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The Chinese Massacre of 1871
The Chinese Massacre of 1871 occurred on October 24, 1871, in LA where a mob of hundreds brutally attacked, bullied, robbed, and murdered Chinese residents in Old Chinatown. A total of 19 Chinese immigrants were killed throughout the course of the riot. At the time, the Chinese population of LA amounted to a mere 172 and as such, those killed in the racial massacre represented over 10% of the Chinese population. Individuals from the mob were prosecuted and several were convicted of manslaughter in these deaths. However, the convictions were later overturned on appeal due to technicalities.
AAPI Historical Timeline
America is the land of opportunity for a mixed salad of individuals with unique races and cultures. While there are many great things that make up America, there are untold history of brutal racism, exclusion, and violence against AAPI immigrants. To understand how we got here, we must first educate ourselves to understand the origins of where we came from.
AAPI Contributions: Meet Yuri Kochiyama
“Malcolm X and Yuri Kochiyama are both American civil rights icons,” according to writer Sushmita Arora. “But while you probably learned about Malcolm X’s lasting legacy in school, Kochiyama remains one of American history’s unsung heroes.”
“The daughter of immigrants, Kochiyama experienced the hardships of a World War II internment camp after public hysteria surrounding Japanese Americans erupted in the wake of the Pearl Harbor attack,” according to journalist Elaine Woo. Before the war, she “was a model of assimilation,” according to the Washington Post.
“She wrote a sports column for the San Pedro News-Pilot and was a Sunday school teacher at the local Presbyterian church.” However, after she and her family were sent to an internment camp and her father died shortly after being taken into custody, she began to have a different view of the world after the war.