Eric Lee Mar (Chinese: 馬兆光; pinyin: Mǎ Zhàoguāng, born August 15, 1962) is a California politician, previously serving on the San Francisco Board of Education and San Francisco County Democratic Central Committee. In 2008, he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors representing District 1.

Mar has worked as an associate professor at San Francisco State University since 1992. He teaches Asian American and Ethnic Studies. As an associate professor, he mentored and supported hundreds of young people to become active in their communities and the political process.

From 1993-97, Mar was the Assistant Dean for New College Law School in San Francisco, where he taught a course on critical race theory.

Mar is a graduate of the University of California, Davis; he received his law degree from New College of California and is an inactive member of the California State Bar.

Mar has served on the Human Rights Committee of the State Bar of California and the Civil Rights Committee of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association.

Vincent Jen Chin (simplified Chinese: 陈果仁 Chén Guǒrén; traditional Chinese: 陳果仁; May 18, 1955 – June 23, 1982) was a Chinese American beaten to death in June 1982 in the United States, in the Detroit, Michigan enclave of Highland Park by Chrysler plant superintendent Ronald Ebens, with the help of his stepson, Michael Nitz. The murder generated public outrage over the lenient sentencing the two men originally received in a plea bargain, as the attack, which included blows to the head from a baseball bat, possessed many attributes consistent with hate crimes. Many of the layoffs in Detroit's auto industry, including Nitz's in 1979, had been due to the increasing market share of Japanese automakers, leading to allegations that Chinese American Vincent Chin received racially charged comments before his death. The case became a rallying point for the Asian American community, and Ebens and Nitz were put on trial for violating Chin's civil rights. Because the subsequent Federal prosecution was a result of public pressure from a coalition of many Asian ethnic organizations, Vincent Chin's murder is often considered the beginning of a pan-ethnic Asian American movement.

Japanese Americans (日系米国人, Nikkei Beikokujin^?) are American people of Japanese heritage. Japanese Americans have historically been among the three largest Asian American communities, but in recent decades, it have become the sixth largest group at roughly 1,304,286, including those of mixed-race or mixed-ethnicity. In the 2000 census, the largest Japanese American communities were found in California with 394,896, Hawaii with 296,674, Washington with 56,210, New York with 45,237, and Illinois with 27,702.

People from Japan began migrating to the U.S. in significant numbers following the political, cultural, and social changes stemming from the 1868 Meiji Restoration. Particularly after the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Japanese immigrants were sought by industrialists to replace the Chinese immigrants. In 1907, the "Gentlemen's Agreement" between the governments of Japan and the U.S. ended immigration of Japanese workers (i.e., men), but permitted the immigration of spouses of Japanese immigrants already in the U.S. The Immigration Act of 1924 banned the immigration of all but a token few Japanese.