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What is the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act? |
The civil rights movement expanded past the African American Civil Rights movement. Latinx, Asian-Pacific Americans, and Natives all had their own respective Civil Rights movements in the United States. The Asian-Pacific civil rights movement began with the Magnuson Act in 1943. This act repealed the Chinese exclusion act. The Chinese exclusion act limited the amount of people of China that were allowed into the United States. However shortly after, the McCarran-Walter Act went into affect. This remade the quotas for each country giving Japan and China very limited availability to the United States. This was actually vetoed by President Truman but Congress overruled this.
The United States then began bettering their relationship with Taiwan and as a result, came the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty. As the name states, it was a mutual defense. Each country agreed to be of aid to the other if need arises. Many people know of the Blank Panther Party and Malcom X, but not many people are aware that Richard Aoki was a founding member of the Black Panther Party. Richard Aoki was an Asian American that helped start up the Black Panther party. Later on in the movement he took on different important roles. I Wor Kuen was similar to the Black Panther Party in the sense that both groups were Marxist groups. However, the I Wor Kuen fought solely for the Asian-Pacific Americans in the United States. A fight for the Asian-Pacific Americans was equality in education. This led to Lau v Nichols. This court case ruled that a California school district receiving federal funds needed to provide bilingual education for their students that do not speak English. The Asian-Pacific community was also segregated against in schools and this is something the different Asian-Pacific groups tried to fight. Next to come was the Civil Liberties Act. This act recognized the injustices that were placed onto Japanese Americans during WWII and provided them compensation for this wrong doing of the United States government. Despite there being an anti-Japanese sentiment, and a large worry at the time, their actions were in no way justified of making the Japanese uproot themselves and move to internment camps. The Korean Nationalist Association was based in Hawaii and fought for the rights of Koreans in the United States. The Koreans migrated to America in large masses during the Korean War as refugees. The death of Vincent Chin is an important event in the history of Asian-Pacific Americans. It brought everyone from different backgrounds together as his death was a result of anti-Asian sentiments by two white men because they felt that Asians were taking their jobs. These two particular men were unemployed and blamed the Asian-Pacific Americans for this as well. There were many other acts that benefited the Asian-Pacific community but also benefited other minority groups directly as well. These are all listed in the Extra Resources section. |