One must ask, if white racism and segregation are still blighting the lives of blacks and Hispanics, should that not be a terrible obstacle for Asians as well?
Asians have faced fierce discrimination in America, but this has not stopped them from getting ahead. In 1790, Congress denied citizenship for anyone who was not a “free white person.” In 1870, blacks could become citizens, but not Asians. In 1879, California continued to deny the vote to “natives of China, idiots and insane persons.” (Wall Street Journal, April 7, 1989)
Chinese started coming to the United States in the 1850s and were charged a $55 immigrant fee, a unique business license fee, and in San Francisco, a fee only for Chinese laundry owners.
Japan did not allow emigration until 1885 and most Japanese U.S. immigrants were shunted into jobs as unskilled field hands and lived in squalor. They, too, worked for less than the prevailing wage. Californians quickly passed a law to keep out Japanese.
Anti-Asian feelings were furthered by The Japanese and Korean Exclusion League, founded in San Francisco in 1905. In 1907, President Roosevelt persuaded the Japanese government to halt Japanese immigration to the United States. In 1913, the California legislature voted, by an overwhelming majority, to prohibit ownership of farmland by noncitizens. The U.S. Supreme Court concurred, and 10 more states passed similar laws. None of this stopped the Japanese from succeeding in the United States.
Pimentel also suggests a continuation of “affirmative action,” the unconstitutional race preference scheme that favored low-scoring blacks and Hispanics over high-scoring Asians and whites in University of California admissions. Even California’s liberal voters saw the need to halt this practice. In 1996, while helping return Bill Clinton to office, California passed Proposition 209, the ballot initiative that outlaws the use of race, sex, or ethnicity in hiring and university admissions.
Some people have argued that Asian immigrants have the advantage of starting out fresh when they get to America, whereas blacks must constantly drag the baggage of slavery and oppression behind them.
This obviously does not apply to the descendants of Asians who came to America more than a century ago practically in bondage and who, in many cases, were treated as badly as blacks. If racism is such an obstacle to success in America, why have Asians overcome it while blacks and Hispanics still suffer, as Pimentel claims?
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