Crossing East

Crossing East Programs

There are eight one-hour programs to Crossing East.
Click on a program name for audio clips and information about music, scholars, producers, and content.
- Download a paper copy of the Program Descriptions. -

Program One: First Contacts	Program Two: Frontier Asians	Program Three: Raising Cane
International trade brought early Asian travelers to the Americas. Crossing East brings you the untold stories of quests for gold and adventures as well as hardships in the new land. (read more)	The legacy of the frontier is the towns, farms and ranches settled by Asian Americans. Crossing East features the early West with miners, buckaroos, farmers and doctors. (read more)	Settlers and missionaries turned Hawaiians into workers and the islands into plantations. Crossing East weaves a cross-cultural tale through music, descendant histories and sounds of Hawaii. (read more)
Program Four: Exclusion and Resistance	Program Five: Brides and Children	Program Six: Post '65 Generation
Keep Asians Out – that has been the consistent message toward Asian immigrants beginning with the Exclusion Act of 1882. Crossing East accounts immigration laws designed specifically to restrict Asian Americans. (read more)	Wars create poverty conditions and dispossessed women and children. Many Asian women married American service men and many Asian children were adopted and sent to the U.S. (read more)	The Immigration Act of 1965, allowed Asian family members, entrepreneurs and skilled workers to immigrate to the U.S. Crossing East shows how each Asian group offered their expertise and skills to a burgeoning economy. (read more)
Program Seven: Refuge from War	Program Eight: New Waves and New Storms	Music Features
The U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War caused devastation throughout Southeast Asia and brought families who had no choice but to seek a new life in America. Crossing East highlights a time of war and resettlement and examines differences in backgrounds of Southeast Asian refugees. (read more)	With economic downturns and tragic events comes violence and revision of immigration laws – particularly toward Asian Americans – who fight back with grassroots organization. Crossing East sheds light on current discriminatory treatment against Asian Americans and what we can learn from past mistakes. (read more)	For stations without five minute news holes, we have produced five-minute features that will fit the designated newsbreak slots. These features include interviews with the artists and musicians who contributed to the sounds of Crossing East.

Did You Know...

In the 1700’s, Filipino seamen escaped Spanish galleons and found refuge in the bayous of Louisiana.
Joseph Heco, the first Japanese-American, drifted across the Pacific in the 1830s and worked as an American consulate.
In the late 1800s, Chinese herb and pulse doctor, Ing “Doc” Hay treated people in the Northwest.
Numerous towns in the Pacific Northwest have Hawaiian names.
Angel Island in San Francisco Bay has hundreds of poetic verses etched into the walls, scratched there by Chinese immigrants detained in the early 20th century.
From 1939 to 1946 one million International brides of US servicemen requested entry into the US, including those from China, the Philippines, Japan, Okinawa, and Korea.
More than half the budget motels and a third of hotels in the U.S. are owned and operated by Asian Americans.
By 1979, there were 62,000 Vietnamese in refugee camps, and more than 140,000 people displaced from Cambodia and Laos.
The United Nations estimates 45,000 to 50,000 women and children are brought to America every year to work as prostitutes or unpaid servants.
One in seven Asian American children live in poverty. Almost a quarter of Cambodian Americans live in poverty.