Author: Beth Lew-Williams Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 0674976010 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 361
Book Description
Beth Lew-Williams shows how American immigration policies incited violence against Chinese workers, and how that violence provoked new exclusionary policies. Locating the origins of the modern American "alien" in this violent era, she makes clear that the present resurgence of xenophobia builds mightily upon past fears of the "heathen Chinaman."
Author: Beth Lew-Williams Publisher: ISBN: 9780674260351 Category : Languages : en Pages : 360
Book Description
Winner of the Ray Allen Billington Prize Winner of the Ellis W. Hawley Prize Winner of the Caroline Bancroft History Prize Winner of the Sally and Ken Owens Award Winner of the Vincent P. DeSantis Book Prize "A powerful argument about racial violence that could not be more timely...White nationalists targeted Chinese immigrants as threats to their homes and jobs and blamed the American government for failing to seal the borders." --Richard White, author of The Republic for Which It Stands "A riveting, beautifully written account...that foregrounds Chinese voices and experiences. A timely and important contribution to our understanding of immigration and the border." --Karl Jacoby, author of Shadows at Dawn "Lew-Williams particularly excels at invoking the psychological effects of the law on Chinese people living in the United States." --Slate In 1885, following the massacre of Chinese miners in Wyoming Territory, communities throughout California and the Pacific Northwest harassed, assaulted, and expelled thousands of Chinese immigrants. The Chinese Must Go shows how American immigration policies incited this violence, and how this gave rise to the concept of the "alien" in America. Our story begins in the 1850s, before federal border control established strict divisions between citizens and aliens--and long before Congress passed the Chinese Restriction Act, the nation's first attempt to bar immigration based on race and class. When this unprecedented experiment failed to slow Chinese migration, armed vigilante groups took the matter into their own hands. Fearing the spread of mob violence, policymakers redoubled their efforts to seal the borders, overhauling immigration law and transforming America's relationship with China in the process. By tracing the idea of the alien back to this violent era, Lew-Williams offers a troubling new origin story of today's racialized border.
Author: Martin Gold Publisher: The Capitol Net Inc ISBN: 1587332353 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 616
Book Description
"Described as 'one of the most vulgar forms of barbarism, ' by Rep. John Kasson (R-IA) in 1882, a series of laws passed by the United States Congress between 1879 and 1943 resulted in prohibiting the Chinese as a people from becoming U.S. citizens. Forbidden citizens recounts this long and shameful legislative history"--Page 4 of cover.
Author: Erika Lee Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press ISBN: 9780807863138 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 352
Book Description
With the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, Chinese laborers became the first group in American history to be excluded from the United States on the basis of their race and class. This landmark law changed the course of U.S. immigration history, but we know little about its consequences for the Chinese in America or for the United States as a nation of immigrants. At America's Gates is the first book devoted entirely to both Chinese immigrants and the American immigration officials who sought to keep them out. Erika Lee explores how Chinese exclusion laws not only transformed Chinese American lives, immigration patterns, identities, and families but also recast the United States into a "gatekeeping nation." Immigrant identification, border enforcement, surveillance, and deportation policies were extended far beyond any controls that had existed in the United States before. Drawing on a rich trove of historical sources--including recently released immigration records, oral histories, interviews, and letters--Lee brings alive the forgotten journeys, secrets, hardships, and triumphs of Chinese immigrants. Her timely book exposes the legacy of Chinese exclusion in current American immigration control and race relations.
Author: Jean Pfaelzer Publisher: Univ of California Press ISBN: 9780520256941 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 460
Book Description
This sweeping and groundbreaking work presents the shocking and violent history of ethnic cleansing against Chinese Americans from the Gold Rush era to the turn of the century.
Author: Lucy E. Salyer Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press ISBN: 9780807864319 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 360
Book Description
Focusing primarily on the exclusion of the Chinese, Lucy Salyer analyzes the popular and legal debates surrounding immigration law and its enforcement during the height of nativist sentiment in the early twentieth century. She argues that the struggles between Chinese immigrants, U.S. government officials, and the lower federal courts that took place around the turn of the century established fundamental principles that continue to dominate immigration law today and make it unique among branches of American law. By establishing the centrality of the Chinese to immigration policy, Salyer also integrates the history of Asian immigrants on the West Coast with that of European immigrants in the East. Salyer demonstrates that Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans mounted sophisticated and often-successful legal challenges to the enforcement of exclusionary immigration policies. Ironically, their persistent litigation contributed to the development of legal doctrines that gave the Bureau of Immigration increasing power to counteract resistance. Indeed, by 1924, immigration law had begun to diverge from constitutional norms, and the Bureau of Immigration had emerged as an exceptionally powerful organization, free from many of the constraints imposed upon other government agencies.
Author: Andrew S. Erickson Publisher: Naval Institute Press ISBN: 161251152X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 530
Book Description
In modern history, China has been primarily a land power, dominating smaller states along its massive continental flanks. But China’s turn toward the sea is now very much a reality, as evident in its stunning rise in global shipbuilding markets, its vast and expanding merchant marine, the wide offshore reach of its energy and minerals exploration companies, its growing fishing fleet, and indeed its increasingly modern navy. Yet, for all these achievements, there is still profound skepticism regarding China’s potential as a genuine maritime power. Beijing must still import the most vital subcomponents for its shipyards, maritime governance remains severely bureaucratically challenged, and the navy evinces, at least as of yet, little enthusiasm for significant blue water power projection capabilities. This volume provides a truly comprehensive assessment of prospects for China’s maritime development by situating these important geostrategic phenomena within a larger world historical context. China is hardly the only land power in history to attempt transformation by fostering sea power. Many continental powers have elected or been impelled to transform themselves into significant maritime powers in order to safeguard their strategic position or advance their interests. We examine cases of attempted transformation from the Persian Empire to the Soviet Union, and determine the reasons for their success or failure. Too many works on China view the nation in isolation. Of course, China’s history and culture are to some extent exceptional, but building intellectual fences actually hinders the effort to understand China’s current development trajectory. Without underestimating the enduring pull of China’s past as it relates to threats to the country’s internal stability and its landward borders, this comparative study provides reason to believe that China has turned the corner on a genuine maritime transformation. If that proves indeed to be the case, it would be a remarkable if not singular event in the history of the last two millennia.
Author: Gordon H. Chang Publisher: Houghton Mifflin ISBN: 1328618579 Category : China Languages : en Pages : 325
Book Description
A groundbreaking, breathtaking history of the Chinese workers who built the Transcontinental Railroad, helping to forge modern America only to disappear into the shadows of history until now.
Author: Beth Lew-Williams
Author: Beth Lew-Williams
Author: Martin Gold
Author: Erika Lee
Author: Jean Pfaelzer
Author: Lucy E. Salyer
Author: Andrew S. Erickson
Author: Wallace R. Hagaman
Author: American Federation of Labor
Author: Gordon H. Chang