By Koby Kawano

The history of Asians on colonial soil has existed for over three and a half centuries. The first AAPI people in the Colonies were people of South Asian descent, who were first brought to the Americas through the European trade network as slaves and indentured servants. These very first few Asian workers were stripped of their freedom, coerced into relinquishing their humanistic rights for the profit of their overseers. Many of these individuals worked as sailors or typical plantation workers.

The following is a transcription of an article written by Lafcadio Hearn in 1883. Hearn was a well known author that traveled the world. Eventually he settled in Japan and wrote a lot about its culture and folktales. 

In the late 19th Century, he lived in America and wrote article for journals and newspapers. The following is a piece about Saint Malo written for Harper’s Weekly.

Saint Malo was a small Filipino fishing village in Louisiana. Some believe that it was founded in the 1700s and may have been one of the first Asian communities in what is now a part of the United States. Saint Malo was destroyed by a hurricane in 1915 and all that is left is now underwater.