ABSTRACT
The question of when Asian American history begins is a complicated one. If looking for the first known presence of a person from Asia on American soil, we might consider the findings of a 2007 Canadian archaeological project, which theorized that North America’s first inhabitants were seafarers from the Japanese islands who sailed the coastal waters of the North Pacific about 16,000 years ago.1 Using this as a starting point for Asian American history, however, does little to illuminate the long and continuous presence of Asians in the United States and North America. We could instead begin with the appearance of discrete populations of Asians in what is now the United States. Here we might look to 1763, when Filipino sailors aboard Spanish galleons on the Manila–Acapulco trade jumped ship and settled in the New Orleans area. Yet another approach would be to start with more sustained and large-scale migrations that led to a permanent presence of Asians in America. In this case, the California gold rush, which drew tens of thousands of Chinese in the late 1840s and early 1850s, stands out. Finally, we could start when persons of Asian descent in the United States consciously identified themselves as “Asian American.” This would make for a brief history, as it was not until the late 1960s that activists proclaimed an Asian American identity that rejected old labels, signaled pan-Asian solidarity, and made assertive claims to American belonging.
