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Race, Rights, and the Asian American Experience
In Race, Rights, and the Asian American Experience , Angelo N. Ancheta demonstrates how United States civil rights laws have been framed by a black-white model of race that typically ignores the experiences of other groups, including Asian Americans. When racial discourse is limited to antagonisms between black and white, Asian Americans often find themselves in a racial limbo, marginalized or unrecognized as full participants. Ancheta examines legal and social theories of racial discrimination, ethnic differences in the Asian American population, nativism, citizenship, language, school desegregation, and affirmative action. In the second edition of this influential book, Ancheta also covers post–9/11 anti-Asian sentiment and racial profiling. He analyzes recent legal cases involving political empowerment, language rights, human trafficking, immigrant rights, and affirmative action in higher education—many of which move the country farther away from the ideals of racial justice. On a more positive note, he reports on the progress Asian Americans have made in the corporate sector, politics, the military, entertainment, and academia. A skillful mixture of legal theories, court cases, historical events, and personal insights, this second edition brings fresh insights to U.S. civil rights from an Asian American perspective.
- GenresHistoryRaceNonfiction
232 pages, Paperback
First published November 30, 1985
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About the author
Angelo N. Ancheta
3 books1 followerAngelo Ancheta is a legal scholar specializing in issues of immigrants' rights and legal discrimination. He is part of the law faculty at Santa Clara University and has taught and lectured at Harvard Law School, NYU School of Law, and ULCA School of Law.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 7, 2020
If you desire a greater knowledge on minorities and mistreatment throughout American history pertaining to Asians, this is a wonderful book to strengthen your understanding. It is written with a lot of legal jargon and like a textbook.
January 26, 2016
This is a book which examines the legal aspects of race in relation to Asian Americans. At times it's a little complex, but it's still an interesting book. Among the most interesting notes are:
”For most of the nation's history, Asian Americans have been treated primarily as constructive blacks. Asian Americans for decades endured many of the same disabilities of racial subordination as African Americans- racial violence, segregation, unequal access to public institutions and discrimination in housing, employment, and education.”
This is not just a WWII reference book, either, for the book sites examples of anti-Asian American violence up to the 1990's.
”The legal subordination of Asian Americans on the West Coast paralleled the treatment of African Americans in the South following Reconstruction: segregation was sanctioned and discriminatory laws abounded at all levels of government. Anti-Asian laws cane in three forms: (1) federal naturalization laws that imposed a racial barrier on Asian immigrants seeking United States citizenship; (2) federal immigration laws limiting migration from Asian and Pacific Island countries, and (3) state and local laws discrimination against Asians, often based on their ineligibility for citizenship. One variation of this discrimination was the wartime treatment of Japanese Americans, who were relocated and interned in concentration camps during World War II.”
The discrimination goes back a long ways in history, too, as the book notes that in 1860 California “banned Asians, blacks, and Native Americans from attending the public schools.”
Twenty years later, California enacted an “anti-miscegenation law” that prohibited marriages between whites and “Negroes, mulattoes or Mongolians.” People from the Philippines were included in the law fifty years later since they were members of the “Malay race.”
It is interesting to see how the law, which is supposed to be fair and just for all, can be used to justify and even enforce discrimination against any particular group of people. Remember that the founding of the nation was based on equal rights for white males; blacks were slaves and white women, although free, were officially second-class citizens and not allowed to vote. In fact, women didn't get the right to vote in this country until the 1920's, and that only after demonstrations, political actions, violence and imprisonment.
Blacks are those who have faced the greatest legal discrimination, of course, but notice that even Native Americans were included in the non-white legal control movement (and, indeed, they are still on “reservations” which are really modern-day forms of the internment camps.) The fight for the legal rights of any non-white group is a process that has to keep being fought over and over. The fight has become more complicated in present times, of course, with the anti-gay, anti-lesbian movement. This targets people of any race, including white, who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered. Thus, legal protection, at least according to some people, should only be given to only a portion of the whites and virtually no one else.
Although the country has made some advances it still has a great deal of distance to go before the terms “fair and equal treatment under the law” become an actual reality rather than a nice catch-phrase.
”For most of the nation's history, Asian Americans have been treated primarily as constructive blacks. Asian Americans for decades endured many of the same disabilities of racial subordination as African Americans- racial violence, segregation, unequal access to public institutions and discrimination in housing, employment, and education.”
This is not just a WWII reference book, either, for the book sites examples of anti-Asian American violence up to the 1990's.
”The legal subordination of Asian Americans on the West Coast paralleled the treatment of African Americans in the South following Reconstruction: segregation was sanctioned and discriminatory laws abounded at all levels of government. Anti-Asian laws cane in three forms: (1) federal naturalization laws that imposed a racial barrier on Asian immigrants seeking United States citizenship; (2) federal immigration laws limiting migration from Asian and Pacific Island countries, and (3) state and local laws discrimination against Asians, often based on their ineligibility for citizenship. One variation of this discrimination was the wartime treatment of Japanese Americans, who were relocated and interned in concentration camps during World War II.”
The discrimination goes back a long ways in history, too, as the book notes that in 1860 California “banned Asians, blacks, and Native Americans from attending the public schools.”
Twenty years later, California enacted an “anti-miscegenation law” that prohibited marriages between whites and “Negroes, mulattoes or Mongolians.” People from the Philippines were included in the law fifty years later since they were members of the “Malay race.”
It is interesting to see how the law, which is supposed to be fair and just for all, can be used to justify and even enforce discrimination against any particular group of people. Remember that the founding of the nation was based on equal rights for white males; blacks were slaves and white women, although free, were officially second-class citizens and not allowed to vote. In fact, women didn't get the right to vote in this country until the 1920's, and that only after demonstrations, political actions, violence and imprisonment.
Blacks are those who have faced the greatest legal discrimination, of course, but notice that even Native Americans were included in the non-white legal control movement (and, indeed, they are still on “reservations” which are really modern-day forms of the internment camps.) The fight for the legal rights of any non-white group is a process that has to keep being fought over and over. The fight has become more complicated in present times, of course, with the anti-gay, anti-lesbian movement. This targets people of any race, including white, who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered. Thus, legal protection, at least according to some people, should only be given to only a portion of the whites and virtually no one else.
Although the country has made some advances it still has a great deal of distance to go before the terms “fair and equal treatment under the law” become an actual reality rather than a nice catch-phrase.
June 20, 2017
It does a good job of telling the truth about the subject. That being said, I do not agree with every thing he says. (He has a few interesting takes on some things.) However I do believe that the core things are definitely true. Overall a good book.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews