i wrote this:

Civil Rights

Are we, as an Asian American community, free? The United States has a history of good and bad. When it comes to civil rights, has it been mostly good, or mostly bad? To find out about this we have to look at our country's history. Our civil rights history starts in 1790 with the first Naturalization Law. This law said that citizenship was restricted to "whites only". In the early 1800's our country relatively stayed the same, keeping its racially prejudice stance. It wasn't until about the mid 1800's, specifically 1954, when Asians, or Asian Americans, began to fight back. Until then, there weren't really enough significant numbers to make a stand, they were just glad to actually get to this country. In 1854 however, in the case People vs. Hall, the court ruled that 3 Chinese men couldn't testify against a white man, with their testimony he could have been put in jail for murder, but it didn't happen. In 1882 the Chinese were totally excluded from the country. In 1924 the Japanese were excluded. At least we started to testify and court, and tried to fight back, 1923 US. vs. Thind, 1948 Ozawa vs. U.S. There were so many laws against us, the 1913 Alien Land Act, anti-misscegenation act, Asian Americans couldn't even own land or marry a white woman! We all know about the internment of the Japanese in this class. So many laws and prejudices against us, yet we still struggle for our freedoms. Yuri Kochiyama, as we see from the videos, was one of these people. She lead the way for an Asian American movement, and civil rights for all, in the 60's. We have to be like her, and pave the way. We have to indivually give an effort, one can make a difference. We aren't totally free yet.