1/17/2013

AGENDA

Guest presentation & digital narrative: Prof. Judy Wu Lecture on The Chinese in 19th-century America Discussion
Last Fridays small group work Online responses Takaki pp. 79-131

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January 16, 2013

W Week 2, January 16, 2013

Timeline of Chinese immigration to the U.S. 1852-68 Male sojourning 1869-74 Unrestricted family immigration 1875-82 The period of female exclusion 1882 -1943 The period of general exclusion (The Exclusion Era) 1943-1965 Limited entry under special legislation Post-1965 Renewed immigration

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Migration

The Industrial Revolution Labor recruitment Chain migration Economic strategies Political turmoil & imperialism

Who becomes a migrant?

Forced labor:
Slavery coolie labor

Voluntary labor:
Sojourners Settlers free labor

Letter of the Chinamen to His Excellency, Gov. Bigler in Littels Living Age, July 3, 1852, 32-34.

The West in 1870 25% of California workforce 24% in San Francisco

Some have borrowed the small amount necessary, to be returned with unusual interest, on the account of the risk; some have been furnished with money without interest by their friends and relations, and some again, but much the smaller portion, have received advances in money, to be returned out of the profits of the adventure. The usual apportionment of the profits is about three tenths to the lender of the money. These arrangements, made at home, seldom bring them farther than San Francisco, and here the Chinese traders furnish them the means of getting to the mines.

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What shall we do with John Chinaman? Frank Leslies Illustrated, Sep. 25, 1869

Sojourners: Miners, agricultural labor, wage labor, self-employment (laundries, prostitution)

Mining By 1860, 24,000 (2/3 of the population) Chinese Americans were involved in mining Railroads By 1867, 12,000 employed by the Central Pacific Railroad (90% of the workforce) The Strike of 1867 ($45/mon. & 8 hr. day) Agriculture By 1870, 18% of farm laborers in California Dual-wage system Tenant farming Wheat to fruit orchards

Manufacturing
The Civil War 46% of labor force in SF key

industries
Boot & shoes, woolens,

cigars and tobacco, sewing

Self-employment
Ethnic antagonism Laundry work By 1870, 2,899 Chinese

laundry workers in California (72% of profession) By 1890, 6,400 (69%)

1850-1880, 4,779 in the U.S.

5% of California

population
21.2 gender ration in

1880
Transnational

families

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Family labor

Merchant wives Unpaid family labor Wage work Domestic service

Self-employment
By 1870, 3,536 women in California (61% employed as

prostitutes) Sexual & productive labor Free entrepreneur to wage earner 1849-54 free competition 1854-1925 organized trade & kidnapping

Reception: a pattern of racial difference

REALITIES OF 19TH CEN. CHINESE AMERICA VS. SOCIETAL STEREOTYPES

Sojourner vs. settler Assimilatation The difference between immigrant and sojourner
aliens ineligible for

citizenship due to conceptions of racial difference

Strikes vs.Unfree labor The Yellow Peril

THE CHINESE IN NEW ENGLAND THE WORK SHOP HARPERS WEEKLY, JULY 23, 1878

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Editorial in Golden Hills News (San Franciscos first Chinese language newspaper) June 10, 1854

To maximize the area of liberty and minimize that of tyranny has become essential the principle of the Times. Every effort, of the really liberal, has professedly for its object the improvement of the moral, religious, and legal code of nations and races, but in doing so it is found, that sacred bigotries must be broken into, and vested prejudices exposed. For instance, a Chinese Mission Chapel, with attached library and school-room, has been opened for the preaching of the gospel to the Chinese race, and for instructing them in the English language in all its branches. We, too, believing that Civil and Political knowledge is of infinite importance to the Chinese, both in their individual, social, and relative state, have established The Golden Hills News for that special mission. And what race of people more deserving of our efforts? They claim a national existence coeval with the most remote antiquity. The doctrines or philosophy of Confucius have obtained a reputation not only national, but have been long celebrated among the literati of Europe, as evidencing a high state of intellectual and moral progress. Yet our Conducts of the Press describe them as Apes, Brutes, social lice! lower than the Negrorace. Did ever one of these Conductors or Editors see the Negroes as just imported from Africa! If they ever did, and should then compare them with Chinamen, we should consider than mentality insanity. We protest against making targets of the poor Chinese, and say, it is only fair, that Republicans should warmly encourage, cherish and protect every effort to diffuse the spirit of Christianity and Republicanism amongst that interesting race.

F WEEK 2, JAN 18

Lecture on The World of Plantation Hawaii Read Takaki

Pp. 132-176

View: Act of War View: Start Picture Bride, as time permits

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January 16, 2013

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