Define
Historical Significance
How do terms relate to each other
How do terms relate to each other
How do terms relate to each other
100
Empress of China
the first U.S. merchant ship to trade with China in 1784 Helped fuel the “China”frenzy in American culture
100
DEI
Acknowledges that inequality is structural, not just individual
Attempts to address historical exclusions based on race, gender, class, sexuality, disability, etc.
Often becomes a site of political backlash because it challenges dominant power structures
100
Chang and Eng, Orientalism
Chang and Eng are a prime historical example of Orientalism because they were marketed through a 19th-century Western lens that exoticized and "othered" them based on their Asian origin and physical form.
100
Ozawa and Thind Supreme Court Cases, 1790 Naturalization Act
The 1790 Naturalization Act restricted citizenship to “free white persons,” establishing race as a legal requirement for naturalization. This racial limitation was challenged in Ozawa v. United States (1922) and United States v. Thind (1923). In Ozawa, the Supreme Court ruled that “white” meant Caucasian, excluding Japanese immigrants. However, in Thind, the Court rejected the scientific definition of Caucasian and instead relied on the “common man’s” understanding of whiteness to deny citizenship to Indian immigrants. Together, these cases reveal how the Court manipulated the meaning of race to maintain racial boundaries in U.S. citizenship law.
100
Transcontinental Railroad, pacific railway act of 1862
The Pacific Railway Act of 1862 was the essential federal legislation that authorized, funded, and provided land grants for the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad. Signed by President Lincoln, it tasked the Union Pacific and Central Pacific companies with building the rail line to connect the nation, turning a legislative plan into the physical infrastructure completed in 1869.
200
Periodization
The term historians use to define the start (and end) points of a particular historical narrative
200
Monroe Doctrine
Justified U.S. political, economic, and military dominance in Latin America
Framed U.S. imperial expansion as protection rather than conquest
200
Chinese exclusion act, Japanese internment, murder of Vincent Chin
These three events represent a continuum of anti-Asian racism, violence, and scapegoating in American history. The Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) established legal, systemic exclusion; the Japanese internment (1942) showed wartime detention based on race; and the murder of Vincent Chin (1982) demonstrated how this historical, deep-rooted bias manifested in modern anti-Asian violence, triggering a unified pan-Asian civil rights movement.
200
Imperialism, Capitalism
Capitalism drives the need for constant expansion, new markets, and cheap raw materials, while imperialism provides the political, military, and territorial framework to secure these resources.
200
Spanish American War, Philippine-American War, Tydings–McDuffie Act
These three terms represent a direct historical sequence of US imperialism and the subsequent decolonization of the Philippines. The Spanish-American War (1898) transferred control of the islands to the US, triggering the Philippine-American War(1899–1902) to suppress independence, while the Tydings–McDuffie Act (1934) finally established a 10-year path for Philippine independence, completed in 1946.
300
Melting Pot
A metaphor suggesting that immigrants in the United States blend into a single, unified American culture, shedding their distinct identities in the process.
300
Eugenics Movement
Eugenics movement: pseudo-scientific movement popularized in the late-19th and early 20th centuries, rooted in the belief that human traits (i.e. intelligence, morality, work ethic) were inscribed in race and could be improved through selective breeding. Fueled by white supremacist anxieties over the immigration of “undesirable” races into the US, and the “passing of the great race.”
300
Settler Colonialism, Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny served as the driving ideological justification for the practice of Settler Colonialism in 19th-century North America.
300
Orientalism, Yellow Peril
Yellow Peril is a specific extension of Orientalism that emerged in the late 19th century. It shifts the focus from "exoticism" to an existential threat, framing Asian people as a "horde" that endangers Western economic, cultural, and moral stability.
300
United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), California Alien Land Law (1913), Lew Moy v. U.S. (1916)
These terms illustrate the legal struggle over birthright citizenship, land ownership rights, and the systemic exclusion of Asian immigrants and their descendants in the United States between 1898 and 1916. While Wong Kim Ark secured birthright citizenship, subsequent actions like the Alien Land Law and Lew Moy cases sought to restrict the rights of those deemed "aliens ineligible for citizenship."
400
Migrant Labor System
Imperialism -> Dislocation -> Labor Migration -> Resistance -> Exclusion
400
Extractive Colonialism
Extractive colonialism is premised on extracting and exploiting human labor and natural resources from distant or indigenous lands for capitalist profit.
400
Migrant Labor, Chinese Railroad Workers, Filipino Agricultural Workers
Migrant labor acts as the overarching framework, with Chinese railroad workers and Filipino agricultural workers serving as specific, historically marginalized groups driven by economic hardship to provide essential, low-wage, and often dangerous labor in the 19th/20th-century American West. Both groups were recruited for their labor but faced racial discrimination, exclusion, and poor working conditions.
400
Department of Labor Appropriations Act (1924), Origins of the Border Patrol (1924)
The Labor Appropriation Act of 1924 provided the federal funding and legal mandate that directly created the U.S. Border Patrol on May 28, 1924, marking the official origins of the force. This legislative action established a formal, armed force under the Department of Labor to secure national borders between authorized ports of entry.
400
Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), Asiatic Barred Zone Act / Immigration Act of 1917, Johnson–Reed Act / Immigration Act of 1924
These three acts represent a progression of increasingly broad and restrictive U.S. immigration policies rooted in racial prejudice and an ideology of "gatekeeping". Each subsequent act expanded the scope of exclusion that the previous one established.
500
Immigration -> assimilation
nation of immigrants narrative
500
Opium Wars
British trade imbalance with China (British consumers were consuming more Chinese tea, porcelain, silk, etc. than Chinese were consuming British goods). Britain sought to resolve the imbalance by flooding the Chinese market with opium, grown in India. To curtail addiction and smuggling, Chinese attempted total prohibition in 1839, which led to the outbreak of the Opium War.
500
Anti-Asian Violence, California Alien Land Law 1913, People v. Hall
People v. Hall (1854), the California Alien Land Law of 1913, and the history of Anti-Asian Violence are directly related as interconnected, escalating components of systemic, state-sponsored racism designed to marginalize and exclude Asian immigrants from American society. They represent a continuum of legal discrimination that enabled physical violence and economic deprivation against Asian communities in California.
500
Carlos Bulosan's America is in the Heart, nation of immigrants
Carlos Bulosan’s America is in the Heart (1946) serves as a critique and redefinition of the "nation of immigrants" concept. While the latter is often used as a celebratory, mythologized narrative of American inclusion, Bulosan uses his personal history as a Filipino migrant to expose the brutal realities of exclusion, racism, and economic exploitation that contradict this narrative.
500
Dr. Harvey Saburo Hayashi, political cartoon why they can live on 40 cents a day and they can't
Dr. Saburo Hayashi’s 1893 admonition and the 1878 political cartoon "Why They Can Live on 40 Cents a Day and They Can’t" demonstrate the contrast between the internal Japanese perspective on dignity with the external American nativist view of Asian labor as a threat to white families.