3 156 PART TWO INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS CHAPTER 7 EQUAL RIGHTS:STRUGGLING TOWARD FAIRNESS 157 EAST-WES EXTENDING THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUAL RIGHTS: YORYU AT酊 THE DISABLED AND THE ELDERLY 花BANA Women and racial and ethnic minorities are not the only not provided with instructional materials in Braille).In TELAS groups whose members suffer from discrimination.Al- most any group that is vulnerable or has a minority fo Dee characteristic has experienced discrimination in one form or another.Two such groups that have been receiving viduals to earn a moderate income without losing their Medicaid health coverage. increased attention from govemment are the disabled and the clderly. The government has also been moving to protect For years the disabled were thought of as a tiny elderly Americans from discrimination.The Age Discrimi- nation Act of 1975 and the Age Discrimination in Employ- proportion of the American population and therefore ment Act of 1967 outlaw discrimination against older more of a special-interest group than a civll rights classifi. cation.But,according to the U.S.Census Bureau,more workers in hiring for jobs in which age is not dearly a than 37 million Americans are physically impaired and crucial factor in job performance.More recently,manda- between 13 million and 14 million have a disability so tory retirement ages for most jobs have been eliminated by law.Retirement at age seventy can no longer be severe that they are unable to perform some critical function,such as hearing,seeing,walking or lifting.They arbitrarlly decided by management;it must be justified by the nature of the particular job or the performance of the constitute about 5 percent of the population-a sizable particular employee. Hispanic Americans are exerting minority. By the year 2020 there will be an estimated one retired considerable political,sodal,and A major goal for the disabled is easier access to the American for every two working Americans.By virtue of cultural influence in many mainstream of socicty.The 1973 Rehabilitation Act has their numbers,the elderly will become an even more communities,as here in moved them toward this goal.So has the Education for All powerful political constituency.As a consequence,politl- Brownsvibe,Texas.(Paul Handicapped Children Act of 1975,which mandates that Conklin/Texastock) all children,however severe their disability,receive a free, cal issues of concem to the elderly-Including pecial housing and continued employment at a reduced level- appropriate education.Before the legislation,1 million ASIAN AMERICANS handic are certain to be taken serlously by elected officials. pped children were receiving no education and Chinese and Japanese laborers were the first Asians to come to the United States another 3 million were recelving an inappropriate one (as in the case of a blind child who is not taught Braille or is nthe Sodal Barien The in large numbers.They were brought into western states-during the latter nineteenth century to work in mines and to build railroads.When the need for this labor declined,Congress in 1892 ordered a temporary halt to Chinese immigration.Over the next three decades informal agreements kept all but a people now emigrate to the United States each year,and a majority come from few Asians out of the country.In 1921 the United States ended its traditional Asian and Latin American countries.By the vear 2000.Asian Americans will poticy of untmited immigration and established immigration quotas based on number about 12 million.or between 4 and 5 percent of the total U.S. country of origin.Western European countries were given large quotas and population.Most Asian Americans live on the West Coast,particularly in Asian countries tiny ones.The Japanese were entitied to about 150 arrivals a year until 1930,when Congress excluded the Japanese entirely.Japan had The rights of Asian Americans have been expanded primarily by court rulings protested a California law that prohibited persons of Japanese descent from and legislation,such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964,that were responses to the buying property in the state.Rather than finessing what was called"the problems of other minorities.In a few instances,however,the rights of California problem,"Congress decided to be blunt with Japan:its people were minorities have been defined by actions of Asian Americans.For example,in not wanted in the United States. Lau v.Nichols (1974),a case involving Chinese Americans,the Supreme Court This disermination against Asians did not change substantially until 1965, ruled that public schools with a large proportion of children for whom English when Congress enacted legislation that adjusted the immigration quotas to is a second language must offer English instruction in the children's first favor those who had previously been disadvantaged.This change in the law was anguage. a product of the 1960s civil rights movement,which,as we have indicated, Asian Americans are an upwardly mobile group.The values of most Asian sensitized national leaders to all forms of discrimination.About half a million families include a commitment to hard work,which,in the American context, has included an emphasis on academic achievement.For example,Asians make James Truslow Adams,The Merci of.vol:4 (New York:5cribner's,1933)284-285. WLau v.Nichals,414 U.S.563 (1974)