Travel through a brief timeline inspired by Lim Kim’s song, Yellow, outlining the major political and cultural events that shaped the stereotypes of Asian Americans and Asian American female stereotypes. Discover what kind of stereotypes have existed and still exist.

Gold Rush immigrants to California other than whites.

Dragon Lady is usually a stereotype of East Asian and occasionally South Asian and Southeast Asian women as strong, deceitful, domineering, or mysterious. The term's origin and usage arose in America during the late 1800s with the passing of the Page Act of 1875 which radically lowered immigration of Chinese women. Inspired by the characters played by actress Anna May Wong, the term comes from the female villain in the comic strip Terry and the Pirates. It has since been applied to powerful Asian women and to a number of racially Asian film actresses. The stereotype has generated a large quantity of sociological literature. "Dragon Lady" is sometimes applied to persons who lived before the term became part of American slang in the 1930s. It is also used to refer to any powerful but prickly woman, usually in a derogatory fashion.

The "China Doll" stereotype portrays Asian women as subservient, compliant and eager to please. It also implies that all Asian-identified women are ethnically Chinese. Like dolls for children, Asian women are meant to be seen and played with--their value and worth relies solely on their appearances. The "Asians are Chinese" stereotype may be due to the fact that the Chinese were among the first groups from Asia to migrate to the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It was during this time period that recently immigrated Chinese women had difficulty finding work and some fell into the sex trade.