Asian Americans

Crew

The series lead producer was Renee Tajima-Peña who described the series as being about "not about how Asians became American, but how Asians have helped shape America." The series' music was composed by Vivek Maddala. Narration throughout the series was done by Asian American actors Daniel Dae Kim and Tamlyn Tomita.

Content

Episode 1: Breaking Ground

First aired on May 11, 2020, Episode One focused on the early immigration of Asian people from China, India, Japan, and the Philippines starting in the 19th and 20th century.

The episode opens with the story of an Igorot boy named Antero who served as an interpreter and house boy for anthropologist Albert Jencks. In 1904, Antero accompanied Jencks to the world fair in St. Louis to be a part of the Philippine exhibit. The United States, through its imperialism, had annexed part the Philippines and highlighted this by having a Philippine exhibit at the 1904 fair. Fair managers instructed the various Igorot people to perform dances and dog-eating for the crowds, even though the consumption of dog was not common and was for ceremonial purposes. The exhibit was used to enforce the ideas of a racial hierarchy and portrayed the Igorot people as savages. A descendant of Antero, Mia Abeya, speaks of her grandfather and his goal of earning enough money and status to live the American dream.

The episode then describes how Asian immigrants were drawn to California by the 1848 Gold Rush but wound up working on the transcontinental railroad. Chinese workers were seen as a reliable and cheap source of labor and became essential as they made up nearly 90% of the western railroad company's construction crew. Chinese Associations would recover Chinese railway workers' remains from avalanches or other construction accidents to be repatriated back to China. Historian Gordon H. Chang stated that nearly 12,000 people's remains could be sent back to China at one time. When the transcontinental railroad was completed on May 10, 1869, the photo taken to commemorate the accomplishment omits any trace of Chinese workers.

The number of Chinese laborers in 1870 was crucial for the development of California but led to an increasing belief that they were a threat to White American laborers. The anti-Chinese sentiment included attacks on Chinatowns, burnings of businesses, and lynchings. The anti-Chinese sentiment was codified into law when the United States congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, which was the first time a group of people were banned from entering the United States solely on the basis of race and nationality.

The Chinese Exclusion Act, the documentary states, set the stage for the use and enforcement of immigration documents and the laws used to arrest and deport people found in the country unlawfully. Historian Erika Lee said the Chinese were, in essence, "the first illegal immigrants, the first undocumented immigrants."

Episode 2: A Question of Loyalty

First aired on May 12, 2020. Episode Two mainly focuses on the experiences of the Uno and Ina families in the era of Japanese internment camps in the United States.

Episode 2 begins with film director Satsuki Ina describing finding her mother's identification number given to her in the Japanese internment camps and the narrator asking the audience "What does it mean to be a loyal American?" Roberta Uno, a descendant of George Uno - a Japanese immigrant - speaks on how her grandfather immigrated but was unable to own land or become a citizen. Uno speaks of her own family's experience with racism and how anti-Asian sentiments continued, including from other immigrants. The discrimination manifested in segregated neighborhoods, exclusion from organizations such as the Boy Scouts of America, and fewer work opportunities. Roberta Uno's uncle Buddy Uno is one such example where he could only find work as a mainstream reporter in Japan. Buddy Uno, who was also a Japanese Military correspondent, wrote positively of the Japanese military in the Sino-Japanese War. Buddy Uno would later become a propagandist for the Japanese during the war.

Historian Brian Niiya speaks in the episode on the differences between the Japanese Issei and Nisei generations. Niiya describes how Nisei generations "because they had been treated so badly in the United States and I think there was a greater openness to overlook some of the atrocities that the Japanese were committing."

While Buddy Uno was successful overseas, his connection to the Japanese military made his father - George Uno - a target of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to detain and investigate after the Attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. George Uno was detained in Griffith park. The United States imposed a curfew on all Japanese People and regulated how far they could travel. The episode talks about how Earl Warren became a driving force behind the internment of over one hundred thousand Japanese Americans without any charges or due process.

