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A 14 year old Japanese fisherman named Manjiro, who's boat got wrecked, was rescued and adopted by American Captain William Whitfield. -
Chinese miners flood into the United States following the discovery of gold in California. -
The Page Act of 1875 effectively blocks Asian women from entering the country and blocks Asian men from starting families. -
Signed into law by President Chester Arthur, the act bans Chinese workers from entering the country and prohibits Chinese Immigrants from American citizenship. -
Angered that Asian Americans were taking their jobs, White miners attack chinese laborers in the Wyoming Territory. 28 are killed, 15 injured, and all the homes looted and set on fire. -
The "Ellis Island of the West" opens in the San Francisco Bay, 100,000 Chinese and 70,000 Japanese immigrants were processed through the immigration station over the next 30 years. -
The Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs and executive order that forces 120,000 Japanese Americans into Internment camps until the war ends. Under the impression that they could have played a part in the attack. -
President Lindon B. Johnson signs a new law which ends immigration policies based on ethnicity and race. More asian immigrants flood into the country. -
President Jimmy Carter announces that a week in may will be National Asian/ Pacific American Heritage Week. It is held every year since and eventually broadened to the entire month of May by President Bush. -
President Bill Clinton Swears in Norman Nimeta as the secretary of commerce. He is the first Asian American to serve in the President's cabinet.