Review Sheet for Exam 1

Exam Day is Wednesday, May 23

For this exam you will have one hour to write a history of Asian Americans. Answer this question: How have conditions changed for people of Asian descent in the US in the periods from 1849 to 1975 and from 1975 to the present?

Use the terms and the dates that I have provided below. I will evaluate your essay based on the number of terms and dates you use from the lists below, the factual accuracy in the use of your terms, and in the precision with which you draw connections and divisions between terms, groups of people, places and dates. For instance, the concept of "exclusion" was applied first in US legislation to women and men from China, but in later years it extended to people from Korea, Japan, and the "Asiatic Barred Zone." The Chinese Exclusion Act was not repealed until 1943, when Chinese nationalists and communists were important allies of the US. In 1965 the tiny quotas that restricted immigration from specific countries to the US were lifted, resulting in a huge increase in immigration from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Philippines, Korea, India, and to a lesser extent Japan.

Before the exam you should prepare an outline of your essay to help you organize your writing with headings from the same category. For example, you might organize your essay in terms of dates, in terms of struggles that immigrants have faced, and/or in terms of nationalities and cultures. It would be particularly challenging to organize your essay in terms of gender.

Note: I will be looking closely for references to Vietnamese American and Korean American History in your essay.

The exam will be open-book, open-reader, open-classroom, open-blog and open-Google. Prepare by reviewing the "Notes and References" page for this course, looking up terms with Google, and by linking the literary readings for this course to your outline. Do not lift blocks of text from any sources--instead, use your own words and provide citations so I can check your sources.

Use the following terms in a narrative of Asian American History:

Exclusion

Wages, Benefits, Working Conditions, and Workers' Rights

Respect and Dignity

Immigration Enforcement, Prison, Deportation

Asiatic Barred Zone

Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Vietnamese, Hmong

Third World Students Strike

US Military, War Brides Act

Refugees

Your narrative should also mention the significance of the following dates:

1882

1910-1940

1924

1930s

1942

1965

1968

1975

Extra Credit

Where were your ancestors in 1924? In 1965?

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