A is for Asian American: An Asian Pacific Islander Desi American Alphabet
A a A is for Asian American Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have roots across the sea They’re also an important part of US history Asian Americans are people with Asian ancestry They include people from Asia and the Pacific Islands Asia is the largest continent with more than 40 countries more than 2,000 spoken languages and hundreds of ethnic groups Far East Asia includes China Japan and Korea South east Asia includes Vietnam Thailand and Cambodia South Asia includes India Pakistan and Bangladesh Some people with South Asian backgrounds call themselves Desi Americans Asian Americans also include people from Mongolia and Central Asia The Pacific Islands consist of thousands of islands in the Pacific Ocean including Fiji and Samoa The Philippines is in the Pacific Ocean but some consider it to be part of Southeast Asia Asian Americans have very unique cultures histories and languages Early Asian immigrants were known by their specific ethnicities such as Chinese American This changed in the 1960s when activists Emma Gee and Yuji Ichioka organized to fight for equal rights They used the term Asian American to bring together groups of people from different Asian backgrounds They were inspired by the African American civil rights movement
B is for Beautiful Country By building the railroads Chinese workers opened the west Yet they had to fight to stay and not be seen as unwanted guests
b B The Chinese word for the United States means Beautiful Country Chinese laborers arrived in the 1850s when gold was found in California They were the first large Asian immigrant group to settle in the United States Smaller groups of Japanese and Filipino laborers also arrived in Hawai i and California Chinese immigrants found work mining for gold or building the Transcontinental Railroad which was completed in 1869 Some returned to China but many settled in the United States Many white Americans saw Chinese immigrants as a threat accusing them of taking away their jobs In 1882 the United States passed a law excluding Chinese workers from immigrating This led to Chinese immigrants being stopped and questioned at the Angel Island Immigration Station which opened in 1910 in San Francisco Bay Many were denied admission and deported back to China There were big changes in immigration laws in the 1960s This resulted in an increase of highly educated and skilled Asian immigrants In the 1970s wars in Southeast Asia resulted in many Southeast Asians immigrating to the United States as refugees
