Ellen D. Wu
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691157825
- eISBN:
- 9781400848874
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691157825.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter illustrates how the experience of World War II was very different for Japanese and Chinese Americans. Configured as enemy aliens, Nikkei endured mass removal, internment, the effective ...
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This chapter illustrates how the experience of World War II was very different for Japanese and Chinese Americans. Configured as enemy aliens, Nikkei endured mass removal, internment, the effective nullification of their citizenship, and a coercive dispersal. Whereas the Chinese enjoyed sounder social footing as a result of their real and presumed ties to China, the United States' partner in the Pacific War against Japan. For all these disparities, however, war mobilization impacted Japanese and Chinese American lives in comparable ways. Most fundamentally for both groups, geopolitical forces opened up novel opportunities for national belonging. Encouraged by the outpouring of wartime racial liberal sentiment, Chinese Americans, especially the native-born cohorts just coming of age, asked new questions and desired new answers about life in the United States.Less
This chapter illustrates how the experience of World War II was very different for Japanese and Chinese Americans. Configured as enemy aliens, Nikkei endured mass removal, internment, the effective nullification of their citizenship, and a coercive dispersal. Whereas the Chinese enjoyed sounder social footing as a result of their real and presumed ties to China, the United States' partner in the Pacific War against Japan. For all these disparities, however, war mobilization impacted Japanese and Chinese American lives in comparable ways. Most fundamentally for both groups, geopolitical forces opened up novel opportunities for national belonging. Encouraged by the outpouring of wartime racial liberal sentiment, Chinese Americans, especially the native-born cohorts just coming of age, asked new questions and desired new answers about life in the United States.
Ellen D. Wu
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691157825
- eISBN:
- 9781400848874
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691157825.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter talks about how the ethnic Chinese throughout the United States greeted the news of the People's Republic of China's entry into the Korean War with immense trepidation. Almost overnight, ...
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This chapter talks about how the ethnic Chinese throughout the United States greeted the news of the People's Republic of China's entry into the Korean War with immense trepidation. Almost overnight, the prevailing images of Chinese in the American public eye had metamorphosed from friendly Pacific allies to formidable, threatening foes. Chinatown's Korean War Red Scare dramatized the ways in which the Cold War structured the reconfiguration of Chinese American citizenship in the post-Exclusion era. The ascendance of anti-Communism as the defining paradigm of US foreign policy after World War II introduced new imperatives to clarify Chinese America's social and political standing. To address these issues, both parties looked to the identification of Chinese in the United States as Overseas Chinese—that is, members of a global Chinese diaspora with ties to each other and China.Less
This chapter talks about how the ethnic Chinese throughout the United States greeted the news of the People's Republic of China's entry into the Korean War with immense trepidation. Almost overnight, the prevailing images of Chinese in the American public eye had metamorphosed from friendly Pacific allies to formidable, threatening foes. Chinatown's Korean War Red Scare dramatized the ways in which the Cold War structured the reconfiguration of Chinese American citizenship in the post-Exclusion era. The ascendance of anti-Communism as the defining paradigm of US foreign policy after World War II introduced new imperatives to clarify Chinese America's social and political standing. To address these issues, both parties looked to the identification of Chinese in the United States as Overseas Chinese—that is, members of a global Chinese diaspora with ties to each other and China.
Ellen D. Wu
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691157825
- eISBN:
- 9781400848874
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691157825.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter examines how a a national panic over a perceived escalation in youth criminality surfaced in the early 1940s, which was triggered by the social transformations of wartime. For Chinese in ...
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This chapter examines how a a national panic over a perceived escalation in youth criminality surfaced in the early 1940s, which was triggered by the social transformations of wartime. For Chinese in the United States, the issue of juvenile delinquency became an important means through which to stipulate their race and citizenship imperatives after World War II. Chinatown leaders adopted a bifurcated strategy that reflected the ongoing tension between sameness and difference under racial liberalism. In one direction, community managers argued that juvenile delinquency was as much a problem for the Chinese as for other Americans. They stressed their right to state resources to stamp out youth crime as equal and deserving members of the polity.Less
This chapter examines how a a national panic over a perceived escalation in youth criminality surfaced in the early 1940s, which was triggered by the social transformations of wartime. For Chinese in the United States, the issue of juvenile delinquency became an important means through which to stipulate their race and citizenship imperatives after World War II. Chinatown leaders adopted a bifurcated strategy that reflected the ongoing tension between sameness and difference under racial liberalism. In one direction, community managers argued that juvenile delinquency was as much a problem for the Chinese as for other Americans. They stressed their right to state resources to stamp out youth crime as equal and deserving members of the polity.
