1988 Summer Olympics

In the summer of 1988, Seoul, South Korea played host to the XXIV Olympiad games. Only the second Asian country to host the summer Olympics since the 1964 games in Tokyo, Japan. Seoul was chosen over Nagoya, Japan in a 52-27 count vote. 160 nations were represnted by 8,391 athletes from around the world.

Venues

Medal Count

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Soviet Union	55	31	46	132
2	East Germany	37	35	30	102
3	United States	36	31	27	94
4	South Korea (Host nation)	12	10	11	33
5	West Germany	11	14	15	40
6	Hungary	11	6	6	23
7	Bulgaria	10	12	13	35
8	Romania	7	11	6	24
9	France	6	4	6	16
10	Italy	6	4	4	14

Significance

Hosting the multinational event allowed South Korea to bring international attention to itself. The bid to bring the games to Korea came from Park Chung-Hee's administration in the late 1970s. After his assassination in 1970, his successor, Chun Doo-Hwan "submitted Korea's bid to the IOC in September 1981, in hopes that the increased international exposure brought by the Olympics would legitimize his authoritarian regime amidst increasing political pressure for democratization, provide protection from increasing threats from North Korea, and showcase the Korean economic miracle to the world community". In introducing the world stage to the small country's existence, the Olympic games opened the scope of the American perspective towards Korea.

1989 - Stockton Massacre

The Stockton Massacre at Cleveland Elementary School in Stockton was a shooting involving a white male and victims of East Asian descent. The perpetrator Patrick Purdy shot and killed five children while wounding 29 others and one teacher, and then proceeded to take his life after the shooting. The shooting occurred on January 17, 1989 and gained national which brought about many more repercussions regarding the availability of weapons.

Patrick Edward Purdy was an unemployed welder and drifter. He was born on November 10, 1964 in Tacoma, Washington. His father as a soldier of the United States Army and when he was two years old, his mother filed a divorce against her husband after he threatened to kill her with a gun. Purdy moved with his mother to Lake Tahoe and then Stockton, in which he was an attendee of Cleveland Elementary School from kindergarten to second grade. Purdy had a turbulent childhood in which he supposedly cried often, struck his mother in the face which got him banned from her home, and also became an alcoholic and drug addict, all while still in high school.

Aside from his rough childhood, Purdy also had a long criminal history. He was arrested at age 15 for violating a court order and again in the same month for underage drinking. He was also arrested for homosexual prostitution in 1980, possession of marijuana and drug dealing 1982, possession of an illegal weapon and receipt of stolen property in 1983, accomplice of armed robbery in 1984, and vandalism of his mother's vehicle in 1986 after she refused to give him money for drugs.

During the fall of 1987, he took welding classes at San Joaquin Delta College and complained about the high percentage of Asian students there. He was supposedly a misanthrope, with his hatred especially directed towards Asian immigrants, whom he believed stole jobs from native-born Americans. It is clear that he viewed Asians and Asian-Americans as deviants and professed his pent up hatred for them in the shooting.

The shooting brought about many laws regarding firearms. California defined assault weapons and then banned them, which resulted in the Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Act. On the federal level, Congress enacted a federal assault weapons ban which went into effect in 1994 and expired in 2004. President George H. W. Bush signed an executive order which banned the importing of assault weapons in 1989 and President Bill Clinton signed another order in 1994 which banned imports of most weapons and ammunition from China.

1988 - Civil Liberties Act

The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 was a law passed by the United States Government to compensate for mistreatment, forceful relocation into internment camps upon suspicion of being spies for their home country of Japanese-Americans during World War 2. The act had five goals: to acknowledge the fundamental injustice of the evacuation, relocation and interment of citizens and permanent resident aliens of Japanese ancestry during World War II, to apologize on behalf of the people of the United States for the evacuation internment, and relocations of such citizens and permanent residing aliens, to provide for a public education fund to finance efforts to inform the public about the internment so as to prevent the recurrence of any similar event, to make restitution to those individuals of Japanese ancestry who were interned, and to make more credible and sincere any declaration of concern by the United States over violations of human rights committed by other nations.

This act was pushed into the legislature by California's Democratic Congressman Norman Mineta who was an internee as a child, Wyoming's Republican Senator Alan K. Simpson who met Mineta during a visit to an internment camp, and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan.

The internment displaced nearly 120,000 Japanese and Japanese-Americans along the west coast during World War II, 62% of whom were US citizens. While 10,000 were allowed to move to other parts of the country of their own choice, the remaining 110,000 were relocated to crudely constructed War Relocation centers in very desolate areas along the west coast and Midwest.

