Asian Texans : Our Histories and Our Lives

by Irwin A. Tang

• ISBN13: 9780967943374
• ISBN10: 096794337X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-03-31
• Publisher: The It Works

Summary

This groundbreaking volume chronicles the history of Asian Americans in Texas. Drawing from rare documents and photos, family histories, interviews, and obscure personal writings, this book tells the fascinating stories of Asian Texan communities and individuals.Read in this volume about Asian Texans of all ethnic groups and from every decade of Texas's exciting history. The first Asian Texan was a Filipino fisherman named Francisco Flores who arrived on a Spanish slave ship. The first large group of Asian Texans - 250 Chinese railroad workers - settled down as sharecroppers in East Texas and intermarried with black women. Concentrated in El Paso, many of the early Chinese Texans carried guns, won big pots at gambling tables, and dug systems of underground tunnels and rooms as part of the Asian American Underground Railroad. At the turn of the 20th century, Japanese Texans established some of the largest rice plantations in America. The anti-Asian violence of the Mexican Revolution sent Asians flocking to the Texas border. Some five hundred Chinese Mexicans who worked for General John J. Pershing as he hunted for Pancho Villa followed the American army back to San Antonio, establishing a new community.World War II saw the building of Japanese internment camps in Texas, as well as the Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team's rescue of Texas's "lost" battalion from Nazi siege. During the "military period" of Asian Texan history, a major portion of Asian immigration to Texas consisted of Asian "war brides" from Japan, Korea, and the Philippines. After the 1965 immigration reform, Indian and Pakistani immigrants attempted to integrate into a Christian Texan society; Vietnamese refugees fought bloody battles with the KKK on the Texas coast; Korean Texans struggled with the tumultuous aftermath of the LA riots; Filipino, Korean, and Indian nurses and doctors established new communities; the fortunes of Asian Texans more than any other group rose and fell according to oil and technology booms and busts; and new Chinatowns, Koreatowns, and Little Saigons flourished in Texas cities.This book features dozens of rare photographs and documents.

Author Biography

Irwin Tang, who holds an M.A. in Asian Studies, led a team of more than twenty researchers and writers in a five-year effort to produce Asian Texans. Tang writes on Asian Americans for various venues. He is the author of The Texas Aggie Bonfire and co-author of When Invisible Children Sing.