Lisa Rose Mar
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199733132
- eISBN:
- 9780199866533
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199733132.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History, World Medieval History
This work traces several generations of Chinese “brokers,” ethnic leaders who acted as intermediaries between the Chinese and Anglo worlds of Canada. At the time, most Chinese could not vote and many ...
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This work traces several generations of Chinese “brokers,” ethnic leaders who acted as intermediaries between the Chinese and Anglo worlds of Canada. At the time, most Chinese could not vote and many were illegal immigrants, so brokers played informal but necessary roles as representatives to the larger society. Brokers’ work reveals the changing boundaries between Chinese and Anglo worlds and how tensions among Chinese shaped them. By reinserting Chinese back into mainstream politics, this book alters common understandings of how legally “alien” groups helped create modern immigrant nations. Over several generations, brokers deeply embedded Chinese immigrants in the larger Canadian, U.S., and Chinese politics of their time. On the nineteenth-century Western frontier, Chinese businessmen competed with each other to represent their community. By the early 1920s, a new generation of brokers based in social movements challenged traditional brokers, shifting the power dynamic within the Chinese community. During the Second World War, social movements helped reconfigure both brokerage and race relations. Based on new Chinese language evidence, this book recounts history from the “middle,” a view that is neither bottom up nor top down. Through brokerage, Chinese wielded considerable influence, navigating a period of anti-Asian sentiment and exclusion throughout society. Consequently, Chinese immigrants became significant players in race relations, influencing policies that affected all Canadians and Americans.Less
This work traces several generations of Chinese “brokers,” ethnic leaders who acted as intermediaries between the Chinese and Anglo worlds of Canada. At the time, most Chinese could not vote and many were illegal immigrants, so brokers played informal but necessary roles as representatives to the larger society. Brokers’ work reveals the changing boundaries between Chinese and Anglo worlds and how tensions among Chinese shaped them. By reinserting Chinese back into mainstream politics, this book alters common understandings of how legally “alien” groups helped create modern immigrant nations. Over several generations, brokers deeply embedded Chinese immigrants in the larger Canadian, U.S., and Chinese politics of their time. On the nineteenth-century Western frontier, Chinese businessmen competed with each other to represent their community. By the early 1920s, a new generation of brokers based in social movements challenged traditional brokers, shifting the power dynamic within the Chinese community. During the Second World War, social movements helped reconfigure both brokerage and race relations. Based on new Chinese language evidence, this book recounts history from the “middle,” a view that is neither bottom up nor top down. Through brokerage, Chinese wielded considerable influence, navigating a period of anti-Asian sentiment and exclusion throughout society. Consequently, Chinese immigrants became significant players in race relations, influencing policies that affected all Canadians and Americans.
Lisa Rose Mar
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199733132
- eISBN:
- 9780199866533
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199733132.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History, World Medieval History
In 1924, Robert Park, a sociologist from the University of Chicago, directed a study that asked: Were Asians more like blacks or whites? To find the answer, Anglo American researchers interviewed ...
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In 1924, Robert Park, a sociologist from the University of Chicago, directed a study that asked: Were Asians more like blacks or whites? To find the answer, Anglo American researchers interviewed Chinese from British Columbia to California, starting with Vancouver, Canada. West Coast Chinese felt that Park’s answer could not be left to chance, so they mobilized the Chinese community to steer the researchers in a specific direction. Brokers hoped to win white scholars’ sympathy as well as to turn the power of social science against anti-Chinese policies. Chinese regarded the study as a battle of wits, a battle that the researchers did not know they were fighting. This meeting would help shape a pivotal set of ideas about immigration and race that would become known as the Chicago School of Sociology.Less
In 1924, Robert Park, a sociologist from the University of Chicago, directed a study that asked: Were Asians more like blacks or whites? To find the answer, Anglo American researchers interviewed Chinese from British Columbia to California, starting with Vancouver, Canada. West Coast Chinese felt that Park’s answer could not be left to chance, so they mobilized the Chinese community to steer the researchers in a specific direction. Brokers hoped to win white scholars’ sympathy as well as to turn the power of social science against anti-Chinese policies. Chinese regarded the study as a battle of wits, a battle that the researchers did not know they were fighting. This meeting would help shape a pivotal set of ideas about immigration and race that would become known as the Chicago School of Sociology.
