History

Although there has recently been more attention on the crimes against Asian americans, it has been a problem in America for a very long time, leading back to the 19th century. In 1871 a mob in Los Angeles' Chinatown attacked and murdered 19 Chinese residents, including a 15-year-old boy, a reflection of the growing anti-Asian sentiment that came to its climax with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. This law prohibited all immigration of Chinese laborers. The nation's first restrictive immigration law, Page Exclusion Act of 1875, prohibited the entry of Chinese women. This act was a precursor to the dehumanizing stereotypes and fetization of Asian american women. "In the 1875 Act, we see the ways in which race and gender are beginning to be entangled and codified in the law, and how Asian women were deemed to be bringing in sexual deviancy," said Sato. "That far back, we can see how racism and sexism were being conflated."

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