By Roy Liu

America has a long history of racially profiling and marginalising Asian communities through its immigration laws, foreign policy decisions, and wartime actions. Much of this history is often told through the lens of Chinese exclusion or the internment of Japanese Americans, yet the extent to which U.S. policy affected Asian populations beyond its borders, especially groups such as Japanese Peruvians, remains far less discussed. These internment camps are the imprisonment of large groups of people far away from the city without charges or intent to file charges. To understand how this happened, it is first necessary to trace the development of anti-Asian sentiment in the United States, beginning with discrimination against Chinese immigrants and the rise of “yellow peril” rhetoric that framed Asians as threats to American society. These ideas did not remain confined within U.S. borders but instead shaped broader policies and actions during World War II that targeted Asians throughout the Americas.

The Asian contingent within the Americas was largely unpopular and was a factor in the widespread discrimination. Focusing on the US, when Chinese people started immigrating to the US in the 1850s in search of wealth, many faced widespread discrimination, resulting in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. While these Chinese immigrants faced some success from the courts regarding their rights, “the Supreme Court upheld the Scott Act, establishing Congress’s plenary power to restrict immigration for national security.” This means that while Asian Americans received some protections under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, the justices’ use of “racist rhetoric, asserting the inferiority of Chinese people and unjustly criticizing them for not assimilating to the United States,” in addition to the racism present in both the political atmosphere and everyday life, there was no real chance for Chinese immigrants to truly have equal rights comparable to their white counterparts.

To read the entire article: https://sites.duke.edu/thelilypad/2026/03/31/americas-internment-japanese-peruvians-wwii/

Photo credit: Shibayama Family – BBC News