Maria M. Chow
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195173048
- eISBN:
- 9780199872091
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195173048.003.0018
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
Based on a fifteen-month survey of different Chinese American churches and hymnals, this chapter examines the choices made by immigrants from different parts and different linguistic traditions in ...
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Based on a fifteen-month survey of different Chinese American churches and hymnals, this chapter examines the choices made by immigrants from different parts and different linguistic traditions in East Asia. Chicago's Chinatown is given a central role. Chinese hymns respond not only to the adaptation of immigrants to American religious experience, but also to the need to find common Chinese languages, particularly for those from Cantonese and Mandarin backgrounds, as well as Taiwanese heritage. Hymnals vary in the way in which common American traditions take place, but most of them accommodate change and create possibilities for Chinese Americans to worship and sing together. Linguistic diversity therefore coexists with common repertories.Less
Based on a fifteen-month survey of different Chinese American churches and hymnals, this chapter examines the choices made by immigrants from different parts and different linguistic traditions in East Asia. Chicago's Chinatown is given a central role. Chinese hymns respond not only to the adaptation of immigrants to American religious experience, but also to the need to find common Chinese languages, particularly for those from Cantonese and Mandarin backgrounds, as well as Taiwanese heritage. Hymnals vary in the way in which common American traditions take place, but most of them accommodate change and create possibilities for Chinese Americans to worship and sing together. Linguistic diversity therefore coexists with common repertories.
Viet Thanh Nguyen
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195146998
- eISBN:
- 9780199787890
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195146998.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, American Colonial Literature
This chapter looks at the works of Frank Chin and Gus Lee, who follow a long line of American authors before them by writing about how men use violence both to regenerate themselves, and to become ...
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This chapter looks at the works of Frank Chin and Gus Lee, who follow a long line of American authors before them by writing about how men use violence both to regenerate themselves, and to become representatives of a larger ethnic and national community. It is through violence that Asian Americans are first marked by others as aliens, and then marked by themselves as Americans. Chin and Lee take up this irony in their novels Donald Duk, China Boy, and Honor and Duty, which are Asian American examples of the bildungsroman. For these Chinese American authors, using the bildungsroman both proclaims a public identity for themselves and their subjects, and reenacts exclusionary processes of violence found in traditional representations, this time directed at Chinese American women and African American men. These novels demonstrate that violence is an initiation for immigrants, Asian and otherwise, into the complexities of American inclusion and exclusion.Less
This chapter looks at the works of Frank Chin and Gus Lee, who follow a long line of American authors before them by writing about how men use violence both to regenerate themselves, and to become representatives of a larger ethnic and national community. It is through violence that Asian Americans are first marked by others as aliens, and then marked by themselves as Americans. Chin and Lee take up this irony in their novels Donald Duk, China Boy, and Honor and Duty, which are Asian American examples of the bildungsroman. For these Chinese American authors, using the bildungsroman both proclaims a public identity for themselves and their subjects, and reenacts exclusionary processes of violence found in traditional representations, this time directed at Chinese American women and African American men. These novels demonstrate that violence is an initiation for immigrants, Asian and otherwise, into the complexities of American inclusion and exclusion.
Ellen D. Wu
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691157825
- eISBN:
- 9781400848874
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691157825.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This introductory chapter describes the racial order in twentieth-century America—its evolution, consequences, and significance. Japanese and Chinese Americans, the largest ethnic Asian populations, ...
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This introductory chapter describes the racial order in twentieth-century America—its evolution, consequences, and significance. Japanese and Chinese Americans, the largest ethnic Asian populations, and the two that figured most prominently in the public eye between the 1940s and 1960s, are central to this investigation. Their trajectories unfold separately in order to illuminate their distinct histories. Yet Japanese and Chinese Americans also appear in tandem to emphasize the many parallels that account for their concurrent emergence as model minorities. As a mix of cultural, social, and political history, the chapter highlights how the discursive and the material mattered for Japanese American, Chinese American, and ultimately Asian American identity formation from World War II through the “Cold War civil rights” years.Less
This introductory chapter describes the racial order in twentieth-century America—its evolution, consequences, and significance. Japanese and Chinese Americans, the largest ethnic Asian populations, and the two that figured most prominently in the public eye between the 1940s and 1960s, are central to this investigation. Their trajectories unfold separately in order to illuminate their distinct histories. Yet Japanese and Chinese Americans also appear in tandem to emphasize the many parallels that account for their concurrent emergence as model minorities. As a mix of cultural, social, and political history, the chapter highlights how the discursive and the material mattered for Japanese American, Chinese American, and ultimately Asian American identity formation from World War II through the “Cold War civil rights” years.
