This diversity-leadership resource offers insight to evolving workplace diversity, featuring a detailed timeline of Asian-American events and the relevant demographics you need to know.

President Jimmy Carter signed a joint resolution in 1978 that declared May 4–10, 1979, as the first Asian Pacific American Heritage Week. This was later extended by President George H.W. Bush in 1990 to a month-long celebration. The month commemorates the arrival of the first Japanese immigrant, a fisherman named Nakanohama Manjiro, or “John Mung,” to the United States on May 7, 1843, and marks the transcontinental railroad’s completion on May 10, 1869.

Click the images below to download a PDF, or click these links to expand: Asian-American Heritage Timeline and Asian-American Fact & Figures.

 1700s–1800s:

1763 First recorded settlement of Filipinos in America in Louisiana

1843 First Japanese immigrants arrive in the United States

1847 Yale’s Yung Wing is the first Chinese person to graduate from a U.S. college

1848 Chinese people migrate to California during the Gold Rush

1854 California bars the entrance of Chinese people to the state

1858 People v. Hall rules that Chinese people cannot give testimony against whites

1865 Chinese workers are hired by the Central Pacific Railroad Company

1869 First transcontinental railroad is completed 1878 Ninth Circuit Court in California declares that Chinese people cannot receive natural citizenship

1879 Laws are passed in California against Chinese employment

1882 Chinese Exclusion Law is passed, which suspends immigration for 10 years

1898 The Philippines declares its independence. The U.S. annexes the Philippines and Hawaii

1898 Wong Kim Ark v. U.S. rules that Chinese people born in the United States are citizens

1900s:

1903 First group of Korean people arrives to work in Hawaii

1905 California Civil Code forbids marriage between Asians and whites

1906 San Francisco excludes Japanese, Korean and Chinese children from public schools

1907 Immigration from India begins

1907 President Theodore Roosevelt’s executive order prevents Japanese/Korean immigration

1922 Takao Ozawa v. U.S. rules that a Japanese person cannot be naturalized

1924 National Origins Act prohibits immigration of most Asians

1941 After the Pearl Harbor attack, Japanese on the Pacific Coast are interned in camps

1943 Congress repeals all Chinese exclusion laws and grants naturalization

1946 The Philippines becomes independent; citizenship is offered to those living in the United States

1946 Wing Ong becomes first Asian person elected to state office in Arizona House of Representatives

1947 President Harry Truman pardons Japanese Americans who resisted draft in internment camps

1949 U.S. severs ties with People’s Republic of China; 5,000 educated Chinese people are granted refugee status

1950 Korean War and second wave of Korean immigration begins

1956 Dalip Singh Saund becomes the first Asian-Indian person elected to Congress

1959 Hawaii becomes the 50th state

1959 Hiram Fong and Daniel K. Inouye become the first Asian-Pacific Americans elected to Congress

1962 Hawaii’s Inouye becomes a senator; Spark Matsunaga becomes a congressman

1964 Patsy Takemoto becomes the first Asian-American woman to serve in Congress

1975 Vietnam War ends; leads to large migration of Southeast Asians to the United States

1979 The first Asian Pacific American Heritage Week is celebrated

1979 Diplomatic relations resume between the People’s Republic of China and the United States

1989 President George H.W. Bush signs into law an entitlement program to pay each surviving Japanese-American internee $20,000

1997 Kalpana Chawla becomes the first Asian Indian astronaut in space

1997 Gary Locke becomes the first Asian-American governor of a mainland state (Washington)

2000 to Present Day:

2000 Norman Mineta becomes the first Asian-American person to hold a Cabinet post

2001 Elaine Chao is appointed secretary of labor

2006 First monument dedicated to Filipino soldiers who fought for the United States in World War II is unveiled

2007 Bobby Jindal becomes the first Indian-American person elected governor (Louisiana)

2009 President Barack Obama appoints the most Asian Americans to Cabinet-level positions (three)

2010 Apolo Anton Ohno becomes the most decorated American Winter Olympian, with eight medals