1978 
ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH IS OFFICIAL
July 10, 1978 - House Representatives passed legislation to proclaim an Asian/Pacific American Heritage Week in May. The proclamation had to be obtained yearly because the final Joint Resolution did not contain an annual designation.
Oct. 5, 1978 - President Jimmy Carter signed the Joint Resolution

CONSCIOUSNESS OF ASIAN AMERICANS RECOGNIZED BY THE UNITED STATES
This proclamation and legislation is the United States' official recognition that from their first days on these shores, Asian Americans fought against the discrimination they faced. Strikes, slowdowns, and legal actions were common. It is little known, for example, that Filipino farm workers actually initiated the famous grape boycott of the 1960s, which was then joined by Mexican workers and tremendously amplified under the leadership of Cesar Chavez. Most of these struggles were fought on a nationality or class basis.

It was not until the late 1960s that a common racial/panethnic identity took hold among Asian Americans. Several facts contributed to this delay: different Asian nationalities immigrated in different historical periods, they rarely lived or worked in the same geographical areas, most were immigrants until the 1960s, and their native languages were unintelligible to each other. Thus there was no amalgamation of the Asian nationalities as their had been, say, among the different African ethnicities under slavery (and that took many generations). Although Asians in the United States fell victim to the same racial laws and customs and followed the same racialized patterns, the predominant consciousness remained ethnic/national, not panethnic or racial.

The development of Asian-American consciousness took place in the 1960s when, for the first time, the majority of Asians in this country were U.S. born. It was an explicitly political consciousness influenced by the Civil Rights and Black Power movements of that era. And it was cemented for many by the murderous racist dehumanization of Asians exhibited by the U.S. government, press, and armed forces during the Vietnam War.

To be Asian American was not a simple recognition that one had roots in Asia; it meant to reject the passive racist stereotype embodied in the white-imposed term "Oriental" and to embrace an active stance against war and racism. The people of color movements of the 1960s led to the rejection of the term "Negro" in favor of "Black" or "Afro-American"; it produced the new concepts of "La Raza" and "Chicano"; and it gave rise to "Asian American."

Unbeknownst to many people, including many movement people, the Asian-American movement of the late 1960s and 1970s was of mass proportions and dramatically transformed the political (and personal) consciousness and institutional infrastructure of the different Asian-American communities. In addition, influenced by the powerful Vietnamese, Chinese, and Korean communist parties of the time, many Asian-American activists turned to Marxism and became a major presence in the U.S. communist and socialist movements of the period.

However, neither racism nor racial consciousness among Asians has ever supplanted either the consciousness or the reality of nationality. Indeed, the tremendous increase in immigration since 1965 has reproduced an overriding foreign-born majority among Asians residing in the United States and has further strengthened national/ethnic consciousness.

IMPORTANCE OF RECOGNIZING ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN COMMUNITIES
The racialization of nationality was a critical event in U.S. history that has shaped today's social formation and even impacted its foreign policy. The racial formation of Asian Americans since the Immigration Reform of 1965 has been very different than the pre-1965 period. The civil rights achievements of the 1960s and 1970s, the structural change of U.S. capitalism to what is sometimes called "post-industrial society," the immigration reform of 1965, and globalization have reshaped the Asian-American communities and their status in U.S. society. Because of their educational level, Asian Americans, along with white women, were probably the main beneficiaries of affirmative action.

Immigration reform has enabled the Asian-American population to explode from only about one million in 1965-mostly Chinese, Japanese, and Filipinos-to something like 13 million, emanating from numerous Asian countries today. Consequently, the majority of Asian Americans today have no family connection to Asian-American history prior to 1980.

The provisions of the 1965 immigration act and subsequent legislation have reinforced the class trends set in motion by exclusion. These laws allow Asian immigrants to enter this country primarily based on their family connections to the disproportionately merchant/professional population already here (family reunification) or based on their unique technical or professional skills. Consequently the highly educated and middle-class section of the Asian-American population has been reproduced on a bigger scale. At the same time, many of those entering based on family reunification are workers with few resources and limited English-speaking skills, so the numbers of isolated sweatshop workers in Asian enclaves have also grown.

The working-class section of Asian Americans has been expanded by Southeast Asians who entered the United States not under immigration law, but under refugee law after the failed U.S. wars of aggression in Indochina. The socio-economic profiles of Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians, and Hmong in the United States are very similar to those of Native Americans, blacks, and Latinos.

Asian Americans today have the highest median education and household income levels but at the same time unusually high percentages of Asians live in poverty and have minimal education. Among the hard working are the millions of extremely poor Asian-American workers who are often rendered invisible in the mythical Asian success story. The many vibrant left and progressive Asian-American organizations today tend to concentrate their organizing efforts precisely among these immigrant workers, many of whom are women. Class looms large in Asian-American politics.