Viet Thanh Nguyen
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195146998
- eISBN:
- 9780199787890
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195146998.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, American Colonial Literature
This chapter re-examines the cultural and political legacies of Edith Eaton who wrote under the pen name Sui Sin Far, and her more commercially successful sister Winnifred Eaton who wrote under the ...
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This chapter re-examines the cultural and political legacies of Edith Eaton who wrote under the pen name Sui Sin Far, and her more commercially successful sister Winnifred Eaton who wrote under the pen name Onoto Watanna. These sisters, born of a Chinese mother and English father, were the first Asian American writers, publishing in the late 19th and early 20th century. Edith was identified as Chinese American and was long considered by Asian American critics as the origin of Asian American literature. Winnifred was identified as Japanese and was considered by these critics to be less authentic and less political. Resisting the idealism of Asian American literary criticism allows us to see that the political and ethical choices made by both the Eaton sisters are viable, and that these choices remain as valid options for Asian American intellectuals and other panethnic entrepreneurs today.Less
This chapter re-examines the cultural and political legacies of Edith Eaton who wrote under the pen name Sui Sin Far, and her more commercially successful sister Winnifred Eaton who wrote under the pen name Onoto Watanna. These sisters, born of a Chinese mother and English father, were the first Asian American writers, publishing in the late 19th and early 20th century. Edith was identified as Chinese American and was long considered by Asian American critics as the origin of Asian American literature. Winnifred was identified as Japanese and was considered by these critics to be less authentic and less political. Resisting the idealism of Asian American literary criticism allows us to see that the political and ethical choices made by both the Eaton sisters are viable, and that these choices remain as valid options for Asian American intellectuals and other panethnic entrepreneurs today.
Andrea Louie
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479890521
- eISBN:
- 9781479859887
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479890521.003.0004
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
This chapter explores the complexities of Asian American identity production in the context of adoption by focusing on the experiences of Chinese American adoptive parents. Drawing on Asian American ...
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This chapter explores the complexities of Asian American identity production in the context of adoption by focusing on the experiences of Chinese American adoptive parents. Drawing on Asian American scholar Lisa Lowe's model of Asian American cultural change, it considers conceptions of China and Chinese culture that inform Asian American adoptive parents' effectiveness in addressing racial and cultural identity issues for adoptees, and how these meanings of Chineseness are renegotiated over time as they are practiced within daily lives. It shows that Chinese American adoptive parents are flexible when it comes to creating and practicing (or not practicing) Chinese or Chinese American culture. It also examines how issues of cultural authenticity are intertwined with questions of cultural change, how the uneven power relations and histories that define the relationships between whites and Asian Americans factor into cultural productions, and how attempts at self-fashioning and building cultural capital present possibilities for the construction of alternative identities.Less
This chapter explores the complexities of Asian American identity production in the context of adoption by focusing on the experiences of Chinese American adoptive parents. Drawing on Asian American scholar Lisa Lowe's model of Asian American cultural change, it considers conceptions of China and Chinese culture that inform Asian American adoptive parents' effectiveness in addressing racial and cultural identity issues for adoptees, and how these meanings of Chineseness are renegotiated over time as they are practiced within daily lives. It shows that Chinese American adoptive parents are flexible when it comes to creating and practicing (or not practicing) Chinese or Chinese American culture. It also examines how issues of cultural authenticity are intertwined with questions of cultural change, how the uneven power relations and histories that define the relationships between whites and Asian Americans factor into cultural productions, and how attempts at self-fashioning and building cultural capital present possibilities for the construction of alternative identities.
Charlotte Brooks
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226193564
- eISBN:
- 9780226193731
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226193731.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
Chapter Six examines Chinese American political activity in the 1960s against the backdrop of the black civil rights movement, growing Asian American socioeconomic mobility, the Vietnam War, changes ...
