed, written by Japanese American Citizens League leader Maike Masaoka, is published in the Congressional Record.

		The United States freezes the assets of Japanese nationals in the United States.

		106 Hawaiian issei (immigrants from Japan) are detained in the Sand Island internment camp.

		Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox contends that “the most effective fifth-column secret enemy sympathizers work of the entire war was done in Hawaii.”

1942		Executive Order 9066 authorizes the Secretary of War to relocate all people of Japanese ancestry on West Coast.

		The War Department classifies Japanese American men of draft age as enemy aliens.

		California fires all Japanese American government employees.

		Gordon Hirabayashi, Fred Korematsu, and Mitsuye Endo challenge the constitutionality of the detention order.

		At the Poston War Relocation Center in Arizona, internees stage the Poston Strike, the first large-scale protest against internment.
1943		The Wyoming legislature denies internees at the Heart Mountain the right to vote.

		In Hirabayashi v. United States, the Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of the curfew law imposed on people of Japanese ancestry.

		Chinese immigrants are permitted to become naturalized U.S. citizens.

		Military Order No. 45 exempts Koreans in the United States from enemy alien status.

		The Magnuson Acts repeals the Chinese Exclusion Act and allows Chinese to become naturalized citizens. It sets a quota of 105 Chinese immigrants a year.

1944		The Nisei in internment camps become eligible for the military draft.

		The Fair Play Committee at the Heart Mountain Internment Camp in Wyoming protests the drafting of internees.

		106 nisei soldiers at Fore McClellan, Alabama refuse to undergoing training to protest their families’ internment. 21 are court-martialed and imprisoned.

		The all-Japanese 442nd Regimental Combat Team lands in Italty, and becomes the most decorated unit of its size during World War II.

		The Western Defense Commands issues Public Proclamation No. 24 revoking the exclusion of people of Japanese ancestry.

		In Korematsu v. United States, the Supreme Court rules that the internment order was constitutional. In End, Ex parte, the Court declares that the government could not hold loyal, law-abiding citizens against their will.

1945		The War Brides Act allows 722 Chinese and 2,042 Japanese spouses and adopted children of US military personnel to enter the United States.

1946		The Filipino Naturalization Act and the Luce-Celler Act allow Filipino and Indian immigrants to become naturalized citizens in recognition of their contributions during World War II. The Luce-Celler Act sets a quota of 100 Indian immigrants a year.

		432 people of Japanese ancestry are repatriated to Japan.

		The last internment camp, Tule Lake in California, is closed.

		The G.I. Finacees Act allows those engaged to U.S. military personnel to immigrate to the United States.

		The Philippines gains its independence.

1947		President Harry Truman pardons 267 Japanese Americans who had resisted the draft during World War II.

1948		In People v. Oyama, the Supreme Court declares California’s attempt to seize land belonging to Japanese Americans unconstitutional.

		In Takahashi v. California Fish and Game Commission, the Supreme Court voids a section of the California’s fish and game code denying commercial fishing licenses to Japanese Americans.

		The Displaced Persons Act grants immigrant status to 15,000 Chinese who are in the United States as a result of the civil war in China.

		The Japanese American Evacuation Act allows those who had been interned during World War II to file claims against the federal government for financial losses.

		California’s Supreme Court rules that the state’s ban on interracial marriages was unconstitutional.

1950		The Korean War begins following a North Korean invasion of South Korea.

		The McCarran Internal Security Act, passed over President Harry Truman’s veto, requires Communists and Communist organizations to register with the federal government and authorizes the president to intern subversives in detention camps.

1951		The MGM film Go for Broke tells the story of the all-Japanese 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

		An Wang founds Wang Laboratories.

1952		The McCarran Walter Immigration and Nationality Act, passed over President Harry Truman’s veto, allows immigration from Japan and other Asian countries, setting a quota of 105 immigrants per Asian country.

		The California Supreme Court rules that the state’s alien land law is unconstitutional.

1953		The Refugee Relief Act permits Chinese refugees to enter the United States for three years.

1954		Peruvians of Japanese ancestry who had been interned in the United States are allowed to apply for permanent resident status after they are denied reentry into Peru.

1956		Dalip Singh Saund of California, an Indian American, becomes the first member of the U.S. House of Representatives of Asian ancestry.

		California voters repeal the state’s alien land laws.

1959		Alaska becomes the 49th state; and Hawaii becomes the 50th state.

		Hiram Fong of Hawaii becomes the first Chinese American elected to the U.S. Senate; Daniel Inouye of Hawaii becomes the first Japanese American elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.

1962		President John F. Kennedy issues a presidential directive allowing some 15,000 refugees from Communist China to enter the United States over the next three years.

		Seiji Horiuchi of Colorado becomes the first Japanese American elected to a state legislature in the continental United States.

		Zubin Mehta, an Indian, becomes music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.

1965		Patsy Takemoto Mink of Hawaii becomes the first Asian American woman elected to Congress.

1967		In Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court rules that anti-miscegenation laws are unconstitutional.

1968		Students at San Francisco State University and the University of California, Berkeley, demonstrate for establishment of ethnic studies programs, which were established the next year.

1971		Herbert Choy, a Korean American, becomes the first Asian American appointed to a federal court.

1973		Jeanne Wakatsuku Houston publishes Farewell to Manzanar.

1974		In Lau v. Nichols, the Supreme Court rules that failure to provide an adequate education to non-English speaking students violates the Constitution’s equal protection clause.

		Norman Y. Mineta of California becomes the first Japanese American from the continental United States to be elected to Congress.

		George R. Ariyoshi of Hawaii becomes the first Japanese American elected governor in the United States.

1975		The Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act provides federal funds to reimburse state governments for the cost of resettling Vietnamese and other Southeast Asian refugees.

1976		Maxine Hong Kingston publishes The Woman Warrior.

		S.I. Hayakawa becomes the first immigrant of Japanese ancestry to be elected to Congress.

1978		A second wave of “boat people” arrive from Vietnam.

1980		The Census Bureau reports that Asians and Pacific Islanders number 3,455,421, or 1.5 percent of the U.S. population.

1981		Maya Lin designs the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.

1982		California agrees to pay $5,000 restitution to 314 Japanese American state employees who were forced to leave their jobs in 1942.

		In Detroit, 27-year-old Vincent Chan was bludgeoned to death by two unemployed autoworkers who blamed the Japanese auto industry for layoffs.

1983		Congress authorizes the admission of abandoned Amerasian children from Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam.

		The Federal District Court reverses the conviction of Fred Korematsu, who refused an order to relocate to an internment camp in 1942.

1988		The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 provides $20,000 in reparations to surviving World War II internees and an apology from the U.S. government.

1989		Amy Tan publishes The Joy Luck Club.

		Ronald Takaki publishes Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans.

1991		The Census Bureau reports that the Asian/Pacific Islander population reached 7,273,622 in 1990, up from 3,500,439 a decade earlier.

		Gus Lee publishes China Boy.

1992		Congresses passes the Voting Rights Language Assistance Act which requires bilingual voting materials if more than five percent of the citizens of a state speak a language other than English.
		Jay Kim becomes the first Korean American member of Congress.

1993		Congress unanimously adopts a joint resolution apologizing to Native Hawaiians for the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii.

1994		California voters approve Proposition 187, which would cut off education and all but emergency health care for undocumented aliens. The Proposition was stayed during court appeals.

1998		The U.S. Department of Justice offers an apology and monetary compensation to 2,200 people of Japanese ancestry who were removed from Latin American countries and interned in the United States during World War II.

This site was updated on 23-Nov-09.