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Week 12 · Chapter

Chapter 12 — Asian American and Pacific Islander Experiences II: Reopening, Movement, and the Pacific

Introduction to Ethnic Studies Free sample edition

The module's primary reading · ~35–45 minutes · Objective 7 (analyze Asian American and Pacific Islander experiences, from exclusion and the naturalization cases through the incarceration of Japanese Americans and redress, the 1965 law, the Asian American movement, the model-minority image and its critique, refugee resettlement, and Native Hawaiian history), Objective 3 (compare theories of belonging (assimilation, cultural pluralism, segmented assimilation, internal colonialism, and double consciousness) as frameworks with named authors and named critics, and distinguish immigrant from colonized or incorporated peoples), Objective 2 (define and distinguish the course's core concepts: race, ethnicity, and nationality; racialization and racial formation; ethnocentrism; prejudice, individual and institutional discrimination, and structural inequality; and intersectionality as distinct from adding identities together) · Read it first this week; the lecture, the slides, the tutorial, the quiz, and the workshop all build on it.

In plain language

This chapter follows what changed for Asian American and Pacific Islander communities after the doors to immigration reopened in 1965. You will read the law that ended the old quotas (yearly caps on immigrants set by the country a person came from), and you will meet the students who coined the name "Asian American" in 1968. You will also examine the model-minority image (a stereotype that pictures many communities as one group that needs no help), follow refugees from Southeast Asia, and read how the Kingdom of Hawaii was overthrown, annexed, and apologized to a century later. Native Hawaiians are not immigrants at all, and that difference matters. You will finish able to read a family's account and a government's record side by side and say, in one plain sentence, what each one shows.

Why you already care about this

Picture a family reunion in a park (an illustrative scene), held many years after the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 opened the door for the grandmother. Someone asks each generation the same question: "Where are you from?" The grandmother names a town across an ocean. Her son names the city where he grew up. His daughter names the street she lives on, and the person asking says, "No, where are you really from?"

Three answers, and every one of them is true. The grandmother's answer points to a law that let her in. The son's answer points to a childhood here. The granddaughter's answer points to a question she hears too often. This week you will learn where each answer comes from: the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, a movement that chose its own name, and a stereotype that keeps asking people where they are "really" from.

By the end of this chapter you will be able to:

explain what the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 changed, and why it was not a law about Asian immigrants alone;
read the archive's E3 and E5 excerpts for what each says, who made it, whom it affected, and what it leaves out;
explain how the term "Asian American" was coined in 1968 and what it was made to do;
examine the model-minority image as a stereotype and state the field's three-part critique;
explain the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii (1893), the annexation (1898), and the apology of 1993, and classify Native Hawaiians as an incorporated people;
count the federal categories that named Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders as their own group from 1997 on.

Carry this sentence with you: Immigration, refuge, and annexation — three roads, not one story.

Where we are

Already covered: Week 2 defined the federal categories and racial formation. Week 3 drew the line between immigrant peoples and colonized or incorporated peoples. Week 9 read the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848). Week 10 read the Delano grape strike (1965). Week 11 read the exclusion laws, the Immigration Act of 1924, Executive Order 9066 (1942), and the Civil Liberties Act of 1988.
This week: you read the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 and the Asian American movement. You examine the model-minority image, follow Southeast Asian refugees and the Refugee Act of 1980, and trace Native Hawaiian history from the overthrow to the apology.
How they connect: Week 11 showed you how laws closed the door to Asian immigrants and how a wartime order removed citizens. This week shows you how the door reopened, how communities organized under one chosen name, and whose history is not about a door at all.
Where we're going next: Week 13 traces immigration, citizenship, and belonging across every group, from the 1790 naturalization law to the federal categories of 2024.

Week 11 left you at a closed door. The Immigration Act of 1924 completely excluded immigrants from Asia, and its quotas capped immigration by nationality. Week 3 gave you the tool you will need at the end of this chapter. The field separates immigrant peoples, who came by choice under a country's immigration rules, from colonized or incorporated peoples, who became part of the United States by conquest, annexation, or force.

