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AN ASIAN AMERICAN TIMELINE
1960
1969 1/11: Berkeley's "Yellow Identity" conference draws 900 attendees. 1/19: UC Berkeley students strike for 3 months to urge instituting ethnic studies. 3/4: The UC Berkeley faculty votes 550 to 4 in favor of establishing an Ethnic Studies Department. 1970 3/25: Kinney Kinmon Lau and 2 others sue the SF Board of Education for bilingual education rights. 5/8: Marion Lacadia Oberta becomes the first Filipina American to be appointed judge to the Los Angeles bench. 6/22: The Voting Rights Act Amendment of 1970 eliminates literacy test requirement for entry into the U.S. 1971 8/25: In Guey Hung Lee vs Johnson. the Supreme Court rules in favor of desegregating all-Chinese public schools. Parents voice fears of losing their language and culture. 1972 4/27: First national conference of Asian Americans and Pacific Island peoples is held in San Francisco, CA. 6/12: Federal legislation repeals two "anti-Oriental" laws, an 1872 law prohibiting entry of "Orientals" without a permit and a 1905 law banning "the import of an oriental woman with the intent to sell her." 1974 1/21: In Lau vs Nichols the Supreme Court decides that bilingual education must be provided to non-English speaking students. 5/16: Chatham Square Rally in New York. Prompted by the refusal of DeMattheis Corp to hire Asian American construction workers for Confucious Plaza, Asian Americans for Equal Employment stages a demonstration. 5/18: Members of the Pacific/Asian Coalition coin the phrase "Asian Americans and Pacific Island peoples" to refer to themselves. 7/10: Asian Americans for Equal Employment succeeds in getting over 40 Asian American workers hired for construction of Confucious Plaza in NY. 1975 5/12: Over 2,500 New York Chinatown residents demonstrate outside City Hall against police brutality. 5/19: People from Philadelphia, Boston and Washington DC join 20,000 NYC Chinatown residents in a demonstration against police brutality. 5/23: Congress redefines the tern "refugee" to include people from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. 5/28: Ft Indiantown Gap, PA, opens as a receiving center for Southeast Asian refugees. 16,000 refugees go through the camp. 6/30: State bulldozers tear down a part of Philadelphia Chinatown Community for a highway, despite promises not to tear down the Chinatown area without the consent of the community. |
1976 6/1: In Hampton vs Wong Mow Sun the Supreme Court rules that the Civil Service cannot deny employment on the basis of race. 1976 11/2: Dr Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa becomes the first Asian American to be elected to the U.S. Senate from the continental U.S. The Canadian-born semanticist won national fame by standing up to anti-war protestors while serving as president of San Francisco State University. His lackluster record dooms his Senate career to a single term. 1977 4/2: A pan-campus conference at Yale leads to establishment of East Coast Asian Student Union (ECASU). 1980 1/4: National Convention of American Newspaper Guild resolves to stop newspapers from using the epithet "Jap" 3/14: Following translation of the citizenship test into Japanese, 37 Issei (first generation Ja-Am) are sworn in as U.S. citizens in L.A. Most have been residents for over 20 years. 3/17: 1980 Refugee Act increases the yearly quota of refugees allowed to enter the U.S. 4/15: Carol Kawanami is elected mayor of Villa Park, CA to become the first Japanese American woman to preside over an American city. 6/27: First Philippine Festival of the Arts began in NYC. 7/31: Commission on Wartime Relocation forms. 1981 investigation determines that internment was a "grave injustice" caused by "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership". PAGE 5
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