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[Seriphyn]

I have always wondered this, and I'm sure I could go find a professor at campus and ask them this, but there's plenty of Americans here.

Before the Civil Rights Movement, was the same racism against those of African descent directed against those of South and East Asian descent? My grandmother from Vallejo CA says no, and that it was purely against those with African descent. The fact there was an Indian Sikh congressman Dalip Singh Saund between 1957 to 1963 adds to this theory, while the Wikipedia article on US racism is somewhat ambigious and non-personal. It appears notable racism against those of West/South Asian descent only appeared after 9/11.

Anyway, was hoping a continental-born American could shed some light on this.

[ArtOfLight]

I'm a bit young to have been around during that time so I know only really what was taught in our history books and through discussion with those older than myself.

Essentially, it was anyone of African descent from my understanding. Slavery was the biggest reason for it and those of African descent were the ones in bondage.

[orange]

I can't think of any examples with a similarity to the institutional racism seen across the South US towards Blacks/Colored in the first half of the 20th Century aimed at those from the Indian sub-continent.  I also think the total population of South Asians is much smaller than Blacks.

I say Blacks/Colored because even by 1900, many of the families of African-descent had been living in North America for close to 200 years.  The Black population represented a significant portion of the population even in 1789. Asians & North Africans did not.

Following 1 Dec 1941, West Coast Japanese were rounded up and placed in internment camps and the generation that fought World War II, specifically in the Pacific, has/had members that were less forgiving than others towards those of Japanese descent.  This might been seen as reactionary racism, like that now directed at Arabs, Egyptians, Persians, etc.

Chinese immigrants in the last quarter of the 19th Century are portrayed as being poorly treated in the west.  They immigrated to work on western railroads.

Each region of the United States has had some kind of racism occur during its history, but likely none as long lived or persistent as the racism born out of an economy built on the labor of slaves brought to the area centuries before.

[Natalcya Katla]

There are plenty of examples of racism, institutional or otherwise, against at least East Asian immigrants in the US in history.

As early as the California gold rush, regulations were supposedly put in place specifically to marginalize Chinese prospectors, and preferably run them out of business altogether.

Chinese railroad workers worked hard and dangerous jobs for pitiful wages. So did white minorities such as Irishmen and Eastern Europeans, however, and I'm not sure to which extent this practice was fueled by actual racism as opposed to simple economic cynicism.

Chinese immigrants were seem to have been poorly treated in the West especially, like orange says, and these tensions sometimes erupted into violence. The Rock Springs massacre is one infamous example of this.

The somewhat notorious judge Roy Bean is supposed to have once dismissed a murder case against a man on the grounds that though the law forbade the killing of humans, it said nothing about killing "chinamen".

Chinese people were also subjected to immigration bans (or severe restrictions) in certain periods of time.

It's still very hard to argue that any of that comes close to the systematic and centuries-long exploitation and repression of blacks in America. From what I've read, I'm inclined to believe that the Asians, on a whole, have had it significantly easier than blacks in America, but have still received noticeably harsher treatment over a longer period of time than initially-exploited white minorities have had to endure.

I know very little about South Asians in the US, though. I had the impression that most of the people who emigrated from South Asia before the British pulled out of there moved to other parts of the British Empire, such as South Africa or the British Isles themselves. I could be wrong in that assumption, though.

[Esna Pitoojee]

Yellow Peril is a well-known historical fact, but it mostly refers to discrimination towards Japanese and Chinese immigrants. It is my impression that most other East Asian states (modern Indonesia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Laos, Cambodia, etc) were in varying degrees of European colonization, and so their ethnic groups were not viewed independently (and thus, threatening). The Japanese and Chinese, on the other hand, were states that had the scientific, military, and population potential to stand against the European powers, thus making them look vary worrying to a European/North American-centric worldview.

[Casiella]

In many parts of the US (mine included), blacks may have been treated as second-class humans, but many Asians (and Mexicans) were thought of as animals, not even on the level of blacks.

You can still find pockets of this in, say, East Texas.

[Seriphyn]

Pardon the delay.

Thanks for the responses, the  variety in answers/info provided is helpful :E

[Ava Starfire]

Wholly depends on the region of the US and the demographic. In California, for example, a slew of laws were passed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, restricting the activities of east asian immigrants, particularly who they could have relations with.

In some parts of the US, anti-native american racism is still quite prevalent. They were more marginalized for a long, long time than even blacks, pre civil-rights movement. All ethnic groups, from the Irish to the Italians to the AMISH of all people, have been the target of de facto racism, though laws (other than the quotas of the early 20th century) were never passed targeting them specifically.