A word on names, said once. "Asian American" is a political term coined in 1968. Specific communities are named by their own names: Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, Filipino Americans, and people whose families came from India, among many others. Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders are named as their own group and are not folded into Asian American. This course names people as they most commonly name themselves.

1. Read the 1965 law: the door reopens one family at a time

Think about a club with a guest list where each member could bring only a fixed number of guests, and the number depended on where the member's family came from. A family from one country could bring many guests. A family from another could bring almost none. Then one year the club throws the list away and says: bring your close relatives, and bring people with skills we need.

That is the shape of the change in 1965. A national-origins quota is a yearly cap on the number of immigrants admitted, set by the country a person comes from. The quota system was built in 1924.

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 is the federal immigration law, signed in October 1965, that abolished the national-origins quota system and gave preference to family reunification and to skilled workers.
Family reunification means admitting an immigrant because a close relative already lives in the country as a citizen or permanent resident.

Worked example — the years from the closed door to the reopened one. Use the law-and-case timeline (Dataset B).

The quotas begin. The Immigration Act of 1924 built the national-origins quota system and completely excluded immigrants from Asia.
The quotas end. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 abolished the quota system.
The span. 1965 − 1924 = 41 years.

In words: for 41 years the country decided who could come mostly by where a person was born, and in 1965 it began to decide by family ties and by skills instead.

Now meet the course's running archive (Dataset A), an illustrative, unnamed public library's collection. Its excerpts are constructed for this course, identified by role and decade, and never presented as a real person's words. Here is E3: a nurse who arrived in the early 1970s after the 1965 immigration law, interviewed in the 2010s.

"Before 1965 there was hardly a way in for someone like me. After the new law, hospitals here needed nurses, and my training counted. I came alone in 1972. Five years later I sponsored my sister, and later she sponsored her husband. People see our big family now and think we all came at once. It took us twenty years." (E3, illustrative)

Worked example — reading E3 in the field's order. Walk the five questions every reading asks, and work the years.

What it says. The nurse could not get in before 1965. After the new law, the nurse's training counted, because hospitals needed nurses. The nurse came alone in 1972, 1972 − 1965 = 7 years after the law. Five years later the nurse sponsored a sister, 1972 + 5 = 1977. The sister later sponsored her husband.
Who made it. It is a first-person account recorded in the 2010s, decades after the arrivals it describes. It tells how one family's sponsorships were spread across twenty years; the dated record tells what the 1965 law did.
Whom it affected. The nurse, the sister, the sister's husband, and the hospitals that needed nurses.
What it leaves out. It does not name a country, a city, or a hospital, so its dates are checked against the 1965 law.
What a comparison adds. The two preferences in the law show up in one family: the skilled-worker preference brought the nurse, and family reunification brought the sister. "It took us twenty years," so the chain ran from 1972 to 1972 + 20 = 1992.

In words: E3 shows that a family that looks as if it came at once came one sponsorship at a time, over twenty years, under a law that valued both skills and family ties.

In practice (your tools). In this course's free spreadsheet, put each dated event in column A and its year in column B, one event per row starting in row 2. To find the years between two events, type a formula such as =B3-B2 in column C. For E3, entering 1965 and 1972 returns 7, the same gap you worked by hand above.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) Think of a family you know whose members arrived somewhere, such as a new town, a new job, or a new country, at different times. Who came first, and who helped the next person come?
(b) Why might people who see E3's family today assume they all came at once? What would that assumption hide?

Misconception check. Students often think the 1965 law was a law about Asian immigrants only. That is tempting, because this unit reads it as the turning point for Asian American communities. But the quotas it abolished had covered many nationalities, European ones included. So the 1965 law changed the rules for immigrants from many parts of the world. The cure: read it as a change to the whole system, then ask what that change meant for each community.

2. Name the Asian American movement: many communities, one chosen name

Think of a campus club that brings together students of many backgrounds under one name (an illustrative scene). One member's family is from the Philippines, and another's is from Korea. A third member's grandparents came from China, and a fourth member's parents came from India. They pick one name so they can speak louder together. None of them stops being who they are.