In an effort to avoid the anti-Japanese hate and discrimination, Chinese and Korean Americans wore buttons or other identifiers to communicate to the public they were not Japanese. The episode also describes how some Chinese and Korean Americans fully supported America's war effort since it would mean Japanese Imperialism in China, Korea, and the Philippines may be put to an end. Susan Ahn Cuddy, the first-Asian woman to enlist in the U.S. Navy and its first female gunnery officer, joined the navy as a way to honor her Korean activist father, Ahn Chang Ho "Dosan" and the country of Korea. Philip Ahn, Susan's brother, also honors Korea and his parents by taking pride in playing villainous Japanese roles in Hollywood films as a way to create more anti-Japanese sentiment.

Episode 3: Good Americans

Episode 3 aired on May 12, 2020. Episode Three focuses on the continued discrimination against Asians and Asian Americans, the struggle of assimilation, and the rise of Asian Americans in politics all in the context of the Cold War.

The episode begins with reminding the audience that many Asian Americans fought for freedom in WWII and expected equality at home. The G.I. bill offered an opportunity for Asian American veterans to gain access to new educational opportunities. Historian Alex Fabros, Jr. speaks about his Filipino father's hopes of rising to the middle class and how some Asian veterans were even able to become American citizens because they served in the war. Erika Lee describes how the economic success of Japanese and Chinese after the war buttressed the idea of the model minority. One such example of Asians being heralded as the model minority is Toy Len Goon, who won the title of American Mother of the Year in 1952. However, the episode makes it known that being seen as the model minority did not free Asian Americans from discrimination or racial politics of the U.S. Helen Zia speaks about how her parents were barred from buying houses in certain communities and were the only Asian-American family in Levittown when it was first built. Historian Erika Lee describes how the use of the model minority was used in an attempt to delegitimize the critique from African-Americans, communists, labor activists and other marginalized groups.

Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party's rise to power in China in 1949 and China's involvement in the Korean War positioned China as an American enemy. The politics of Communist China ignited a whole new wave of suspicion of Asian Americans' loyalty, only instead of the Japanese it was now the Chinese. A descendant of two Chinese immigrants, Winifred C. Chin states in the episode that "In the U.S., Asians are always perpetual foreigners." Chin's father was a paper son and wrote poetry for the China Daily News, which made him a target of FBI. Due to the paper son phenomenon, the FBI offered Chinese communities the chance to regularize their immigration status in exchange for disclosing any instance of fraudulent immigration paperwork, later to be called the Confession Program. Chin's father and other paper son and daughters were suspicious of such government programs and many chose not to disclose. Screenwriter David Henry Hwang said that the accusations made against the Chinese revealed no large plot of subversive activities and that these programs and tactics were government terrorism in order to intimidate a community. According to Hwang, these tactics fell into the realm of McCarthyism.

Episode 4: Generation Rising

Episode 4 aired on May 12, 2020. Episode Four primarily focuses on Asian Americans protesting and advocating in the fields, classrooms, and workforce.

Historian Alex Fabros, Jr.'s talks about his experience as a migrant farm worker. Fabros and Historian Alex Edillor spoke on how Filipino migrants began the grape strikes of the 1960s for better working conditions. Larry Itliong organized the Filipino migrant workers into the organization Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) and started the Delano Grape Strike of 1965. Growers brought in Mexican migrant workers in an attempt to break the strike. Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, in collaboration with Larry Itliong, created a unified union between Filipino and Mexican migrant workers called the United Farm Workers. Alex Fabros, Jr. described this labor movement as the West coast's civil rights movement. The United Farm Workers' strike brought attention to the harsh conditions and nationwide support from college students, civil right leaders, and politicians. Growers were forced to sign the Union's demand due to intense global and economical pressure.

The episode shifts to discuss the Vietnam War. Alex Fabros, Jr. was drafted in the Vietnam War and, like Scott Shimabukuro and Mike Nakayama, describes the overt racism in the ranks and the internal reckoning he had with being an Asian-American fighting against the Vietnamese. Asian American women were also involved in the Vietnam War. Lily Lee Adams speaks on her experience as a military nurse and the prevalent sexual harassment she faced on and off base. Scott Shimabukuro and Mike Nakayama would later speak on their experiences at the Winter Soldier Investigation in 1971.