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Chapter Six examines Chinese American political activity in the 1960s against the backdrop of the black civil rights movement, growing Asian American socioeconomic mobility, the Vietnam War, changes in US immigration policy, and the intergenerational tensions that the Asian American movement helped provoke. During this period, activist Chinese Americans youths increasingly rejected moderate politics and condemned as reactionaries the same community liberals who had long struggled against Chinatown conservatives.Less
Chapter Six examines Chinese American political activity in the 1960s against the backdrop of the black civil rights movement, growing Asian American socioeconomic mobility, the Vietnam War, changes in US immigration policy, and the intergenerational tensions that the Asian American movement helped provoke. During this period, activist Chinese Americans youths increasingly rejected moderate politics and condemned as reactionaries the same community liberals who had long struggled against Chinatown conservatives.
Charlotte Brooks
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226193564
- eISBN:
- 9780226193731
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226193731.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This book compares the political activism of Chinese Americans in New York City and San Francisco, California, between the Great Depression and the advent of the Asian American movement of the late ...
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This book compares the political activism of Chinese Americans in New York City and San Francisco, California, between the Great Depression and the advent of the Asian American movement of the late 1960s. It examines Chinese American participation in the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, the Kuomintang, the Chinese Third Force, the Communist Party, and other organizations against the backdrop of America’s relationship with the Republic of China on Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China. The book argues that the US-Taiwan alliance and the dominant anti-communism of American domestic politics in the 1950s and 1960s helped establish the limits of Chinese American political activism. Still, the book concludes that these forces neither eliminated political activism in these communities nor ever really suppressed their diverse array of voices. Instead, the distinctive local political cultures of New York and San Francisco ultimately determined how much the Sino-American relationship affected Chinese American politics in each city. In New York, the Tammany Hall political machine rewarded a handful of loyalists but did little for a population that consisted of large number of unlawful entrants known as “paper sons.” This situation enabled the Kuomintang to remain extremely powerful in New York. In contrast, San Francisco Chinese Americans became quite active in local politics, particularly the city’s emerging multiracial liberal movement, and laid the foundation for long term Chinese American political influence in the Bay Area.Less
This book compares the political activism of Chinese Americans in New York City and San Francisco, California, between the Great Depression and the advent of the Asian American movement of the late 1960s. It examines Chinese American participation in the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, the Kuomintang, the Chinese Third Force, the Communist Party, and other organizations against the backdrop of America’s relationship with the Republic of China on Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China. The book argues that the US-Taiwan alliance and the dominant anti-communism of American domestic politics in the 1950s and 1960s helped establish the limits of Chinese American political activism. Still, the book concludes that these forces neither eliminated political activism in these communities nor ever really suppressed their diverse array of voices. Instead, the distinctive local political cultures of New York and San Francisco ultimately determined how much the Sino-American relationship affected Chinese American politics in each city. In New York, the Tammany Hall political machine rewarded a handful of loyalists but did little for a population that consisted of large number of unlawful entrants known as “paper sons.” This situation enabled the Kuomintang to remain extremely powerful in New York. In contrast, San Francisco Chinese Americans became quite active in local politics, particularly the city’s emerging multiracial liberal movement, and laid the foundation for long term Chinese American political influence in the Bay Area.
Karen Leong
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520244221
- eISBN:
- 9780520938632
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520244221.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
Throughout the history of the United States, images of China have populated the American imagination. Always in flux, these images shift rapidly, as they did during the early decades of the twentieth ...
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Throughout the history of the United States, images of China have populated the American imagination. Always in flux, these images shift rapidly, as they did during the early decades of the twentieth century. In this erudite and original study, this book explores the gendering of American orientalism during the 1930s and 1940s. Focusing on three women who were popularly and publicly associated with China—Pearl S. Buck, Anna May Wong, and Mayling Soong—this book shows how each negotiated what it meant to be American, Chinese American, and Chinese against the backdrop of changes in the United States as a national community and as an international power. This book illustrates how each of these women encountered the possibilities as well as the limitations of transnational status in attempting to shape her own opportunities. During these two decades, each woman enjoyed expanding visibility due to an increasingly global mass culture, rising nationalism in Asia, the emergence of the United States from the shadows of imperialism to world power, and the more assertive participation of women in civic and consumer culture.Less
Throughout the history of the United States, images of China have populated the American imagination. Always in flux, these images shift rapidly, as they did during the early decades of the twentieth century. In this erudite and original study, this book explores the gendering of American orientalism during the 1930s and 1940s. Focusing on three women who were popularly and publicly associated with China—Pearl S. Buck, Anna May Wong, and Mayling Soong—this book shows how each negotiated what it meant to be American, Chinese American, and Chinese against the backdrop of changes in the United States as a national community and as an international power. This book illustrates how each of these women encountered the possibilities as well as the limitations of transnational status in attempting to shape her own opportunities. During these two decades, each woman enjoyed expanding visibility due to an increasingly global mass culture, rising nationalism in Asia, the emergence of the United States from the shadows of imperialism to world power, and the more assertive participation of women in civic and consumer culture.
