How History Unfolds on Paper: Important Americana from the Eric C. Caren Collection, Part X

Locations and dates vary. Group of 20 items related to the Asian Immigrant experience in America, including government reports, newspapers, photographs, and postcards. Highlights include a printed proclamation by the County of Los Angeles apologizing for Japanese Internment; a stereoview by J.J. Riley of a Chinese restaurant in San Francisco; a postmarked mailing cover from the Topaz Japanese Internment Camp; and The Heathen Chinee by Brett Harte (Boston: James Osgood, 1871). Size and condition vary.

The first major wave of Asian immigration to the United States began around 1850, largely in response to the discovery of gold in California. Many Chinese immigrants arrived hoping to escape economic inequality and the fallout from the First Opium War. Following the end of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery in the United States, plantation owners in the South began to recruit Asian laborers as a cheap source of labor to replace their former slaves. This exploitation led to tensions between Asian immigrants and nativist groups. Over subsequent years numerous skirmishes broke out, the most infamous being the Rock Springs Massacre which in turn led to Congress passing the Page Act of 1875, the first restrictive immigration bill in United States history.

Despite the repeal of restrictive immigration laws targeting Asian countries over subsequent years, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 which established a series of internment camps specifically targeting citizens of Japanese descent. Following the 1944 presidential election Roosevelt suspended the order, effectively ending the forced internment program. President Gerald Ford terminated the order in 1976, and in 1989 reparations began to be issued to survivors of the camps.