Asian American Studies Glossary

State laws prohibiting 'aliens ineligible for citizenship' (primarily Asians) from owning agricultural land.

The immigration station in San Francisco Bay (1910-1940) where Asian immigrants were detained and interrogated.

Physical, verbal, and structural violence directed at Asian Americans, with historical roots and contemporary resurgences.

The broad political and social movement of the late 1960s-1970s advocating civil rights and self-determination for Asian Americans.

The 1882 federal law barring Chinese laborers from immigrating, the first race-based immigration restriction in U.S. history.

Federal law issuing a formal apology and $20,000 reparations to surviving Japanese American incarceration camp internees.

The dispersion of a people from their original homeland, and the communities formed by such dispersal.

Data broken down by specific ethnic subgroups rather than reported under a single broad racial category.

An interdisciplinary academic field examining race, ethnicity, and indigeneity, born from 1960s student activism.

The 1942 presidential order authorizing the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII.

The 1907-1908 informal pact in which Japan limited labor emigration to the U.S. to avoid formal exclusion legislation.

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which abolished national origins quotas and increased Asian immigration.

The stereotype of universal Asian American success that conceals internal disparities and undermines other groups' claims of racism.

Political hostility toward immigrants based on the belief that native-born citizens' interests are threatened by newcomers.

Edward Said's concept describing how the West constructs 'the East' as exotic, inferior, and other.

The strategic grouping of diverse ethnic groups under a shared racial or political label for collective action.

The stereotype that Asian Americans are inherently foreign regardless of citizenship or generational status.

Omi and Winant's theory that race is socially constructed through political, economic, and cultural processes.

Claire Jean Kim's framework positioning Asian Americans between white and Black Americans through valorization and civic ostracism.

The political campaign seeking a government apology and reparations for the WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans.

A form of colonialism that seeks to permanently replace indigenous populations on their land.

The student coalition whose 1968-1969 strikes established ethnic studies programs at San Francisco State and UC Berkeley.

The maintenance of social, cultural, and political connections across national borders by immigrant communities.

Fear or hatred of people perceived as foreign, often manifesting in discriminatory laws and social hostility.

The racist ideology framing Asian peoples as an existential threat to Western civilization and values.