Charlotte Brooks
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226193564
- eISBN:
- 9780226193731
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226193731.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
Chapter Two explores the political ferment in Chinese American communities during and immediately after World War Two. Chinese politics remained a major obsession, and the Chinese civil war split the ...
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Chapter Two explores the political ferment in Chinese American communities during and immediately after World War Two. Chinese politics remained a major obsession, and the Chinese civil war split the community. But after the 1943 repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act, which gave Chinese immigrants the ability to become naturalized citizens, American politics began to attract the attention of more of the Chinese American population. An influx of thousands of China-born wives under the provisions of 1946 “war bride” legislation compounded this effect: war veterans of Chinese ancestry pleaded with Congress to allow continued family immigration and an end to immigration officials’ harassment of their wives. By 1947 and 1948, the growing importance of American domestic politics, and the increasingly poor reputation of the Nationalists, signaled the declining power of conservative leaders and organizations in Chinese American communities.Less
Chapter Two explores the political ferment in Chinese American communities during and immediately after World War Two. Chinese politics remained a major obsession, and the Chinese civil war split the community. But after the 1943 repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act, which gave Chinese immigrants the ability to become naturalized citizens, American politics began to attract the attention of more of the Chinese American population. An influx of thousands of China-born wives under the provisions of 1946 “war bride” legislation compounded this effect: war veterans of Chinese ancestry pleaded with Congress to allow continued family immigration and an end to immigration officials’ harassment of their wives. By 1947 and 1948, the growing importance of American domestic politics, and the increasingly poor reputation of the Nationalists, signaled the declining power of conservative leaders and organizations in Chinese American communities.
Chiou-Ling Yeh
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520253506
- eISBN:
- 9780520942431
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520253506.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
On the evening of February 15, 1953, the Chinese New Year parade's Grand Marshal, Corporal Joe Wong, a veteran who had been blinded in Korea, and two enlisted female Air Force officers, Jessie Lee ...
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On the evening of February 15, 1953, the Chinese New Year parade's Grand Marshal, Corporal Joe Wong, a veteran who had been blinded in Korea, and two enlisted female Air Force officers, Jessie Lee and Anna Tome, led the first modern Chinese New Year parade in San Francisco's Chinatown. This chapter recounts how ethnic leaders exoticized the Chinese New Year Festival to generate political and economic resources for their own profit. Rooted in Cold War rhetoric, the modern celebration strove to be compatible with American containment policy, manifesting ethnic cultural expression and anti-communist convictions. Accordingly, festival organizers showcased war veterans and a beauty queen alongside the ethnic culture's exotic elements on the parade route. Such a strategy was intended to demonstrate Chinese American patriotism and to lure tourists into Chinatown. However, an emphasis on the exotic elements of the festival reinforced the notion that Chinese Americans were ethnic others. A 1956 grand jury subpoena that accused many Chinese Americans of illegal immigration compelled the ethnic community to adopt a model minority image.Less
On the evening of February 15, 1953, the Chinese New Year parade's Grand Marshal, Corporal Joe Wong, a veteran who had been blinded in Korea, and two enlisted female Air Force officers, Jessie Lee and Anna Tome, led the first modern Chinese New Year parade in San Francisco's Chinatown. This chapter recounts how ethnic leaders exoticized the Chinese New Year Festival to generate political and economic resources for their own profit. Rooted in Cold War rhetoric, the modern celebration strove to be compatible with American containment policy, manifesting ethnic cultural expression and anti-communist convictions. Accordingly, festival organizers showcased war veterans and a beauty queen alongside the ethnic culture's exotic elements on the parade route. Such a strategy was intended to demonstrate Chinese American patriotism and to lure tourists into Chinatown. However, an emphasis on the exotic elements of the festival reinforced the notion that Chinese Americans were ethnic others. A 1956 grand jury subpoena that accused many Chinese Americans of illegal immigration compelled the ethnic community to adopt a model minority image.
