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ghotisticks's review against another edition
3.0
An exhaustingly meticulous record of the major struggles for equality of various Asian ethnicities in America, historically and currently. It was a slow but important read. Accounts of news media and Hollywood perpetuation of stereotypes, political willful ignorance, and struggles for unity between and within Asian ethnicities intensified hundreds of examples of racial injustices.
As a white reader with skeletal knowledge of Asian-American history, some historical accounts shocked me:
Japanese-American troops in WW2 suffered the highest casualty rates of any other fighting units.
Filipino veterans of WW2 were promised equal benefits, and then were denied in 1946. They didn't get citizenship until the '90s, VA medical benefits in 2003, and financial compensation in 2009.
The brutal hate crime murder of Vincent Chin in Detroit in 1983 resulted in a mere no contest probation and fine. The judge said "These aren't the kind of men you send to jail...You fit the punishment to the criminal, not the crime." Two civil trials returned not guilty verdicts. Only 19 of 180 jury pool citizens had even "casual contact" with an Asian, and some of those who did were rejected on that basis.
Lost in the narrative of the 1992 Rodney King riots is the intense anti-Korean racism. More than half the city's damaged properties and financial losses were borne by Koreans.
Deeply segregated and harshly unfair working conditions for Filipino migrant cannery workers in Alaska persisted into the '70s, culminating in mob assassinations of activist labor leaders. Decades of political apathy and corporate lobbying culminated in 1991 federal legislation that established workplace protections, but specifically barred those cannery workers from class action lawsuits. The last time the Senate cared enough to unsuccessfully fight back was 1995.
There were many more examples in these dense 319 pages, but the above were the most egregiously passed over incidences in my inadequate rubric of k-12 American history.
As a white reader with skeletal knowledge of Asian-American history, some historical accounts shocked me:
Japanese-American troops in WW2 suffered the highest casualty rates of any other fighting units.
Filipino veterans of WW2 were promised equal benefits, and then were denied in 1946. They didn't get citizenship until the '90s, VA medical benefits in 2003, and financial compensation in 2009.
The brutal hate crime murder of Vincent Chin in Detroit in 1983 resulted in a mere no contest probation and fine. The judge said "These aren't the kind of men you send to jail...You fit the punishment to the criminal, not the crime." Two civil trials returned not guilty verdicts. Only 19 of 180 jury pool citizens had even "casual contact" with an Asian, and some of those who did were rejected on that basis.
Lost in the narrative of the 1992 Rodney King riots is the intense anti-Korean racism. More than half the city's damaged properties and financial losses were borne by Koreans.
Deeply segregated and harshly unfair working conditions for Filipino migrant cannery workers in Alaska persisted into the '70s, culminating in mob assassinations of activist labor leaders. Decades of political apathy and corporate lobbying culminated in 1991 federal legislation that established workplace protections, but specifically barred those cannery workers from class action lawsuits. The last time the Senate cared enough to unsuccessfully fight back was 1995.
There were many more examples in these dense 319 pages, but the above were the most egregiously passed over incidences in my inadequate rubric of k-12 American history.
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