Asian Pacific Americans

Mei Luo

Since the first groups of Chinese “sugar masters” working in Hawaii, Asian Pacific Americans (APA) and their descendants have been on the land of the United States for more than 150 years. Their arrival not only brought enormous contributions to aspects of construction, agriculture, industry, technology, and so forth, but also inevitably impacted America's historical, economic, cultural, and social advancement. Personal interests and their native countries' socioeconomic contexts combined with military, economic, and political interventions of the United States have created an impetus for Asian people immigrating to the United States. The immigration history of Asian Pacific people can be divided into two broad periods: from 1835 to 1964, characterized by low-paid laborers, and from 1965 to the present, characterized by refugees and professionals. The earliest Asian immigrants were characterized as “cheap laborers.” The Chinese were the first group to arrive in the United States during the early nineteenth century, ...

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