This article considers issues of race and ethnic identity experienced by immigrants and students who came to the United States from Asia. For Asian Americans, the meaning of race and ethnicity underwent significant transformations from the nineteenth through the twentieth century as perceptions of their cultural values and traits shifted in the United States. Asian Americans suffered racial discrimination and exclusion by US laws, the only ethnic group subject to legal exclusion. The discussion in this article takes a close look at the experience of Asian students in the larger context of Asian immigrants to analyze how American education has historically shaped the racial and ethnic identity of Asian Americans as a minority group and the cultural meaning of being a member of that minority group during different times