AAPI: History and Contributions
Susan Ahn and Siblings World War II

From settling in the West to the California Gold Rush to the laying of the Transcontinental Railroad, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) have worked alongside other immigrant communities as the labor force that built the United States of America. However, violence and a myriad of court cases and laws prevented most from gaining U.S. citizenship. They were denied participation in civic activities such as voting and the ability to shape their communities.
Some western U.S. states allowed non-citizen immigrants to vote because they needed settlers to build and populate new territory. By 1926, the era of westward expansion ended and many immigrant communities were barred from settling in newly acquired U.S. territory; all states soon limited voting rights to only those with U.S. citizenship.