| 1942 |
In wake of anti-Japanese sentiment following
the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt
signs an order to intern Japanese-Americans. |
| 1949 |
Communist Revolution takes place in
China, and 5,000 Chinese refugees enter the U.S. |
| 1959 |
When Hawaii became a state on August 21,
1959, Daniel
K. Inouye won election to the U.S. House of Representatives
as the new state's first Congressman—the first Asian Pacific Islander
to do so. |
| 1962 |
Daniel K. Inouye elected U.S. Senator and Spark
Matsunaga elected to Congress, both from Hawaii. |
| 1964 |
Patsy Takemoto Mink, the
first Asian Pacific American woman elected
to Congress from Hawaii. |
| 1975 |
Vietnamese, Cambodian,
and Laotian refugees from Communist regimes enter the U.S.
following the Vietnam War. |
| 1979 |
Resumption of diplomatic relations between U.S. and People's Republic of China increases immigration from China. |
| 1989 |
President George H. W. Bush signs law to
pay each survivor of Japanese-American internment camps $20,000. |
