Mika Ellison

You know, coming out of Vietnam War and the Korean War,

I actually heard this assumption from Alexander Chee, author and professor at Dartmouth.

He grew up in New England during the 70s.

Yeah.

So there's a pretty obvious piece of legal history that was important for Wagens around this time.

It's, of course, Loving v. Virginia, the 1967 Supreme Court case that struck down Virginia's Racial Integrity Act and legalized interracial marriage.

But the other piece that's maybe less well-known is the Hart-Celler Act of 1965.

So that act abolished previous quotas against immigrants from specific countries, which were discriminatory against Asians for a really long time.

And then the act also preferenced professionals with specialized skills.

So that act opened the door, and then some Asian countries started to get rich.

Leilani again.

Exactly.

And not every Asian immigrant was one.

But between 1980 and 2010, the Asian and Pacific Islander population in America increased fourfold, according to Pew.

And Leilani thinks the increased status of Asian countries and Asian immigrants also changed how we see Asians.

And this is why I think Asians that are coming of age right now maybe have more cultural power than they've had in the past.

Asians as a whole are the most educated racial group in America.

And also, according to that same Pew survey from 2012, Asians were more likely than any other racial group to marry someone of a different race.

Not all of us, but many of us Asians have had parents who came with, married into, or fought to attain money, education, opportunities, maybe so they could pay for our acting classes or skating lessons.

And that changing perception of Asians in America, plus the Asian proximity to whiteness, probably explains at least part of why now.