Asian American Histories of the United States

Historian and professor Catherine Ceniza Choy offers stories that reveal the experiences of Asians who helped build the United States. Professor Choy seeks to unravel why the global COVID pandemic brought an increase in violence against – and an increase in hate and racism toward – Asian Americans. She illustrates how a lack of Asian American representation in the United States’ power structure and Asian American’s silenced history contributes to these injustices.

COVID-19

As COVID-19 case numbers rose in America, then President Donald Trump referred to the disease as the “Chinese virus” or the “kung flu,” inflaming negative sentiment toward Asian Americans. Falsely linking Asians to disease is an American tendency dating back to the California gold rush in 1848, when the first Chinese immigrants came to the US west coast.  San Francisco’s municipal health organization blamed Chinese immigrants for spreading smallpox, though, historically, Americans and Europeans had carried and spread the disease.