Rosemary Foot
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198292920
- eISBN:
- 9780191599286
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198292929.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
In its reconstruction of evolving US positions on key issues in the relationship with China, this book is able to explain the change in American–Chinese relations after 1949 from hostility to ...
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In its reconstruction of evolving US positions on key issues in the relationship with China, this book is able to explain the change in American–Chinese relations after 1949 from hostility to rapprochement, and to the full normalization of ties in 1979. The author then goes on to examine the relationship after normalization, a period when the United States has come to view China as less of a challenge, but still resistant to certain norms of the current international order. After an introductory chapter, the next three chapters of the book examine US efforts to build, and then maintain an international and domestic consensus behind its China policy, noting the steady erosion of support in both policy arenas. The next four chapters look at changing US perceptions of China’s capabilities, and show how US officials came to have a deeper appreciation of the overall restraints on Beijing’s power, especially as a result of the Sino-Soviet rift and the failure of policies associated with the Great Leap Forward. Finally, in the last chapter, it examines the effects on the relationship of China’s fuller exposure after 1979 to the ideas and values that predominate in the global system. Whilst many previous explanations of US relations with China have given primacy to the conditioning influence of the strategic triangle, this book recognizes the need to embed an understanding of American–Chinese relations within a wider structure of relationships at the global and domestic levels.Less
In its reconstruction of evolving US positions on key issues in the relationship with China, this book is able to explain the change in American–Chinese relations after 1949 from hostility to rapprochement, and to the full normalization of ties in 1979. The author then goes on to examine the relationship after normalization, a period when the United States has come to view China as less of a challenge, but still resistant to certain norms of the current international order. After an introductory chapter, the next three chapters of the book examine US efforts to build, and then maintain an international and domestic consensus behind its China policy, noting the steady erosion of support in both policy arenas. The next four chapters look at changing US perceptions of China’s capabilities, and show how US officials came to have a deeper appreciation of the overall restraints on Beijing’s power, especially as a result of the Sino-Soviet rift and the failure of policies associated with the Great Leap Forward. Finally, in the last chapter, it examines the effects on the relationship of China’s fuller exposure after 1979 to the ideas and values that predominate in the global system. Whilst many previous explanations of US relations with China have given primacy to the conditioning influence of the strategic triangle, this book recognizes the need to embed an understanding of American–Chinese relations within a wider structure of relationships at the global and domestic levels.
Chiou-Ling Yeh
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520253506
- eISBN:
- 9780520942431
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520253506.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
The 1977 Chinese New Year Festival featured a Qing dynasty wedding procession. This cultural representation sparked a debate centered on the definition of Chinese American culture, as well as on who ...
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The 1977 Chinese New Year Festival featured a Qing dynasty wedding procession. This cultural representation sparked a debate centered on the definition of Chinese American culture, as well as on who could determine what constituted that culture. This chapter focuses on the constellation of complex meanings behind various memories and narratives selected by Chinese Americans to express their identities. It explores several competing cultural productions that strove for authority in ethnic-identity formation. The rise of ethnic consciousness loosened the Chinese Chamber of Commerce's singular hold on the celebration and resulted in the growth of social service and political organizations. Beginning in 1975, the Chinese Culture Center began to host an alternative Chinese New Year celebration, the Spring Festival. Moreover, the changes in U.S. foreign policy not only compelled parade organizers to alter their transnational politics, but also transformed Chinatown's internal political dynamics.Less
The 1977 Chinese New Year Festival featured a Qing dynasty wedding procession. This cultural representation sparked a debate centered on the definition of Chinese American culture, as well as on who could determine what constituted that culture. This chapter focuses on the constellation of complex meanings behind various memories and narratives selected by Chinese Americans to express their identities. It explores several competing cultural productions that strove for authority in ethnic-identity formation. The rise of ethnic consciousness loosened the Chinese Chamber of Commerce's singular hold on the celebration and resulted in the growth of social service and political organizations. Beginning in 1975, the Chinese Culture Center began to host an alternative Chinese New Year celebration, the Spring Festival. Moreover, the changes in U.S. foreign policy not only compelled parade organizers to alter their transnational politics, but also transformed Chinatown's internal political dynamics.
Ellen D. Wu
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691157825
- eISBN:
- 9781400848874
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691157825.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This concluding chapter discusses how, by the twilight of the civil rights era, the success stories of Japanese and Chinese America had themselves become success stories. The cross pressures of ...
