Anti-Asian hostilities and Asian Exclusion Movements Flashcards
1
Q
Forms of Anti-Asian Hostilities
A
- prejudice
- economic discrimination
- political disenfranchisement
- physical violence
- immigration exclusion
- social segregation
- mass incarceration (Japanese during WWII)
- these are all encoded in laws at federal and state levels that build upon each other, especially starting with the Chinese Exclusion Act
2
Q
Larger Meanings of Anti-Asian Racism in American Society
A
- belonging in the US is called into question
- defining American citizenship and what it means to be “American” is reconceptualized over time
- racializing process
- centrality of race and racism
- Asian immigrants seen as horde, but really tiny minority compared to European immigrants and US citizens at the time
3
Q
Types of Arguments
A
- race-based
- class-based
- gender-based
- these intersect and act simultaneously, but are also unique in certain ways
4
Q
Race
A
- no scientific basis for race
- minimal differences in DNA between humans
- socially constructed
5
Q
Social Construction of Race
A
- during Enlightenment, there was a desire to classify things taxonomically, including making a scientific classification of races
- we all agree on these rules: this is a consensus
- this is how power works: it circulates thru society so that we see it as common sense
- just like how money has no value until we give it value; we agreed upon monetary denominations
- race/racialization is a process; verb of becoming racialized
6
Q
Social Construction
A
- the way that social reality is generated by the way we think, talk about it, and reach social consensus
7
Q
Racial Formation/Racialization
A
- process; verb of becoming racialized
- the process by which political, economic, and social forces determine content and importance of racial categories, and by which they are in turn shaped by racial meanings
- racial categories are one thing (might be appearance-based), but race is the meaning we attach to those categories
- like Asian Americans wanting to change meaning associated w/ Asian and move away from Oriental views
- we ascribe personality traits to races that are meanings we come to consensus over
- racism is societal construct that emerges out of economic, political, and social forces
- race is relational: no black w/out white, etc.
8
Q
Racialized Meanings of “Asian”
A
- permanent foreignness and unassimilability
- embedded w/in institutions and social structures
- race is fundamental organizing principle of social stratification that comes out of power structures and takes a life of its own/has material consequences as a result
- Oriental = fundamental foreignness
9
Q
“Yellow Peril” and “Oriental Problem”
A
- “hordes” of Asians coming are problems to be solved
- same time as “Negro Problem” – when Americans were trying to assimilate freed slaves into society
- these two are intertwined in terms of their defining Asians and blackness
10
Q
Social Construction of Race
A
- we start to see race as normal, natural
- we give race power
- it comes about through popular culture
- we associate certain images w/ racialized beliefs
11
Q
Social Perceptions of Chinese Immigrants (Race-Based)
A
- anti-Chinese sentiment created “Asian” race based on permanent foreignness, aliens
- seen as alien in language, food, customs, appearance, clothing, bizarre habits, “doing things backwards” from W civilizations, superstitious, peculiar odor of ginger and opium
- seen as dishonest, crafty, lacking intelligence to improve their social structures, unhygienic, mouse eaters, etc.
12
Q
Chinatowns
A
- increasingly seen as festering, unsanitary neighborhoods
- subject to intense journalism and health inspections; inspectors went into Chinatowns with the bias that everything they’d heard about Chinese being an alien race (from politicians) was true, and that race was a scientific truth
13
Q
Cartoon Depicting the Three Evils of Chinatown
A
- leprosy, malaria, smallpox
- these images live in the back of your mind until they become fact and common sense
- Chinatown associated w/ disease, unsanitary conditions, all men, no women
- men seen as unsettled, opium smokers, gambling addicts (a place of vice and danger), untrustworthy, dirty, sleazy, sexually depraved
- Chinatown was a place for white women to avoid bcs Chinese men are sexually depraved monsters who preyed on white women
14
Q
Naturalization Act of 1790
A
- citizenship to US is reserved for “free white persons”
- close association between race and citizenship
- white is a racial category with its own set of racial meanings
- 1870 amendment included “persons of African descent” as part of Reconstructionist efforts to integrate recently freed African Americans into US society after Civil War
15
Q
Foreign Miners Tax of 1882
A
- people who were non-US citizens had to pay tax to mine in US gold mines
- was first used to exclude people of Mexican descent
- was then enforced only against the Chinese
- ruled unconstitutional in 1870
16
Q
People vs. Hall (1854)
A
- fundamental question of “are Chinese white or black?” raised
- George Hall, a white man, was convicted of murder based on testimony of Chinese witnesses in the mines
- Hall appealed the conviction, arguing on the basis of 1850 CA law that no black, mulatto, or Indian can give evidence in a court of law
- Chinese have an ambiguous standing
- court ruled in Hall’s favor, stating:
- Indians (Native Americans) originally migrated from Asia, so excluding Native Americans is the same as excluding Asians
- “black” is the opposite of white and includes everything non-white
- therefore, Chinese are non-white
17
Q
In re Ah Yup (1878)
A
- Chinese are scientifically part of the Mongolian race
- Mongolians aren’t white
- based on science classification of 5 races: Caucasian, Ethiopian/black, Mongolian (yellow), Indian (red), and Malayan (Austronesian people)?
