As mentioned, World War II can be viewed as a significant turning point in the battle against racial discrimination. The threat of being compared to the Nazis was enough to get the U.S. to "shape up." The same applies with the Cold War and the threat of communism. I still find this disturbing, as it was done for political, not humanitarian reasons. This demonstrates that the tide had not completely turned in favor of the equal treatment of asiatic immigrants. Or, as Takaki also hints, did the emergence of the Nazi Aryan supremacy ideology help bring awareness to the idea of racial discrimination as unethical?
On the origin of the fear of communism: by reading Takaki's text, one might attribute it to Communist China's intervention in the Korean war.
Why did the second wave of Asian immigrants come when it did? Simply because earlier immigrants cane to the US through labor contracts, so "professional" asians were not in any real demand. Additionally, immigration restriction laws prohibited many of them outright from immigrating.
Possible reasons why the Filipino immigrants had become "invisible," despite the largeness of their immigration: they weren't really the "first," which means that the Chinese and the Japanese will not be forgotten about, as they're the ones that made the "first impression," and the Cold War and World War II had not specifically involved the Philippines nor the Filipino people in any large degree. It seems that "persecuting the Filipinos" was little more than a "fad." It's interesting how the same cannot be said for Asian Indian immigrants, and those from southern Asia.
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