Asian Heritage

The first Asians arrived in Texas in two distinct waves during the latter half of the nineteenth century: first, in 1870 as laborers with the Houston and Texas Central Railroad, and again in 1881 to help with the construction of the Southern Pacific Railroad. Those who chose to remain in Texas (or were allowed to remain) after the completion of the railroad were forced to endure the same hostility and discriminatory violence experienced by Asians across America from the 1880s until the mid-twentieth century.

Pictured: The Wong Family poses in front of the University of Texas tower in 1943.
Credit: AR-2008-005-027, Austin History Center, Austin Public Library

From the West, by Rail

Around 1850, in response to ongoing famine and war in their native country, many Chinese immigrated to America looking for work, where they quickly earned a reputation for being skilled and disciplined employees and found employment in the service industry or in labor-intensive industries, such as mining and railroad construction. As the construction of the transcontinental railroad moved eastward, so too did the laborers, eventually bringing them to Texas. In early 1870, 250 contract laborers arrived from California to help complete the line for the Houston and Texas Central, although many left Texas after its completion. In 1881, 3,000 Asian laborers, most of them Chinese, arrived from California to work on the Southern Pacific railroad.

Pictured: Chinese headstones at Concordia Cemetery in El Paso.
Credit: Texas Mountain Trail Blog
The Only Chinese Cemetery in Texas

By 1920, El Paso was home to the largest Chinese population in Texas, many of them the laborers that came to Texas with the railroad. For most of El Paso's Chinese, Concordia Cemetery was their final resting place. In fact, Concordia is the only cemetery in Texas with a section dedicated exclusively to Chinese burials.

Concordia Cemetery

A Hostile Environment

Japanese immigrants began arriving in Texas at the turn of the 19th century where, like the Chinese, they were initially welcomed before suffering an increasingly hostile environment. As industries increasingly turned to Asian immigrants for low-wage work, resentment towards them began to grow among those who felt they were being overlooked for work, prompting the Chinese Exclusion Act (see below for more on this).

Hostilities toward Asians culminated in the establishment of World War II internment camps for Japanese Americans, instituted despite the fact that many Asian Americans served in the U.S. military and fought in the war. Asian immigration continued, however, including from India, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East.

The Chinese Exclusion Act

In May 1882, Congress responded to pressure from unions by passing the Chinese Exclusion Act. This treaty with the Chinese government banned Chinese emigrants from entering America and called for the deportation of any who arrived after 1880. For the next six decades, Chinese laborers were effectively banned from entering America, with the exception of the “Pershing Chinese," who came through Mexico to assist Pershing’s troops in their pursuit of Francisco “Pancho” Villa. These Mexican Chinese were allowed to settle in San Antonio.

Photograph of unidentified Asian men and women sitting around a table in a room at the capital.
Credit: Portal to Texas History

Later Migrations

In the decade following the Vietnam War, large waves of Vietnamese sought asylum in the U.S., changing the demographics of the coastal south. The first wave consisted of well-educated and affluent refugees who fled with American help, but the second and third waves, known as "boat people," lacked formal education and English proficiency, which posed employment challenges soon after arrival. These latter waves of Vietnamese turned to their homegrown fishing skills for survival and eventually settled in coastal towns along the Gulf of Mexico and eastern seaboard.

Today, the Houston area is home to the second-largest Vietnamese population in the country, with approximately 143,000 people, according the Pew Research Center. Additionally, Vietnamese shrimpers have established communities in small towns along the Texas coast, including in Rockport, Palacios, Seadrift, Port Arthur, and others.

From Tex Mex to Viet Tex

A distinct style of cuisine, Viet Tex, has grown out of the confluence of Vietnamese and Texan foodways. Learn more in this episode of Gravy, the podcast of the Southern Foodways Alliance.

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