This act granted surviving internees about $20,000 in compensation, with the money being paid out starting in 1990. However, the law was restricted to American citizens or legal permanent residents, and thus the Japanese that had been dislocated from Latin America were not included in the reparations, even if they remained in the United States after internment.

The original internment was a clear cut case of scientific racism and affected not only the Japanese, but all other Asians as well. During that time of war and panic, it was hard for the government to discern the difference amongst the Japanese and other Asians. Asian Americans became each other's worst enemies as groups like the Chinese created documents with pictures showing the facial differences between them and the Japanese as to avoid being sent off to internment camps.

This act was a step in the right direction towards compensating for past mistakes.

1986 - Immigration Reform and Control Act

The Immigration Reform and Control Act was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan on November 6, 1986. The act reformed the prior immigration law and made it illegal to hire or recruit illegal immigrants, including those who did not possess lawful work authorization, and required employers to attest to their employees' immigration status. In contrast however, it also granted protection and immunity to certain illegal immigrants who were already residing in the United States prior to January 1, 1982 and had been living there continuously.

The reformation was pushed through Congress by Kentucky Democratic Romano L. Mazzoli and Wyoming Republican Senator Alan K. Simpson. The new law criminalized the act of knowingly hiring an illegal immigrant and set financial and other penalties for employing illegal aliens with the idea that lowering the chance of employment would reduce the amount of illegal immigrants coming into America hoping to find jobs. This new law also introduced the I-9 form to ensure that all employees presented documentary proof of their legal eligibility and resident status to be employed in the United States.

There were a few loopholes to this new law however that critics instantly jumped on. The first was that the time period that was set on legal status allowed 2.7 million individuals to easily gain access to legal eligibility for jobs in the United States even though they were previously illegal immigrants. This amnesty brought about many protests from those were not included in the set time frame. Also, the new law caused employers to be more selective about their hiring process, often discriminating against workers who seemed foreign, which resulted in a downturn of employment for minorities across the board. Not only was hiring down because of the IRCA, but wages were also being lowered to compensate for the risk of hiring foreigners. Another big change was that the hiring process became more indirect. Employers turn to subcontractors, in which employers could "hire" a specific number of workers who contractually agreed to work for a certain period of time and at a fixed wage. The loophole in this was that in using a subcontractor, the workers that the employer picked up would not be considered employees, and thus the employer was able to dodge many liability issues. And on top of this, the worker's wages were reduced even more because the subcontractor gets to keep a small portion of whatever the worker makes.

Seeing as how Asian-Americans are still a minority, this greatly affected the ability for Asian-Americans to immigrate to the US and also find work that paid a reasonable wage. For immigrant Asians, this was difficult because most immigrate in order to make a better wage than back at their home country and send money home. For resident Asian-Americans this just made it more difficult for them to find employment just because they look foreign and are still a minority.

Hideo Nomo

In 1995, Hideo Nomo became the first Japanese-born baseball player to permanently relocate to the MLB (Major League Baseball).

Biography

Born on August 31, 1968 in Minato-ku, Osaka, Hideo Nomo began his professional baseball career in 1990 for the Kintetsu Buffaloes. Apart of the silver-medal winnig Japanese baseball team at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, Nomo was was immediately drafted in 1989 and found great success in the Nippon Baseball League. However, a contract disagreement allowed his agent to exploit a loophole regarding foreign players in the MLB and negotiated a contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1995.

MLB Career

Nomo pitched for 13 seasons in the MLB with 8 different teams (LA Dodgers, NY Mets, Milwaukee Brewers, Detroit Tigers, Boston Red Sox, LA Dodgers, TB Devil Rays, and KC Royals). He retired in 2008 with the Kansas City Royals with a career Win-Loss record of 123-109, ERA (earned run average) of 4.24, and 1,918 strikeouts.

Accomplishments

In his rookie season, Nomo was awarded the Rookie of the Year award and led the league in strikeouts. He also started the All-Star game of that year. Nomo also had two career no-hitters. He is only one of five players to throw a no-hitter in both the National and American Leagues in MLB history.

Commercial Success

In 1996, Nomo had a signature sneaker called the Air Max Nomo produced by Nike in 1996.

Pop Culture References

"There's No One Like Nomo" by Jack Sheldon. Written by Marvin Hamlisch and Alan and Marilyn Bergman, produced by Neil Norman and released by GNP Crescendo Records in 1996.

