Asian Americans and the Law

The history of persons of Asian and Pacific Islander descent in the United States is a history reflected in laws and cases, including dozens of decisions by the United States Supreme Court. Those laws and cases implicate foundational questions of citizenship, control of the nation's borders, discrimination based on race, the delicate balancing of wartime exigency and individual rights, and recourse to the courts in the face of race-based crime and violence.

Asian Americans and the Law, centered upon primary legal sources (the Constitution, federal and state statutes and ordinances, and judicial decisions), is the first of its kind, covering the long history of Asian American interactions with law and legal institutions in the United States from the founding to the present day. In addition to the primary legal materials, the casebook contains explanatory notes, illustrations, and discussion questions that help tell the stories of the countless ordinary persons behind the cases—laborers, cooks, launderers, soldiers— who sought to challenge oppressive laws in the courts with the aid of skilled counsel.

The book is divided into four units: (1) Arrival, Exclusion, and Citizenship; (2) Historical Discrimination; (3) Internment and Redress and Reparations; (4) Contemporary Issues. The cases are heavily edited and the content is presented in straightforward prose without jargon to make it easily accessible to non-law student audiences and the general public, while preserving the nuance and precision to appeal to law students and lawyers.