Asian Americans and the Law

From the founding of this nation to the present, Asian Americans have been at the center of many legal controversies with profound implications for American society. This seminar will examine the legal history of people of Asian descent in the United States. It will focus on critical reading of primary sources – the Constitution, statutes, regulations, and judicial decisions – and on placing these materials in their social and historical context. The course encompasses units on citizenship and identity (starting with the arrival of the first Asians in America and the early immigration statutes and running through the recent travel ban); various seminal issues and moments in Asian American history (such as racial violence, efforts by state and local governments to regulate Asians, and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II); and contemporary issues (such as the concept of the model minority, employment discrimination and the so-called “Bamboo Ceiling,” educational opportunity and the thorny issue of “reverse discrimination,” and racial profiling and bias, both pandemic-related and otherwise).