User:Antoniocmontero1/sandbox

Bibliography for Assignment 1

My name is Antonio and I enjoy a walk in the park

Background
The broad term of activism is defined as ​"the activity of working to achieve political or social change, especially as a member of an organization with particular aims." Asian Americans have exercised their activist rights in the form of labor protests and strikes like the Delano Grape Strike, and in the Chinese Boycott of 1905 that spanned from 1905-1906. Asian American activism is not confined to the Civil Right Movement and contemporary times; movements and boycotts have occurred in the United States for more than one-hundred years. Asian Americans are to be classified under six origin groups – Chinese, Indian, Filipino, Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese – which accounted for 85% of all Asian Americans as of 2019.

Discriminatory legislation, acts of violence, and anti-Asian sentiments have existed in the United States since the first immigrants arrived in the United States. Asian immigration started mainly in the late 1840s with the discovery of gold, California statehood, and work on the transcontinental railroad, which is when discrimination and violence against the Chinese in America spread. Violent acts against Asian Americans like in October 1871, when a mob murdered 19 Chinese immigrants in Los Angeles (Chinese Massacre of 1871), In July 1877, a crowd in San Francisco burned much of the city’s Chinatown (San Francisco Riot of 1877), when miners in Rock Springs, Wyoming, killed at least 28 Chinese in an 1885 massacre (Rock Springs Massacre), and when thirty-four Chinese miners were ambushed and murdered along the Snake River in Oregon in 1887 (Hells Canyon Massacre) have often been tolerated by American citizens and government.

Pre-1960s Activism
Chinese Exclusion Acts: The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was a federal law that prohibited the immigration of Chinese laborers for 10 years. The law was extended for another 10 years by the Geary Act of 1892. In 1902, the law was extended again. The Chinese Exclusion Act was enforced by the U.S. Bureau of Customs. In the 1890s, enforcement of the law was transferred to the newly created Bureau of Immigration. The Chinese Exclusion Act represented a widespread anti-Asian sentiment that had perpetuated since the Asian immigration had first began in the United States. The Chinese Exclusion Act was the first, and remains the only, law to have been implemented passed that limits the entry of one specific nationality from entry to the United States. The Chinese Exclusion Act was created as a direct response to anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States, and on grounds of labor disruption like in the North Adams Strike and the Panic of 1873.

The Anti-American Boycott, or the Chinese Boycott of 1905, which spanned from 1905 to 1906, was a boycott of U.S. goods and services in China and a handful of cities in Southeast Asia to protest the Chinese Exclusion laws. Primarily, the boycott was focused on the enforcement of the laws by the Immigration Bureau, which sought to deny entry to Chinese people legally exempt from the law, such as diplomats, merchants, students, tourists, and merchant family members. On May 10, 1905, the Shanghai Chinese Chamber of Commerce called for a boycott of American goods if certain conditions were not met regarding immigration and trade policies. The conditions were not met, and that summer, a unified boycott spread to ports up and down the Chinese coast. Throughout the boycott, Chinese consumers refused to buy, merchants refused to sell, and dockworkers refused to handle exports from the U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt attempted to sooth Asian American frustration by issuing an executive order requiring the Immigration Bureau to uphold U.S. laws and respect the entry rights of the exempt classes, however, no meaningful legislation was passed in support of new Chinese-American immigration laws.

Mid-to-Late 20th Century Activism
On June 19, 1982, a Chinese American man named Vincent Chin went out with friends in Detroit to celebrate his upcoming wedding. Two white men, Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz, apparently thought Chin was Japanese beat him to death with baseball bats. Vincent Chin's murder was the first federal civil rights trial for an Asian American, and the two men responsible for Vincent Chin's murder were given a $3,000 fine and zero prison time. The sentencing incited widespread national outrage and fueled a movement for Asian American rights. Vincent Chin's murder was the first federal civil rights trial for an Asian American. At the time the American auto industry was struggling due to increased competition from Japanese import cars and mass layoffs happening across the country. Led by activist Helen Zia, several Asian American lawyers and community leaders banded together to create American Citizens for Justice. This group gathered several diverse groups like churches, synagogues, and black activists to protest the murderers sentencing. This inspired other Asian Americans across the country to hold their own demonstrations. Vincent Chin's death and the demonstrations that followed provided inspiration for a group that has faced a long history of discrimination in the United States. A result of the the Killing of Vincent Chin and the trial that ensued was that there was now a larger population of people who could identify with the new pan-Asian American community and protest violations of their civil rights.

The Delano Grape Strike was one of the first nationwide mass demonstrations initiated by Asian Americans, and had a significant impact on labor rights and unions in the United States. On September 8, 1965 over 2,000 Filipino-American farm workers went on strike and refused to pick grapes in the valley north of Bakersfield, California. This strike initiated a series of activism and labor-related events that would occur over the next 5 years. At the height of the Civil Rights Era, the Delano Grape Strike aimed to improve rights for laborers and minorities in the United States, especially Filipino and Mexican Americans. Larry Itilong spearheaded the movement and garnered the support of fellow activist Cesar Chavez to strike for better pay, adequate medical care, and retirement funds. The movement was met with backlash and hostility from growers and police, but received support from figures like Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F Kennedy. Many households nationwide even stopped buying grapes, and union workers in California dockyards let non-union grapes rot in port rather than load them. By summer of 1970, many of the major California grape growers were forced to pay grape pickers $1.80 an hour (plus 20 cents for each box picked), contribute to the union health plan, and ensure that their workers were protected against pesticides used in the fields.