That is what happened with the words "Asian American". In 1968 the founding members of the Asian American Political Alliance at Berkeley, including Yuji Ichioka and Emma Gee, coined "Asian American" as a political and cultural term to join communities with different histories.

Asian American is the political and cultural term coined in 1968 by the founding members of the Asian American Political Alliance to join communities with different histories; specific communities are still named by their own names.
The Asian American Political Alliance is the student organization founded at Berkeley in 1968 whose founding members coined the term Asian American, and which co-led the 1969 Third World Liberation Front strike there for ethnic studies.
The Asian American movement is the campus and community organizing of the late 1960s and after that joined people of many Asian communities under one political name to press for ethnic studies and civil rights.

Worked example — placing the name on the movements thread. Use the movements thread (Dataset F).

After the law. The term came in 1968 and the 1965 law three years earlier: 1968 − 1965 = 3 years.
The same year. The San Francisco State strike began in November 1968, led by the Black Student Union and the Third World Liberation Front. Week 1 told you how it won the first College of Ethnic Studies.
The next year. In 1969 a Third World Liberation Front strike at Berkeley, co-led by the Asian American Political Alliance, pressed for ethnic studies there: 1969 − 1968 = 1 year after the term.

In words: the name "Asian American" was coined 3 years after the 1965 law, and within a year the group that coined it was co-leading a strike for the field this course belongs to.

Now call back the farm-labor thread from Week 10. The Delano grape strike of 1965 was begun by more than 800 Filipino farmworkers of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, and Mexican American farmworkers joined them. Filipino Americans were organizing before the name "Asian American" existed. The name gave many such communities a way to stand together.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) Think of a time you joined a group under a shared name, such as a team, a club, or a cause. What did the shared name make possible, and what did it leave out about you?
(b) Why might students in 1968 have wanted one name for communities with different histories? What risk would that name carry?

Misconception check. Students often think Asian Americans are one group with one history. That is tempting, because one term covers them on forms and in the news. But the term was made in 1968 to join communities with different histories, not to erase their differences. Chinese exclusion, Japanese American incarceration, Filipino farm labor, and the Thind case are different stories. The cure: use "Asian American" for the political coalition, and name the specific community when you mean one.

3. Examine the model-minority image: a stereotype, not a description

Think about a time someone praised you as part of a group: "You people are always so good at this." It sounds like a compliment. But it says nothing about you as a person, and it quietly says something about everyone outside the group. Praise aimed at a whole group is still a belief about a whole group.

A stereotype is a fixed, oversimplified belief about a whole group that is applied to each of its members, whatever the person in front of you is actually like. Week 2 called a belief like that prejudice when it stays an attitude.

The model-minority image is the stereotype that pictures Asian Americans as one group that succeeded through its own effort and needs no help.

Petersen (1966), "Success Story, Japanese-American Style", The New York Times Magazine, is usually credited with popularizing the image. That was 1968 − 1966 = 2 years before the term "Asian American" was coined. The course names Petersen only as the article usually credited with spreading the image, not as its inventor.

The field's critique of the image has three parts:

It flattens many communities into one. It treats every community under the term as alike, the opposite of what the 1968 coalition intended.
It hides poverty and discrimination within them. If a whole group is pictured as successful, the people inside it who struggle, or who face discrimination, become hard to see.
It is used to blame other groups. The image is often held up to ask why other groups have not done the same, as if unequal outcomes came from effort alone and not from laws and institutions.

Worked example — reading one sentence through the critique. An illustrative brochure for a tutoring business (not a real one) says: "Asian American students prove that any group can succeed without help." Read it against each part of the critique.

Flattens. Which communities? The sentence names none. It treats Chinese, Filipino, Hmong, Korean, and Indian American students, and many others, as one.
Hides. What about students in those communities who need help? The sentence makes them invisible.
Blames. "Any group can succeed without help" implies that groups with unequal outcomes failed by their own fault. That skips the exclusion laws, the lending maps, and the separate schools you have read all term.

