Stephanie Hinnershitz

This dissertation explores the roles that foreign Asian students in American universities played in the struggle for civil rights between 1915 and 1968. Although Chinese, Filipino, and Japanese students who came to America to obtain a college education were only “visitors” to the United States, they became deeply involved in a multitude of social movements and linked civil rights to labor organization, anti-imperial protests, and the promotion of immigrant rights along the West Coast. This dissertation makes use of student publications, minutes from interracial student meetings, yearbooks, and government documents to explore for the first time how visiting students from China, Japan, and the Philippines influenced a multicultural and interracial movement for civil rights in America.