Why was there no prominent Asian Civil Rights Movement for most of American history despite Anti-Asian racism?
The Asian –American community was present in the United States in fewer numbers than the African-American community, and was not concentrated in any one industry. It was also divided culturally. Though Asians had been trading with or emigrating to the North American Continent for centuries (and it was an American, Commodore Perry, who ‘opened up’ Japan for the West) the waves of Asian-American immigration to the west coast came after the Civil War. Chinese-Americans on the east coast were primarily confined to New York , and tended to intermarry with Irish communities or to self-exclude. Between 1870 and 1924, a large wave of immigrants entered the United States from Asia . They were firstly Chinese; then Japanese; then Korean. These groups, which were also divided within themselves, settled both within the Territory of Hawaii , and in California . However, they were used in the railroad industry, and in agriculture, without unions and with no political organization. As im...