In words: the brochure's sentence is the model-minority image presented as a fact, and each of the three critiques shows what it leaves out.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) Think of a compliment about a group you belong to that made you uncomfortable. What did it assume about you?
(b) Why might a stereotype that sounds positive be harder to question than one that sounds negative?

Misconception check. Students often think the model-minority image is a compliment, or a fact about a group. That is tempting, because it sounds like praise. But the course teaches it as a stereotype to examine, never as a description: it flattens many communities into one, hides poverty and discrimination within them, and is used to blame other groups. The cure: when you meet the image, ask which community, which people inside it, and whom the sentence is being used against.

4. Read refugee resettlement and E5: refuge, not ordinary immigration

Picture a family that did not plan to move at all (an illustrative scene). One week they are at home; a few months later they are in a camp in another country, waiting for someone to say they can go somewhere safe. That is a different road from E3's. The nurse chose to come under the immigration rules. A refugee flees.

A refugee is a person who flees their country because of persecution or the fear of it and is admitted under refugee law.

The Refugee Act of 1980 is the federal law, approved in March 1980, that defined a refugee as a person with a "well-founded fear of persecution" and created the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
The Office of Refugee Resettlement is the federal office created by the Refugee Act of 1980 to support the resettlement of refugees admitted to the United States.

According to the National Archives, between 1975 and 1979 about 300,000 refugees from Southeast Asia were admitted to the United States through presidential action. The course teaches that figure in words and never keys it.

Here is E5: a woman who resettled as a refugee in the early 1980s, interviewed in the 2010s.

"We waited two years in a camp before a church group here sponsored us. I was fourteen. At school they sat me in the back with a dictionary. One teacher stayed after class to help me with English, and by my last year I was translating for my parents at the doctor and the bank. When people ask where I am from and I name this town, they ask again." (E5, illustrative)

Worked example — reading E5 in the field's order. Walk the five questions, and place the law.

What it says. The family waited two years in a camp. A church group sponsored them. The narrator was fourteen, was seated in the back with a dictionary, and by her last year was translating for her parents. When she names this town as where she is from, people ask again.
Who made it. It is a first-person account recorded in the 2010s, decades after she arrived.
Whom it affected. The narrator, her parents, the church group, and the one teacher who stayed after class.
What it leaves out. It names no country, no camp, and no church, so its timing is checked against the record. The first refugees from Southeast Asia were admitted in 1975, and the Refugee Act came in 1980: 1980 − 1975 = 5 years later. E5 resettled in the early 1980s, after the 1980 law.
What a comparison adds. Set beside E3, E5 shows a different road. E3 came under the 1965 law's preferences; E5 came as a refugee and was sponsored by a church group.

In words: E5 is an illustrative account of a refugee who resettled after the Refugee Act of 1980, and her last line shows the perpetual-foreigner stereotype at work.

That last line names a second stereotype. The perpetual-foreigner stereotype is the belief that some Americans, whatever their birthplace or citizenship, are always from somewhere else, heard in the follow-up question "where are you really from?" E5 names her town. The question comes again, because the person asking has already decided she cannot be from here. It is the same question the granddaughter heard at the reunion at the start of this chapter.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) Have you ever been asked a question that assumed you did not belong somewhere you did? How did you answer?
(b) Why might "where are you from?" feel like a friendly question to the person asking and a different question to the person answering?

Misconception check. Students often think a refugee is the same as any other immigrant. That is tempting, because both arrive from another country. But a refugee flees persecution or the fear of it and is admitted under refugee law, which the Refugee Act of 1980 defined as a "well-founded fear of persecution". The cure: ask what road a person came by, a law's preferences or refuge, before you call them by one word.

5. Place Native Hawaiians: annexed, not immigrants

Imagine your town did not move, but the border did. One year you live in an independent country with its own government. A few years later you live in another country's territory, and you never packed a bag. That is what annexation does.

Annexation is one country formally taking another territory into itself. The Kingdom of Hawaii was the independent Native Hawaiian nation that governed the Hawaiian Islands until it was overthrown in January 1893. The United States annexed the islands by joint resolution in July 1898. A joint resolution is a measure passed by both houses of Congress that, once approved, has the force of law.