As far as south asians, its only become noticable since 9-11. Most people in the US look quite favorably upon India, and immigration to the US from India has only really ramped up in the past 25 or so years, since the Civil Rights movement and since racism has really began to wane. Since 9/11, the racism they have dealt with has been doubly tragic, as it is usually misplaced by people assuming that anyone with brown skin who isnt black or latino MUST be a middle-eastern muslim extremist. I have dealt with some of this, as have all of my friends who look in any way, shape, or form like "brown people".

The US is strange in ways. There has never been any sort of noticeable anti-Roma bias here; most people dont know what "Roma" even means, and if you tell them "We're gypsies" they just smile and go "oh, cool", very different from the mindset in much of Europe. Ive encountered only a handful of people (Like,  maybe four) over my entire life who displayed any sort of prejudice against me for that. Ive encountered many more who thought I was middle eastern, took issue with a political sticker on my car, etc.

Racism is still here, sadly, but today it is more often directed at middle eastern and latino people, you know, because theyre all terrorists here to steal our jobs (tongue firmly pressed into cheek here).

[Lithium Flower]

Although I am not american in any sort and don't know well mythology and Christianity, but I believe that racism appeared in the first place because of myth about Noah and his sons.
African peoples were believed to be descendants of Ham, son of Noah, who insulted his father and his children were cursed to be slaves.
But Asian people were believed to be descendant of another Noah's son - Shem, and thus there were no such obvious racism towards them.
IMHO peoples during these times were very very religious and lived by religious laws, and understood myths literally, that caused this racism.

[lallara zhuul]

Sorry, racism has nothing to do with religion.

It can be justified by religion (just like a lot of things) but religion is not the source of it.

It is the fear of the unknown and people that are different and/or do things differently than you.

Which predates any religion or even homo sapiens by a quite a lot of time.

Also prejudice towards gypsies/tinkers/jews or any nomadic group of people, it has quite of a tradition in Europe.

[Lithium Flower]

Well, I have a very different opinion about racism and religion, and I'll try to explain why.

From the history, I know two major incidents of racism: first is against Africans in Americas, and second is against Jews in Europe. And I believe that they are both have deep roots in religion.

I wrote earlier, what was the reasons for racism against Africans and for no racism against Asians.

But the most deadly and devastating racism incidents were against Jews, that first broke during crusades, and then in Nazi Germany. And from my opinion roots of such animal hatred lie in... Judaism. This is a very closed religion, and unlike open Christianity, that tries to convert almost anyone to the religion. Judaism is the religion for chosen by God peoples, and, of course, they treat other peoples like... well, not chosen. This is a source of great arrogance, of theories of Zion conspiracies and eventually antisemitism. And when uneducated cutthroats came to power, like during times of crusades or Third Reich, this hatred come outside and peoples die.

The situation is Asia is much more different. For example, when Alexander captured Persian empire, there wasn't racism towards them. They had different religions, different life styles, but in their religion and mythology there was nothing against each other. Even remember Genghis Khan, who captured almost half of the world. Who destroyed whole tribes. But he killed them not because they were different, but because they refused to subdue to him. Even more, for mongols, killing priests and pillaging temples, was taboo. They respected other religions and there were no racism.

I think that just being different and unknown is not enought to spark a devastating hatred. Some Americans, and even Europeans (well, unfortunately it becomes trans-global) with very liberal ideals believe that everything around should happen like in their country, and when they visit other countries, they are too loud, they ignore traditions, maybe because they don't know them, maybe because they don't want to follow them, they show themselves and not intentionally show disrespect to their hosts. This doesn't lead to racism, more like xenophobia, and people try to stand aside from these guests. But I think this is not enought to grow into full scale racism, there should be something else.

I could play a nazi card without religion, but my character has some more deep personal reasons for this, that I don't want to uncover yet. Maybe I'll do some form of RP arc or quest rotating about this subject, but at the moment my head is overloaded with other stuff.

[Natalcya Katla]

In America, religion was nothing more than a convenient way for slaveholders to legitimize the systematic economic exploitation of another people. Anti-semitism does have some strong roots in religion. Through much of European history, though, laws against Jews owning land combined with laws against Christians lending money at interest combined to establish the Jews as a significant part of the urban economic elite - and by extension, the cultural and intellectual elite - once the old aristocracies of Europe began to crumble away in earnest. Nazi anti-semitism was essentially founded on pure jealousy on the part of (at first) Bavarian white trash against their economic and intellectual betters.

In both cases, economics played a greater role than religion did.