Impact

Although Hideo Nomo was not the first Asian player in the MLB, he is often accredited with spawning a "wave" of Japanese players and eventually, other Asian players from China and South Korea. In the 2009 season, there were 41 Japanese-born players that played in the MLB. This paved the way for players such as Ichiro Suzuku (Single-season hits record holder) and Hideki Matsui (2009 World Series MVP)

Save Our State

California Proposition 187 (1994)

In 1994, a ballot initiative in California attempted to prohibit illegal immigrants from using social services, health care, and public education in California. Introduced by Dick Mountjoy (R), Prop 187 was dubbed the "Save Our State" initiative and was approved in the general election on November 8, 1994 by a 59-41 margin.

At the time of the voting, California's population was 57% White, 25% Latino, 9% Asian-American, and 7% African-American. However, those that voted were 75-80% White, 8-10% Latino, 4-5% Asian-American, and 10% African-American.

Major Provisions

1. Illegal aliens were barred from California's public education systems from kindergarten all the way through to the university level. Prop 187 also required public education institutions to verify the legal status of students and their parents before allowing them to enter the system.

2. Similarly, all public healthcare service providers (non-emergency) were required to verify the legal status of the persons seeking services before receiving reimbursement from the state of California.

3. All persons seeking cash assistance and other benefits must verify their legal status

4. All service providers are required to report suspected illegal aliens to California's Attorney General and the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) and police were to determine the legal status of any person arrested.

5. The making and use of false documents becomes a state felony.

Opposition and Legal Challenges

The most controversial section of Proposition 187 was the denial of public education to illegal alien children. Opposition quoted the 14th Amendment, which provides a broad definition of citizenship in the United States following the Civil War. In conjunction with this amendment, the Equal Protection Clause required states to provide equal protection under the law to all people within their jurisdictions, but the Supreme Court split the decision 5-4 whether "equal protection" implied equal education for illegal alien children and US-citizen children. Multiple cases were consolidated and brought before Judge Mariana Pfaelzer who deemed the law unconstitutional. Governer Gray Davis dropped the appeals process in 1999.

Implications

Prop 187 supporters argued that illegal aliens, unable to receive public services, will leave California while preventing additional aliens from immigrating into the California. Although Prop 187 was primarily aimed at Mexican immigrants, the lingering effects of the Chinese Exclusion Acts and the Immigration Act of 1924 caused a stir among the Asian community and prompted Asian coalition groups to join the legal battle against Prop 187.

1998, The Mcdonald Championship, and The U.S. Open.

1. Se Ri Park’s Biography

In 1977, she was born in Korea. Because of her father found out her talent, she had been pushing to practice. Apparently, her parents were the stereotypical Asian parents, who were very strict. However, she, also, wanted to become number one in the female Golf player. Putting a lot of efforts to be the best, she became the professional golf player in 1996, Then, she moved to U.S.

2. Her career

Even though she started her rookie year of LPGA in 1998, she won the McDonald’s LPGA Championship and U.S Women’s open. (starts at 1:30) Since she had won 24 events on the Tour with three more majors, she qualified the World Golf Hall of Fame at her age of 29. She won total:

- 1998:

a. McDonald’s LPGA Championship,

b. U.S. Women Open

c. Jamie Farr Kroger Classic,

d. Giant Eagle LPGA Classic

- 1999:

a. ShopRite LPGA Classic,

b. Jamie Farr Kroger Classic,

c. Samsung World Championship

d. PageNet Championship

- 2001:

a. YourLife Vitamins LPGA Classic,

b. Longs Drugs Chanllenge,

c. Jamie Farr Kroger Classic

d. Weetabix Women’s British Open

e. AFLAC Tournament of Champions

- 2002

a. The Office depot Championship,

b. McDonald’s LPGA Championship

c. First Union Betsy King Classic,

d. Mobile LPGA Tournament of Champions

e. CJ Nine Bridges Classic

- 2003:

a. Safeway International

b. Chick-Fil A Charity Championship

c. Jamie Farr Kroger Classic

- 2004:

a. Michelob ULTRA Open at Kingsmil

- 2006

a. McDonald’s LPGA Championship

- 2007:

a. Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic.

3. Analysis:

According to Eric Adelson’s column in 2008, the author says “ a pioneer… who changed the face of golf even more than Tiger Woods.” At this time, she was only Korean player in the LPGA in 1998. From her success about ten years ago, there are 45 Koreans were on the tour in 2007. Because of her, the broadcasting television right of LPGA sales in South Korea. Also, she became a legend and motivation to not only many Korean female golf players, but also other Asian players.

Televison Interview