Early Chinese Diasporas and the Chinese Exclusion Act

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-57
Author(s):  
Yihua Chen
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Exclusion ◽  
Exclusion Act

Congressional passage of the Chinese exclusion act of 1882

2001 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 58-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Fisher ◽  
Shane Fisher
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Exclusion ◽  
Exclusion Act

José Martí's “Evening of Emerson” and the United Statesian Literary Tradition

2009 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
LAURA LOMAS
Keyword(s):  
New England ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Literary Tradition ◽  
Jose Marti ◽  
Chinese Exclusion ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Imperial Expansion ◽  
A Minor ◽  
War Of The Pacific ◽  
Exclusion Act

Revising a century of interpretation that has emphasized the identification of José Martí with Ralph Waldo Emerson, this essay draws on Martí's unpublished and published manuscripts about Emerson to reveal Martí's keen sense of his difference from the New England bard. When we read Martí's 1882 eulogy to Emerson alongside contemporaneous essays about the Chinese Exclusion Act and the War of the Pacific, Martí's epiphany – which he calls the “evening of Emerson” – comes to suggest the evanescence of Emerson's influence. Martí here glimpses his contribution: a creative resignification and translation of Emerson and US culture more broadly in order to arrive at a distinct version of nuestra América. Although Emerson's influence persists, as he provides the phrase “our America,” Martí's interpretation transposes the phrase to a minor key and reveals the perspective of the Latin American migrant who presciently observes the threat of imperial expansion.

Chinese Perceptions of American Democracy: Late Qing Observers and Their Experiences with the Chinese Exclusion Act

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 315-346
Author(s):  
Sam Wong ◽  
Brian Wong
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
American Democracy ◽  
Moral Foundation ◽  
Late Qing ◽  
Chinese Exclusion ◽  
Chinese Perceptions ◽  
American Society ◽  
Exclusion Act ◽  
The U.S

Abstract Analysis of the writings of Kuang Qizhao and other Chinese self-strengtheners suggests that their emphasis on promoting education before democracy and continuing to endorse classical Confucianism were not signs of a retrograde kind of conservatism, but an entirely rational decision based on the actual experiences of late Qing observers of 19th Century American democracy. Observing the U.S. Congress’s passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Chinese officials observed the real dangers of demagogue led populism without an educated, moral citizenry and the apparent importance of Christianity to creating the moral foundation for an effective modern society. For Kuang, Confucianism was equivalent to Christianity to establish that moral basis, and not a conservative desire to preserve the old social order. Kuang would pass on his thoughts to some of China’s most important reformers and officials on his return home, suggesting he and the officials he associated with had a more realistic and sophisticated understanding of American society and democracy than is currently assumed.

The Chinese Exclusion Act and Early Asian American Literature

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Railton
Keyword(s):  
American Literature ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Chinese American ◽  
Early 21St Century ◽  
Chinese Exclusion ◽  
Yellow Peril ◽  
Laws And Policies ◽  
Immigration Station ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Exclusion Act

The 19th century featured two opposed yet interconnected historical trends: the growth of a multigenerational and deeply rooted Chinese American community; and the development of the cultural prejudices and fears comprised by the Yellow Peril narrative. Those xenophobic fears produced violence, social and political movements, and legal exclusions, culminating in the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act and its many follow-up laws and policies, all designed as much to destroy the existing Chinese American community as to restrict future immigration. But out of that period of exclusion and oppression came some of the first Chinese American literary and cultural works published in both Mandarin/Cantonese and English: the personal and collective poems carved into the walls of the Angel Island Immigration Station by detainees; auto-ethnographic memoirs of Chinese American life and community such as Yung Wing’s My Life in China and America (1909); and the journalistic, autobiographical, and fictional works of Edith Maude Eaton/Sui Sin Far, the first Chinese American professional creative writer. These works both reflect and transcend the realities of the Exclusion era, helping contemporary audiences understand those histories, connect them to later Chinese American writers, and analyze the exclusionary debates and proposals of the early 21st century.

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