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This concluding chapter discusses how, by the twilight of the civil rights era, the success stories of Japanese and Chinese America had themselves become success stories. The cross pressures of exigencies and desires both within and beyond the ethnic communities had effectively midwifed the rebirth of the Asiatic as the model minority. Since then, the model minority has remained a fixture of the nation's racial landscape, ever present yet constantly evolving to speak to a host of new imperatives in the late twentieth century and early twenty-first. Recent iterations depart from the original in notable ways, but retain many of the themes that first coalesced in the postwar period: self-reliance, valorization of family, reverence for education, and political moderation.Less
This concluding chapter discusses how, by the twilight of the civil rights era, the success stories of Japanese and Chinese America had themselves become success stories. The cross pressures of exigencies and desires both within and beyond the ethnic communities had effectively midwifed the rebirth of the Asiatic as the model minority. Since then, the model minority has remained a fixture of the nation's racial landscape, ever present yet constantly evolving to speak to a host of new imperatives in the late twentieth century and early twenty-first. Recent iterations depart from the original in notable ways, but retain many of the themes that first coalesced in the postwar period: self-reliance, valorization of family, reverence for education, and political moderation.
Chiou-Ling Yeh
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520253506
- eISBN:
- 9780520942431
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520253506.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
On March 1, 1969, a riot broke out following the Chinese New Year Festival. Grant Avenue consisted mainly of white tourists and various Chinatown gangs. Although there was a confrontation earlier in ...
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On March 1, 1969, a riot broke out following the Chinese New Year Festival. Grant Avenue consisted mainly of white tourists and various Chinatown gangs. Although there was a confrontation earlier in the day at the festival street fair, the first real fights started around 10:30 P.M., and took place between Chinese American male youths and their white counterparts. Through an examination of the “sideshows” in the ethnic festival and an analysis of the defiance of authority among Chinese American youth, this chapter illuminates not only grassroots activism within the ethnic community, but also minority youth resistance within the larger American society. It investigates the conflicts between the image promoted by festival organizers and the militant yellow power deployed by a number of youth groups. The chapter examines the militant masculinity manifested by male and female gang members, radicals, and student activists who chose to use violence and political demonstrations to protest racial, gender, and class oppression. Their actions changed the dominant racial discourse, which now categorized Chinese Americans as a “New Yellow Peril” in addition to model minorities.Less
On March 1, 1969, a riot broke out following the Chinese New Year Festival. Grant Avenue consisted mainly of white tourists and various Chinatown gangs. Although there was a confrontation earlier in the day at the festival street fair, the first real fights started around 10:30 P.M., and took place between Chinese American male youths and their white counterparts. Through an examination of the “sideshows” in the ethnic festival and an analysis of the defiance of authority among Chinese American youth, this chapter illuminates not only grassroots activism within the ethnic community, but also minority youth resistance within the larger American society. It investigates the conflicts between the image promoted by festival organizers and the militant yellow power deployed by a number of youth groups. The chapter examines the militant masculinity manifested by male and female gang members, radicals, and student activists who chose to use violence and political demonstrations to protest racial, gender, and class oppression. Their actions changed the dominant racial discourse, which now categorized Chinese Americans as a “New Yellow Peril” in addition to model minorities.
Charlotte Brooks
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226193564
- eISBN:
- 9780226193731
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226193731.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
Chapter One examines the impact of New Deal politics on the Chinese American communities of San Francisco and New York. During the 1930s, Chinese politics remained an almost obsessive preoccupation ...
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Chapter One examines the impact of New Deal politics on the Chinese American communities of San Francisco and New York. During the 1930s, Chinese politics remained an almost obsessive preoccupation in both communities, while the China-born segment of the community often derided the native-born citizens as “brainless” and weak, neither wholly Chinese nor American. Yet as the Depression increasingly affected Chinese Americans, New Deal programs offered them hope and a new vision of the way politics could affect their communities and give their citizenship actual meaning.Less
Chapter One examines the impact of New Deal politics on the Chinese American communities of San Francisco and New York. During the 1930s, Chinese politics remained an almost obsessive preoccupation in both communities, while the China-born segment of the community often derided the native-born citizens as “brainless” and weak, neither wholly Chinese nor American. Yet as the Depression increasingly affected Chinese Americans, New Deal programs offered them hope and a new vision of the way politics could affect their communities and give their citizenship actual meaning.
