Full Description
This new collection of essays demonstrates how a politics of polarity have defined the 150-year experience of Chinese immigration in America. Volume editor Cassel relates how the well-publicized accusations of espionage against scientist Wen Ho Lee at the nuclear facility at Los Alamos can be understood as part of an ongoing systemic and institutionalized racism in American society. Chinese-Americans have been courted as 'model workers' by American business, but also continue to be perceived as perpetual foreigners. The contributors offer engrossing accounts of the lives of immigrants, their tenacity, their diverse lifeways, from the arrival of the first Chinese gold miners in 1849 into the present day. The 21st century begins as a uniquely 'Pacific Century' in the Americas, with an increasingly large presence of Asians in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The book will prove to be a valuable resource on the Asian immigrant experience for researchers and students in Chinese American studies, Asian American history, immigration studies, and American history. The Chinese in America is published in cooperation with the Chinese Historical Society of Greater San Diego and Baja California.
Contents
Chapter 1 Introduction: The Politics of Polarity: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Chinese in America Part 2 I: Defying Stereotypes: The Earliest Arrivals Chapter 3 The Social Origins of Early Chinese Immigrants: A Revisionist Perspective Chapter 4 Chinese Placer Mining in the United States: Am Example from American Canyon, Nevada Chapter 5 To Inscribe the Self Daily: The Discovery of the Ah Quin Diary Part 6 II: Discrimination and Exclusion across America Chapter 7 Exploring Frontiers in Chinese American History: The Anti-Chinese Riot in Milwaukee, 1889 Chapter 8 Riot in Unionville, Nevada: A Turning Point Chapter 9 Telling Their own Stories: Chinese-Canadian Biography as an Historical Genre Part 10 III: Livelihood in the New World Chapter 11 The Recurrent Image of the Coolie: Representations of Chinese American Labor in American Periodicals, 1900-1924 Chapter 12 The Rise and Fall of the Chinese Fisheries in California Chapter 13 The Seaweed Gatherers in the Central Coast of California Chapter 14 The Five Eras of Chinese Medicine in California Part 15 IV: Influences: From Old World to New World Chapter 16 The Chinese Empire Reform Association (Baohuanghui) and the 1905 Anti-American Boycott: The Power of a Voluntary Association Chapter 17 Between Two Worlds: The Zhigongtang and Chinese American Fumerary Rituals Chapter 18 Family, Culture, and Control of the Delinquent Chinese Boy in America Chapter 19 Unbound Feet: A Metaphor for the Transformation of the Chinese Immigrant Female in Chinese-American Literature Chapter 20 Nationalism, Orientalism and the Unequal Treatise of Ethnography: The Making of "The Good Earth" Part 21 V: Establishing a Chinese American Identity Chapter 22 n Search of Roots' Program: Constructing Identity through Family History Research and a Journey to the Ancestral Land Chapter 23 Ah Quin: One of San Diego's Founding Fathers Chapter 24 Contesting Identities: Youth Rebellion in San Francisco's Chinese New Year Festivals, 1953-1969 Chapter 25 Mothers' "China Narrative": Recollection and Translation in Amy Tan's "The Joy Luck Club" and "The Kitchen God's Wife" Chapter 26 Finding the Right Gesture: Becoming Chinese American in Fae Myenne Ng's "Bone" Part 27 Chinese America: Settled Chapter 28 Archaeological Investigations of Life Within the Woolen Mills, Chinatown, San Jose Chapter 29 The Chinese Immigrants in Baja California: From the Cotton Fields to the City, 1920-1940 Chapter 30 The Urban Pattern of Portland, Oregon's First Chinatown Chapter 31 The Diverse Nature of San Diego's Chinese American Communities
