While recent street attacks on Asians have drawn headlines, anti-Asian bigotry is not new. This course will briefly cover early Asian Migration here, from the 19th Century to the 1960s, including the hate that they faced and the menial jobs they successfully worked in agriculture and construction.

Many laws were passed limiting their property and civil rights, and they faced discrimination in their daily lives, culminating in the Japanese-American Internment of World War II. We will then explain the great expansion of these groups in the past 60 years, both in allowing migration and removing legal barriers to land ownership, and will break down how each group has come here, and how they have fared. There will also be examples of how Asians have been portrayed in popular culture.

We will focus on the migration of Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, Filipinos, Vietnamese, and South Asian Indians, and explore the lives of prominent individuals. In class, guest speakers will relate their personal experiences as Asians in America.