ASIA AM 10W Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Asian Americans
8 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
All credits give to Professor Fong, K.N.. Direct quotations are directly from the
professor’s slides. Others is either paraphrased or summarized.
Overview
● Cold War affected the law and the attitudes towards Asian Americans
○ The Exclusion Act was lifted when US ideologies changed
○ Attitudes towards Chinese Americans change, associated with the so-called “fall
of China” into communism
Cold War
● Started from the end of WWII (1945) to the fall of Soviet union/USSR (1989)
○ Indirect war of ideology
○ US as free and open democratic vs. USSR
○ Fear: more countries fall to communism
○ “Domino effect: countries would fall without “containment”” from US: how to
prevent China and USSR from spreading communism—through imperialism
○Proxy wars in southeast Asia and Korea (domestic war)
● There is a change in the discourse on AAPI in US
○ Japan (and Japanese Americans) go from enemy during the WWII to the ally in
the Cold War era against People’s Republic of China (communism)
○ Chinese Americans are suspected as allies with PRC after 1949 (the rise of
communist China)
● Legacies of paper families
○ There were paper sons/daughters lineage in about 80% of Chinese American
families during 1882-1965
○ People had to live with their fake paper identities
○ People coming as paper son/daughters were suspected as people who bring
communism to US
● Chinese Confession Program
○ Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) “program in 1950s, encouraged
Chinese to confess fraudulent identities
■ Wanted to know about identities and status of paper family”
○ Even though this program is “framed as humanitarian program to free people
from living a lie”, it is actually used to prevent further Chinese immigration
because based on this information, the government knows that relatives of
people who illegally become US citizens are not US citizens. This program is also
used to find communists/sympathizers
● Reference: Second Decade Film by Amy Chen
○ Chinese Americans joined some organizations and were inspired by the changes
in China. They sent ambulance to help China when China was in war, and they
were happy about the establishment of new China and the liberation of Chinese
people. However, that does not necessarily mean that Chinese Americans were
communists.
Document Summary
Direct quotations are directly from the professor"s slides. Cold war affected the law and the attitudes towards asian americans. The exclusion act was lifted when us ideologies changed. Attitudes towards chinese americans change, associated with the so-called fall of china into communism. Started from the end of wwii (1945) to the fall of soviet union/ussr (1989) Us as free and open democratic vs. ussr. Domino effect : countries would fall without containment from us: how to prevent china and ussr from spreading communism through imperialism. Proxy wars in southeast asia and korea (domestic war) Japan (and japanese americans) go from enemy during the wwii to the ally in. There is a change in the discourse on aapi in us the cold war era against people"s republic of china (communism) Chinese americans are suspected as allies with prc after 1949 (the rise of communist china) There were paper sons/daughters lineage in about 80% of chinese american families during 1882-1965.