Native Hawaiians are the Indigenous people of the Hawaiian Islands, a colonized or incorporated people who became part of the United States through annexation rather than immigration.

Worked example — the years from overthrow to apology. Use the law-and-case timeline (Dataset B).

Overthrow to annexation. The kingdom was overthrown in 1893 and the islands were annexed in 1898: 1898 − 1893 = 5 years.
Overthrow to apology. Congress apologized to Native Hawaiians in 1993: 1993 − 1893 = 100 years.
A comparison across groups. Week 9 read the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), when the border moved over Mexicans in the ceded lands. The annexation of Hawaii came 1898 − 1848 = 50 years later.

In words: Native Hawaiians, like Mexicans in the lands ceded in 1848, became part of the United States when the country's borders moved over them, 50 years apart; neither people immigrated.

Native Hawaiians are not a people of the past. They live in Hawaii and across the country today. Week 4 taught you to speak of Native nations in the present tense where they exist today, and the same rule holds here. Many Pacific Islanders, from islands across the Pacific, also live in the United States and are named by their own names.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) Think of a place you know that changed hands or names while the people stayed. How did the people who stayed talk about the change?
(b) Why might it matter to Native Hawaiians that their history is told as annexation rather than immigration?

Misconception check. Students often think Native Hawaiians are an immigrant group, like the families in E3 and E5. That is tempting, because this unit is about Asian American and Pacific Islander experiences, and many of those stories are immigration stories. But Native Hawaiians are the Indigenous people of the islands, incorporated by annexation in 1898. The cure: place Native Hawaiians with the colonized or incorporated peoples from Week 3, and never fold them into Asian American.

6. Read the apology resolution: what an apology says and leaves out

Think of an apology you received that came with nothing else. Someone said, "I'm sorry," and that was all. Then think of one that came with something repaired or returned. Both were apologies, but they did different things.

The 1993 apology to Native Hawaiians is a document you can read the same way.

Public Law 103-150 is the resolution approved in November 1993 that apologizes to Native Hawaiians on behalf of the people of the United States for the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1893.

Worked example — reading the apology resolution in the field's order. Walk the five questions.

What it says. Congress apologizes to Native Hawaiians on behalf of the people of the United States for the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii.
Who made it. Congress, by joint resolution, approved in November 1993.
Whom it affected. Native Hawaiians, a people who live in Hawaii and elsewhere today.
What it leaves out. Its last section says that nothing in it is intended to serve as a settlement of any claims against the United States.
What a comparison adds. The Civil Liberties Act of 1988, read in Week 11, apologized and paid 20,000 dollars to each surviving person who had been incarcerated. The apology to Native Hawaiians came 1993 − 1988 = 5 years later.

In words: the 1993 resolution names the overthrow as a wrong and apologizes for it, and its own last section says it settles no claims; the 1988 law paired its apology with a payment.

Here is an honesty note. This course does not tell you what any apology should have included or what any government should do now. It asks you to read what each text says and does, and to say it in one plain sentence.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) What is one thing an apology can do even when it comes with nothing else?
(b) Why might the people who wrote the resolution have included a section saying it settles no claims? What does that section tell a reader?

Misconception check. Students often think an apology and redress are the same thing. That is tempting, because both are ways a government answers a past wrong. But the 1993 resolution apologizes and says it settles no claims, while the 1988 law apologized and paid each survivor. The cure: read what each text does, apology, payment, or return, and name each part separately.

7. Count the federal categories: Pacific Islanders counted apart

Think of a form with a box that holds two different groups at once. Anyone who checks it is counted the same way, whatever their history. If you belong to the smaller group, your community disappears inside the larger one in every count the form produces.

That is what the 1977 federal categories did. The 1977 directive had 4 race categories, and one of them was "Asian or Pacific Islander". Week 2 told you the federal categories are the issuing body's categories, not biological groups. OMB's 1997 notice said they "represent a social-political construct designed for collecting data on the race and ethnicity of broad population groups in this country, and are not anthropologically or scientifically based."

Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander is the federal race category created in the 1997 revision, when the 1977 category Asian or Pacific Islander was divided so that Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders were counted apart from Asians.

Worked example — counting the categories. Use the federal-categories timeline (Dataset C).

1977. 4 race categories: American Indian or Alaskan Native; Asian or Pacific Islander; Black; White.
1997. "Asian or Pacific Islander" was divided into "Asian" and "Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander", so the count rose by one: 4 + 1 = 5 minimum race categories. That was 1997 − 1993 = 4 years after the apology.
2024. One combined question with 7 minimum categories, one of them "Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander".

In words: from 1997 on, the federal categories counted Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders as their own group, 5 minimum race categories instead of 4. A limitation to keep in mind: the count changed because the issuing body changed its form, not because any people changed.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) Think of a form that put you in a box that did not fit. What box would have fit better?
(b) Why might a community ask to be counted in its own category? What could that make visible?

Misconception check. Students often think a federal category names a biological group, so splitting one category in two means people changed. That is tempting, because the boxes look like fixed kinds of people. But OMB itself calls its categories a social-political construct, and the 1997 split changed how people were counted, not who they were. The cure: read the year on the form first, and call each box a federal category, never a race in the biological sense.

Key terms

National-origins quota — A yearly cap on the number of immigrants admitted, set by the country a person comes from; the quota system built in 1924 lasted until the 1965 law abolished it. (first used: 1. Read the 1965 law: the door reopens one family at a time)
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 — The federal immigration law, signed in October 1965, that abolished the national-origins quota system and gave preference to family reunification and to skilled workers; it changed the rules for immigrants from many parts of the world. (first used: 1. Read the 1965 law: the door reopens one family at a time)
Family reunification — Admitting an immigrant because a close relative already lives in the country as a citizen or permanent resident; one family member's sponsorship can bring another, one person at a time. (first used: 1. Read the 1965 law: the door reopens one family at a time)
Asian American Political Alliance — The student organization founded at Berkeley in 1968 whose founding members coined the term Asian American, and which co-led the 1969 Third World Liberation Front strike there for ethnic studies. (first used: 2. Name the Asian American movement: many communities, one chosen name)
Asian American — The political and cultural term coined in 1968 by the founding members of the Asian American Political Alliance to join communities with different histories; specific communities are still named by their own names. (first used: 2. Name the Asian American movement: many communities, one chosen name)
Asian American movement — The campus and community organizing of the late 1960s and after that joined people of many Asian communities under one political name to press for ethnic studies and civil rights. (first used: 2. Name the Asian American movement: many communities, one chosen name)
Stereotype — A fixed, oversimplified belief about a whole group that is applied to each of its members, whatever the person in front of you is actually like. (first used: 3. Examine the model-minority image: a stereotype, not a description)
Model-minority image — The stereotype that pictures Asian Americans as one group that succeeded through its own effort and needs no help; the field critiques it for flattening many communities into one, hiding poverty and discrimination within them, and being used to blame other groups. (first used: 3. Examine the model-minority image: a stereotype, not a description)
Refugee — A person who flees their country because of persecution or the fear of it and is admitted under refugee law; the Refugee Act of 1980 defined a refugee as a person with a well-founded fear of persecution. (first used: 4. Read refugee resettlement and E5: refuge, not ordinary immigration)
Refugee Act of 1980 — The federal law, approved in March 1980, that defined a refugee as a person with a well-founded fear of persecution and created the Office of Refugee Resettlement. (first used: 4. Read refugee resettlement and E5: refuge, not ordinary immigration)
Office of Refugee Resettlement — The federal office created by the Refugee Act of 1980 to support the resettlement of refugees admitted to the United States. (first used: 4. Read refugee resettlement and E5: refuge, not ordinary immigration)
Perpetual-foreigner stereotype — The belief that some Americans, whatever their birthplace or citizenship, are always from somewhere else, heard in the follow-up question where are you really from. (first used: 4. Read refugee resettlement and E5: refuge, not ordinary immigration)
Annexation — One country formally taking another territory into itself; the United States annexed the Hawaiian Islands by a joint resolution of Congress in July 1898. (first used: 5. Place Native Hawaiians: annexed, not immigrants)
Kingdom of Hawaii — The independent Native Hawaiian nation that governed the Hawaiian Islands until it was overthrown in January 1893. (first used: 5. Place Native Hawaiians: annexed, not immigrants)
Joint resolution — A measure passed by both houses of Congress that, once approved, has the force of law; Congress used one to annex Hawaii in 1898 and another, Public Law 103-150, to apologize in 1993. (first used: 5. Place Native Hawaiians: annexed, not immigrants)
Native Hawaiians — The Indigenous people of the Hawaiian Islands, a colonized or incorporated people who became part of the United States through annexation rather than immigration, and who are named as their own group rather than folded into Asian American. (first used: 5. Place Native Hawaiians: annexed, not immigrants)
Public Law 103-150 — The resolution approved in November 1993 that apologizes to Native Hawaiians on behalf of the people of the United States for the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1893. (first used: 6. Read the apology resolution: what an apology says and leaves out)
Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander — The federal race category created in the 1997 revision, when the 1977 category Asian or Pacific Islander was divided so that Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders were counted apart from Asians. (first used: 7. Count the federal categories: Pacific Islanders counted apart)

