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As we begin 2009, economists tell us that we are officially in a recession. Some say we are heading into the worst economic conditions since the global Great Depression that lasted, from 1929 until the Second World War. While no one can predict the severity of what we will be facing in the coming year, a look back at how Asian Pacific Americans fared during that time might be instructive.
The approximately 265,000 APAs who lived through the 1929 stock market crash and the bleak years between 1929 and 1932 watched as 13 million people became unemployed, industrial production fell by nearly 45 percent, home construction dropped by 80 percent and almost five thousand banks went out of business.
While minority and immigrant communities typically experience disproportionate levels of unemployment and shortages of housing and health services, the dire circumstances of the Great Depression meant that APA communities were worse off than a white working class whose misery was at record levels.
For example, APA farmers who had prospered growing specialty crops fer the California markets saw their businesses go bankrupt and their property repossessed. Laborers who washed dishes in restaurants had nowhere to...