The Asian American Movement was a nationwide movement, started by Asian Americans, whose goal was initiate racial, social and political change in the U.S. This movement spanned from the 1960s to mid-1970s, and signified an uptick in representation an activism within the Asian American community that had faced discriminatory policy and sentiment for so long. The Asian American Movement promoted the Anti-war movement during the 1960s and 1970s, and anti-imperialist activism.

Asians4BlackLives[edit]
See also: Black Lives Matter

Asians 4 Black Lives is a coalition of Asian Americans with diverse ethnic backgrounds such as Filipino Americans, Vietnamese Americans, Indian Americans, Chinese Americans, Pakistani Americans, Korean Americans, Burmese Americans, Japanese Americans, who serve as advocates for the Black Lives Matter Movement, which was established in 2014. Their objective is to stand in solidarity with people of color and to mainly support Black communities facing racial injustice. Their mission is built on the Ferguson National Demands, which call for the elimination of discrimination and police brutality and support in employment and housing for oppressed people in the US. These demands also address the school to prison pipeline: mass incarceration of people of color, and other demands regarding racial issues plaguing the American society. Asian Americans showing support for the Black Lives Matter movement in December of 2014. Asians 4 Black Lives focuses primarily on supporting the issues within African American communities as they believe that finding justice for this community is the foundation that liberation for other minority groups can be built upon. Their activism includes blockading Home Depot in response to the Emeryville Police Department's murder of Yuvette Henderson, and protesting in front of the Oakland Federal Building and the Oakland Police Department. They have also initiated action to build houses for impoverished people. In addition, they are involved in the work of groups such as the Blackout Collective, #BlackBrunch, and Onyx Organizing Committee among many others.

Asians 4 Black Lives is also working with Letters for Black Lives in a combined effort to root out “anti-blackness” (the notion that African Americans are inferior) in communities. Its goal is to encourage discussion between older and younger generations about issues regarding racism and discrimination.

Stop Asian Hate rallies[edit]
Main article: Stop Asian Hate

Movements like "Wash the Hate", "Hate is a Virus," "Take Out Hate," and the non-profit organization Stop AAPI Hate were created to support Asians who were attacked during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. "Stop Asian Hate" was frequently used in February 2021 and had more traction due to the higher increase of Asian-American attacks against the elderly like the killing of Vicha Ratanapakdee that occurred one month before. Asian American celebrities like Daniel Dae Kim, Chrissy Teigen, Olivia Munn and others called out and condemned these attacks. It later received more attraction after the 2021 Atlanta spa shootings in mid-March and further by San Francisco Bay Area and New York City violence against Asians. The movement is similar to Black Lives Matter for African Americans in that the support group specifically protects only one race (Asians and Pacific Islanders) which is likely to garner the same criticism as it does not address non-Asian hate crimes.

See Us Unite[edit]
See Us Unite is an activist movement designed to educate the public on Asian American history, increase cross-cultural solidarity with the AAPI community, and to "amplify voices as we unite to change people’s perception about what it means to be an American." This campaign highlights historical and modern inequities including violence against Asian American women, anti-Asian discrimination, and Asian American stereotypes. See Us Unite has launched a video campaign that seeks to bring attention to issues important to the AAPI community. These videos include informational segments on the Chinese Exclusion Act, Sammie Ablaza Wills, prejudices against Sikh Americans, and more.

The May 19 Project is social media campaign designed to highlight cross-cultural solidarity between the AAPI and African American communities. May 19 is the shared birthday of Malcolm X and Yuri Kochiyama.

Participation in social media[edit]
Since many Asian Americans are immigrants from Asia or have family living in Asia, it is more common for activists to use foreign social media platforms such as China's WeChat and Weibo, Korea's KakaoTalk, and Japan's LINE and Mixi, rather than American platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to engage in discussions and organize protests.

For example, during the February 2016 protests against Peter Liang's conviction of manslaughter for the shooting of Akai Gurley, Chinese Americans organized rallies primarily through WeChat. Participants in these protests often shared information to their close friends via private "friend groups" on WeChat, and this allowed Chinese Americans to easily relay up-to-date information to their relatives in China and around the world.

Notable Activists
Larry Itiliong was a key figure in Civil Rights Era activism for the Asian American community, especially for people of Philippine descent. Filipino activism, largely fueled by the Delano Grape Strike, in the United States corresponded with worldwide "Third-World" national liberation movements, and Itiliong formed the United Farm Workers of America alongside Philip Vera Cruz. Born in the Philippines, in 1913, Itilong moved to the United States in 1929 and joined his first strike in 1930. Itiliong had a sustained history of leadership in the unionization of workers, he started for the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, he served as secretary of the Filipino Community of Stockton, then founded the Filipino Farm Labor Union, and was eventually he was leading the AFL–CIO union Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee.

Yuri Kochiyama:

Yuri Kochiyama (May 19, 1921 – June 1, 2014) was a tireless political activist who dedicated her life to contributing to social change through her participation in social justice and human rights movements. In 1943, under President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, Kochiyama and her family were sent to a concentration camp in Jerome, Arkansas, for two years. This experience and her father’s death made Kochiyama highly aware of governmental abuses and would forever bond her to those engaged in political struggles. Kochiyama’s activism started in Harlem in the early 1960s, where she participated in the Asian American, Black, and Third World movements for civil and human rights, ethnic studies, and against the war in Vietnam. She was a fixture in support movements involving organizations such as the Young Lords and the Harlem Community for Self Defense. As founder of Asian Americans for Action, she also sought to build a more political Asian American movement that would link itself to the struggle for Black liberation. “Racism has placed all ethnic peoples in similar positions of oppression poverty and marginalization.”

https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/yuri-kochiyama-was-born/