Summary

The 1965 law abolished the national-origins quotas and favored family reunification and skilled workers, for immigrants from many parts of the world.
E3's family came one sponsorship at a time, over twenty years.
"Asian American" was coined in 1968 to join communities with different histories, not to erase them.
The model-minority image is a stereotype to examine: it flattens, hides, and blames.
A refugee flees persecution; the Refugee Act of 1980 defined the term and created the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
The perpetual-foreigner stereotype asks "where are you really from?" of people who are from here.
Native Hawaiians are an incorporated people: overthrown in 1893, annexed in 1898, apologized to in 1993.
An apology and redress are different acts; read what each text does.
From 1997, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander is its own federal category.

Check your understanding

Work these before looking at the answers — they are ungraded, and the answers (with reasoning) are at the bottom of the page.

In an illustrative family (not a real one), a cousin arrives first. She sponsors her brother 4 years later, and the brother sponsors his wife 6 years after he arrives. How many years pass from the cousin's arrival to the wife's arrival?
A classmate writes, "The 1965 law only changed things for Asian immigrants." Explain what is wrong with the sentence and how to fix it.
An illustrative flyer for a study group (not a real one) says, "Join us — our members are all naturally good at math, like every Asian student." Name the stereotype and apply two parts of the field's critique to the sentence.
A summary of this week says, "Native Hawaiians are immigrants who arrived when the United States annexed Hawaii." Name the misconception and rewrite the sentence.

Answers (worked reasoning — read after attempting)

Add the two spans: 4 + 6 = 10 years. The wife arrives 10 years after the cousin. Notice that this is a fresh, illustrative family, not E3's; like E3's, it came one sponsorship at a time.
The quotas the 1965 law abolished had covered many nationalities, European ones included, so the law changed the rules for immigrants from many parts of the world. A fixed sentence: "The 1965 law abolished the national-origins quotas for every nationality, which opened the door to many immigrants from Asia and changed the rules for immigrants from many other places too."
The sentence is the model-minority image presented as a fact. It flattens many communities into one, because it says "every Asian student" and names no community. It hides the students inside those communities who struggle, because it says they are "naturally" good at the subject. A third part applies too: by saying the skill is natural, it implies that students outside the group lack it.
The misconception is that Native Hawaiians are an immigrant group. Native Hawaiians are the Indigenous people of the islands; they did not arrive, the border moved over them. A fixed sentence: "Native Hawaiians are the Indigenous people of the Hawaiian Islands, who became part of the United States when it annexed the islands in 1898."

Next up in this module: the lecture, the slide deck, the Readings & Resources page, the lecture tutorial, the practice set, and the quiz — and next week, you trace who could become a citizen across every group, from the 1790 naturalization rule to the federal categories of 2024.

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