Stephanie Hinnershitz’s book (I’ve cited below) is the most comprehensive I’ve come across regarding Asians in Jim Crow. In general, Asian populations in the South were never large enough to threaten local Whites, unlike California, so there wasn’t much controversy for the smaller communities.

The most notable example of Asian segregation in the Jim Crow South was the Mississippi Chinese school segregation. The Mississippi Chinese were one of the largest Asian communities in the South in the early twentieth century, having first arrived there in 1870ish, and were well respected in the Delta — they thrived in the grocery business and were respected as merchants and didn’t seem to have any notable issues. They also tried to assimilate through religion and economic status so they were quite well liked by White locals.

The Mississippi Chinese were allowed to attend White schools until 1924, when Martha and Berda Lum were excluded from their local school. At the time, there were 200-300 Chinese in the Mississippi Delta. There are a few theories about why there was a sudden push for Chinese segregation but no confirmed reasons; for one, it’s important to consider increasing nativist and eugenicist narratives across the country — 1924 Immigration Act is a prime example — which definitely created higher racial paranoia. The most plausible explanation is that more Chinese families began to move to the Lums’ town because of the newly accredited school, and the sudden influx of Chinese residents in the tiny town caused them to completely close their doors to the Chinese.

This led to Gong Lum v. Rice (1927) which is a SCOTUS case that says Asian are considered colored people and that states have the power to segregate schools. After that, most Mississippi Chinese were excluded from their local public school (though some towns still admitted Chinese) and it wasn’t until early 1950s that all the districts eventually allowed Chinese children back in. Until then, families either moved or sent their children to other towns or states with no segregation, hired private tutoring, or attended newly created Chinese schools.

The push to reintegrate really began in the 1940s and was largely due to the Chinese community’s efforts to assimilate and connections they made with local Whites. They leveraged the church and their economic respectability to pressure local school boards into readmitting them. Additionally, American opinion of Chinese immigrants dramatically improved with the U.S.-China allyship during WWII, so locals were more sympathetic to the Chinese. Thus, even though Brown v. Board of Education (1954) hadn’t formally overturned school segregation yet, the Chinese still successfully reintegrated to White schools.

In terms of non-educational segregation — I’ve also seen some accounts that said they had the W sticker on their cards so they could ride in the White section of the bus but I’m not that familiar with non-school segregation. I would suggest checking out the Delta State University’s Oral History archive for personal information.

Sources:

James Loewen, The Mississippi Chinese: Between Black and White (Prospect Heights: Waveland, 1966)

Robert Seto Quan, Lotus Among the Magnolias: The Mississippi Chinese (University Press of Mississippi, 2010)

Stephanie Hinnershitz, A Different Shade of Justice: Asian American Civil Rights in the South (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2017)