After the death of Martin Luther King Jr., student activists demanded Black studies curriculum. The call for Black studies inspired Asian Americans to also demand Asian-American studies in the classroom. Black and Brown students called for solidarity with people of colonized lands, dubbed the third world. Students of Color at San Francisco State, a school with predominantly white students, began demanding better representation in the classroom, including but not limited to hiring more minority faculty and expanding curriculum to relate to their lives and concerns. Laureen Chew and Penny Nakatsu describe their experience as San Francisco State students and members of the Third World Liberation Front (TWLF). The TWLF wanted an educational institution that served the people. Asian, Latino, Native American, and Black students joined forces to advocate for a School of Ethnic Studies. The Third World Liberation Front Strike of 1968 aimed to disrupt campus life in order to hasten the creation of a School for Ethnic Studies. S.I. Hayakawa threatened to arrest the students if they rioted and many students were arrested and confronted by police. However, after five months of protests, the San Francisco State administration finally agreed to establish a School of Ethnic Studies.

Episode 5: Breaking Through

Episode 5 aired on May 12, 2020. Episode Five focuses on contextualizing the tension and interrelated struggle Asian American community face between and with other marginalized communities.

The episode opens with clips of Hari Kondabolu and Margaret Cho's stand-up comedy. The episode contextualizes the murder of Vincent Chin within the 1979 oil crisis and a decline in the American car business which was blamed on Japanese car manufacturers. The murder of Vincent Chin, and the fact his assailants received no jail time, galvanized Mee Moua, Helen Zia, and other Asian-Americans to take the streets in protest. Civil rights organizations and individuals such as Jesse Jackson rallied behind the Asian-American community and Lily Chin, Vincent's mother. The murder of Vincent Chin would be the first federal civil rights trial for an Asian American.

The episode details how in the 1980s the Asian population flips from majority U.S. born to foreign born. One example of the influx of Asian immigrants is Koreatown in Los Angeles. Writer and historian Brenda Stevenson speaks on how African-Americans continue to face discrimination in L.A. and how the beating of Rodney King in 1991 galvanized many in South L.A. to get back into the street. However, Angela Oh states that many of the new immigrants did not fully understand or appreciate the sacrifices of African Americans during the civil rights movement. Furthermore, people in the Asian community sided with Latasha's killer, even though, as Jeff Chang argues, the killing of Latasha Harlins was very similar to the killing of Vincent Chin. The killing of Latasha Harlins and the acquittal of the police who beat Rodney King were catalysts for the 1992 L.A. Riot. Jeff Chang also described how the riots were, for him, symbolic of the Rainbow Coalition dream going up in smoke. Korean immigrants were forced to restart their lives after many business were destroyed. On May 2, 1992, a peace rally is held in Koreatown with an estimated 30,000 attendees. The episode states that new Korean-American leaders worked with African-American leadership to continue forward together, rather than adversaries.

The rise in Asian-American in mainstream culture could be seen when the episode highlights media such as All American Girl, American Desi, and The Joy Luck Club. Jerry Yang reflects on his journey with co-creating Yahoo!. Historian Annalee Saxenian speaks on how many of the large startups of the 1990s and early 21st century were Asian Americans. Journalist K. Oanh Ha spoke on the disparities between Asian-Americans in technology sector, some being startups CEOs and others and others doing low paying piece work.

Impact

The series was made free to the public after the May 16, 2021 Atlanta spa shootings.

The docu-series has been referenced as potential source material for curriculum by proponents and Illinois lawmakers of the Teaching Equitable Asian American Community History Act (TEAACH), which requires all public elementary schools and high schools to have a unit dedicated to Asian American history. The TEAACH act was passed after an increase in attacks and xenophobia against Asians during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Awards

The series won a Peabody Award in 2021.