The first recorded Asians in America arrived on ships that were part of the Manila Galleon trade, which was Spanish trade between Manila, Philippines and Acapulco, Mexico. During a stop-over on the Louisiana coast, some Filipino crew members jumped ship and ventured into the bayous.

These "Manila Men" founded a village named Saint Malo that consisted of about a dozen small huts raised above the swamps. Eight generations later, some of their descendants can be found living in Louisiana today.

1848

The California Gold Rush

Gold is discovered at Sutter's Mill, California. Chinese in the Canton area were lured by pamphlets distributed by opportunistic ship owners who hoped to fill their passenger vessels. Chinese eager to escape overpopulation, famine, and poverty that resulted from the Taiping rebellion came to California to make their fortunes in California's "Gam Saan" - Gold Mountain.

1854

Yung Wing graduated from Yale, becoming the first Chinese to graduate from a United States college or university. Yung later returned to China and organized the Chinese Educational Mission, which brought over 100 Chinese boys to New England for schooling in the 1870s and 1880s.

1867

The Transcontinental Railroad

By 1865, the Central Pacific Railroad Company had hired over 3,000 Chinese workers to build the western portion of the transcontinental railroad. Many were former miners, and were actively recruited because of their low cost. At its peak, the project hired over 10,000 Chinese workers. They provided the bulk of the labor for dangerous tasks such as chiseling and dynamiting tunnels through solid granite.

Chinese workers who dug tunnels in the high Sierra worked six days a week for $30 a month. Paid less than their Euro-American counterparts, subjected to whippings, and forbidden from quitting their jobs, 2,000 of them went on strike. They demanded $40 a month, an 8-hour workday for those working inside the tunnels, a 10-hour work day for those working outdoors, an end to corporal punishment, and the right to quit the job whenever they wanted.

The Central Pacific Railroad responded by cutting off their rations. The strike lasted one week until their food ran out, and they were forced back to work.

1868

The Burlingame-Seward Treaty

In an effort to meet the urgent need for Chinese labor for the transcontinental railroad, the United States and the Ta-Tsing Empire of China signed a treaty granting citizens of both countries the right of free immigration with reciprocal privileges of residence, school and travel.

1869

The Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Farm Colony

Smuggled out of Japan by a German merchant named John Henry Schnell, one of the first Japanese settlers arrived at Gold Hill in El Dorado County, California, and started the Wakamatsu Tea and Silk Farm Colony. Although their initial agricultural efforts failed, they brought to the region mulberry trees, silk cocoons, tea plants, bamboo roots, and other products. According to the U.S. Census of 1870, 55 Japanese were living in the United States, and 22 of them lived at Gold Hill.

1877

Fukuin Kai - The Gospel Society

In San Francisco, the Gospel Society became the first Japanese American community organization on record. They provided services for the immigrant community, including English lessons, meeting rooms, and a boarding house. The Japanese Christian churches that were established in the 1890s grew out of this organization.

1879

Sit Moon

Sit Moon was a Chinese immigrant who converted to Christianity and worked for 15 years in the Presbyterian Mission of San Francisco. He was hired by the YMCA in 1875 to evangelize the Chinese laborers in Hawaii. Two years later, he founded "the Chinese YMCA", You Hawk Jihu Taw Hui (the Beginning Evangelical Society of Learners).

1886

Yick Wo v. Hopkins

Lee Yick, a Chinese immigrant, had been operating a laundry in San Francisco for many years. At the time, it was against a city ordinance to operate a laundry in a wooden building without a permit. However, the Board of Supervisors had granted permits to all non-Chinese applicants except one, and none to 200 Chinese applicants.

After Lee Yick was arrested and convicted for violating the ordinance, his appeal reached the U.S. Supreme Court, where his conviction was overturned. According to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Matthews, the ordinance was applied in a discriminatory fashion.

The decision was the first time a law's application, rather than the law itself, was determined to be discriminatory. This precedent was used in the 1960s in cases seeking to strike down statutes which discriminated against African Americans.

1897

U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark

Wong Kim Ark was born in the United States to parents of Chinese descent. In 1894, he travelled back to China to visit his parents, who had returned to their homeland. Ark was barred from re-entering the U.S. because he was not an American citizen.

Ark petitioned the Supreme Court, arguing that because he was born in the United States, he was a citizen. The Court agreed based on the 14th amendment of the Constitution, which stated:

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

This landmark case reaffirmed the legal right of citizenship by birth for all Americans.

1898

Hawaii

In 1893, American sugar farmers staged a coup to overthrow the Hawaiian monarchy. Armed U.S. Marines landed on Honolulu, and Queen Lydia Liliuokalani was imprisoned in her own palace and pressured to renounce all claims to the throne. John L. Stevens, the U.S. minister to Hawaii, was eager to annex Hawaii and gave immediate recognition to the farmers' "provisional government."

President Grover Cleveland investigated the coup and fired John Stevens, stating,

"A substantial wrong has thus been done, which a due regard for our national character, as well as the rights of the injured people, requires we should endeavor to repair."

During his presidency, Cleveland refused to approve Hawaii's annexation. But in 1898, President William McKinley signed a joint resolution of Congress annexing Hawaii.

On the 100th anniversary of the coup, President Bill Clinton signed the 1993 Apology Resolution for the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii.

1899

The North American Buddhist Mission

Two Amida Buddhist missionaries arrived in San Francisco to serve Japanese immigrants who had originally come from the southwestern prefectures of Japan. They were incorporated under California law as the North American Buddhist Mission, setting up Young Men's Buddhist Association (YMBA) offices in San Francisco, Sacramento, and Fresno.

They held services in both Japanese and English, and grew to become the Buddhist Churches of America.

1763 - 1899 | 1900 - 1900 | 1950 - present

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