- the wording of the 1870 amendment to the Naturalization Act places African Americans in a geographic location (“African descent”)
- therefore, they could no longer call Chinese black
18
Q
Citizenship and Assimilability
A
- if you can’t assimilate, you can’t be citizen
- who could participate in society and on what grounds is defined by citizenship
- by ruling Chinese as non-white, court denied them citizenship
- some Chinese challenged the constitutionality of these laws, but they were taken to the Supreme Court
19
Q
Chinese Immigrant Questioning Constitutionality of Chinese Exclusion Act in 1884
A
- Chief Justice of Supreme Court argued that Chinese are unamerican, unassimilable, and therefore ineligible for citizenship – basically because Chinese maintained their culture
- argues that they will never accept US civic structures, so could never be citizens
- people argued that this unwillingness to assimilate constituted a threat to US society
- feeds into social construction of “Asian” as “forever foreigners”
- holds greater weight because the court, the law of the land, is saying these things, so they must be true
20
Q
Chinese Exclusion (not the act)
A
- excluded from US citizenship
- political disenfranchisement stopped them from being able to get rid of discriminatory legislation
- ordinances that made Chinatown closeness of living illegal, made men cut off their hair cues/ponytails, laundry ordinances, etc.
- anti-Chinese riots and violence; perpetrators faced no consequences because Chinese had no political power
21
Q
Industrialization and Urbanization (Late 19th Century)
A
- time of change and instability in society as American nation growing exponentially
- mass migration from Europe, mass economic growth along with depressions and recessions, unemployment, low-wage labor
- robber barons growing monopolies off of the backs of workers and concentrating wealth in the hands of a few elite
22
Q
American Labor Movement
A
- increasingly militant
- violent labor strikes
- defines itself along racial and class lines as “white working class”
- fundamental conflict between labor versus capital; seen as a terrifying societal conflict
23
Q
Chinese as Economic Scapegoats
A
- became scapegoats for larger structural problems in US economy
- seen as the enemy of the working class because their presence would undercut wages and living standards
- however, Chinese had to work for cheap because of racial stratification of wages
- no blame placed on capitalists paying Chinese lower wages, only on the Chinese themselves
- hatred of the Chinese as tools of capitalism exploitation brought workers together
24
Q
Free Labor
A
- largely a concept in the North; seen as superior to Southern slavery
- ideology of independence and individualism: free will to better yourself and follow your own success through hard work
- achieving American dream
25
Q
Unfree Labor
A
- slavery, shadow slavery
- no power to negotiate wages
- plantations
- indentured servitude is between free and unfree labor
- what Chinese are seen as
26
Q
Coolie Labor
A
- product of European expansion into Asia and the Americas
- Coolie referred to as laborer from China or India that was shipped abroad
- term takes on new significance in 19th C when GB abolishes slavery in 1833
- Indian coolies brought to Caribbean, Chinese coolies brought to Cuba – sugar plantation work
- coolies embodied slavery in age of free labor
27
Q
“Shanghaied”
A
- getting Shanghaied into service is reference to how coolies were often kidnapped/tricked into labor and shipped abroad
28
Q
Chinese and Labor
A
- seen as unfree labor
- equated w/ slaves by depictions of Chinese with African American characteristics
- people who came under contract-labor system weren’t technically coolies, but still tagged w/ same label –> racialized meaning and association with unfree labor
29
Q
Creation of White Working Class
A
- how the Irish went from being seen socially and culturally as less than white to white
- Irish were very vocal/ opposed to blacks and Asians
30
Q
Whiteness Scholarship
A
- bridges diverse cultural, language differences between European immigrants and US citizens
- white is a racial category in and of itself
- whiteness defined against nonwhite other
- whiteness is what other groups are not
- Europeans are claiming white identity by vilifying and alienating the Chinese
31
Q
“Wages of Whiteness” - W.E.B. Dubois
A
- poor working-class whites define themselves as white
- whiteness provides meaningful compensation/psychological wage for disenfranchisement of white laborers
- way to organize and unite in period of powerlessness and dislocation by devaluating blacks/other ethnicities
32
Q
Chinese and Americanness
A
- Chinese are the antithesis of the meaning of American
- American citizens more defined as white people
- black people were second-class citizens
- American citizens were equated with free white labor
33
Q
White Identity
A
- inextricably tied to non-white identity
- created the “other” just like Orientalism
- race is relational; can’t have white without black
34
Q
“Indispensable Enemy”
A
- Chinese are the indispensable enemy for creating white working class identity
- politicians exploit anti-Chinese sentiment because they needed Western states’ votes
- discriminatory laws against Chinese perpetuated and facilitated by politicians, esp because Chinese had no political clout
- even though Chinese were 0.002% of US population, mostly in the West, this issue became a national one
35
Q
Workingmen’s Party
A
- CA
- formed in 1877 by Dennis Kearney
- slogan: “The Chinese Must Go!”
- opposed monopoly, corruption, big capital, and the Chinese
- accused Chinese of stealing jobs and advocated for ban on immigration
- incited riots, held rallies, etc.
- Chinese are indispensable enemy for white working class to unify under
