Honoring Asian American Voices

Roughly 122,000 Japanese immigrants and American citizens of Japanese ancestry were removed from their homes on the West Coast and incarcerated for much of the U.S. involvement in WWII. About two-thirds of them were U.S. citizens. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Watch the video referenced in the first half of this podcast at: https://vimeo.com/263167752/c555110813 For the 60 years, from 1882–1943, long before Muslim travel bans and family separations at the U.S.–Mexico border, the Chinese Exclusion Act prohibited Chinese laborers from entering the United States and denied persons of Chinese descent a path to U.S. citizenship. The act grew out of political pressure from labor unions and U.S. cities to which large numbers of immigrants had moved in the decades following the California Gold Rush. The act’s effects on the Chinese immigrant communities across the United States were lasting and dramatic. Join us for a screening of a 49-minute version of The Chinese Exclusion Act, a feature-length documentary made by award-winning documentary filmmakers Ric Burns and Li-Shin Yu and co-produced by the Center for Asian American Media in association with the New-York Historical Society and shown on the acclaimed PBS series “American Experience.” Bay Area entrepreneur and cultural advocate David Lei, who provided much of the inspiration for the documentary, will be present to discuss his perspective and answer questions about the Exclusion Act’s relevance to the immigration debate today. MLF Organizer: Virginia Cheung MLF: Asia Pacific Affairs In association with the Center for Asian American Media Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Between 1882 and 1965, a huge percentage of would-be Chinese immigrants were excluded from the United States. This is the story of how the U.S. came to exclude Chinese workers from immigration and Chinese immigrants from citizenship, the multi-generational reverberations of this practice and its extension to nearly all Asians and Pacific Islanders. Jack Tchen of Rutgers University and Jane Hong of Occidental College are our guides to the Chinese Exclusion Act. CLICK HERE: Visit our website to donate to the podcast, sign up for our newsletter, get free educational materials, and more!

Thousands of Japanese Americans were sent to prison camps after the USA entered World War Two following the bombing of Pearl Harbour. Whole families found themselves housed in barracks behind barbed wire fences. Former Star Trek actor, George Takei, was just a child when he was locked up in one of the camps. In 2010 he spoke to Lucy Williamson about his experiences there. This programme is a rebroadcast. Photo: Japanese American children on their way to internment camps. Credit: Dorothea Lange/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.