African Americans And America’s Chinese Exclusion In The Late Nineteenth And Early Twentieth Century

Enticed by the prospect of getting rich quickly,Chinese fortune-seekers began to arrive in California on a large scale in 1849.Thus started the history of massive Chinese immigration to the United States.While in America,the Chinese involved themselves in a variety of occupations: gold digging,restaurant,laundry,railroad construction,and manufacturing industries,among many others.When they came into increasingly tense competition with locals for limited job opportunities,Americans’ initial welcome gradually gave way to persistent hostility.Fanned by politicians who coveted Western votes,this anti-Chinese sentiment became daily fiercer until it was finally codified in the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.From then onward,the United States banned the immigration of Chinese laborers.After several reinforcements,the exclusion policy turned permanent in 1902.Though it was not until 1943,when China was already an ally of the United States,that Congress eventually abolished the notorious law,this thesis focuses on the stage between 1849 and 1902.Chinese exclusion and agitations for it did not simply concern the relationship between Chinese immigrants and white Americans.Rather,they involved all the racial groups in the United States.However,since whites were the most vocal opponents of Chinese immigration,scholars have paid disproportionately big attention to their discrimination against the Chinese.The academe has thus inadvertently ignored the relations between the Chinese and nonwhites in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.The black-Chinese connection is just one understudied area.Admittedly,there are researches on this subject.But they either highlight blacks’ denigration of the Chinese or stress their compassion to the latter.What they fail to realize is that blacks did not treat the Chinese in a particular way purely to demonstrate their liking or lack of it for Chinese immigrants.In fact,blacks purported both attitudes to help articulate their identity as true Americans and to winthe recognition of the society at large.To elaborate this argument,I divide the body of the thesis into three major chapters.Chapter I establishes the background for blacks’ seemingly contradictory attitudes toward the Chinese.Whites scorned both groups.And the Chinese came much later than African Americans.When Chinese immigrants arrived,America already had a negro problem.Therefore,whenever whites wished to foreground the undesirability of a racial group,they would more often than not negroize the latter.Such a practice compelled African Americans to deliberately distance themselves from the group under negroization.But at the same time,they retained an inherent sympathy toward that group.Chapter II analyzes the first aspect of African Americans’ response: antipathy to the Chinese.In order to show their own Americanness,blacks took much care to emphasize their difference from the Chinese.They thought that they were Christian and civilized whereas the Chinese,uncivilized and unassimilable.It follows that they themselves were genuine Americans,not to be conflated with Chinese aliens.Whites’ negroization was therefore unwarranted.Though blacks did disparage Chinese immigrants in the process,their essential purpose was to delegitimate the likening of the Chinese to themselves.Turning to the other side of the coin,Chapter III addresses blacks’ affinity for the Chinese.Granted that some of them did not desire a close association with Chinese immigrants,some others still considered it necessary to condemn American prejudices against the latter.In their view,all racial groups should be equal and enjoy the same rights in America.The Chinese constituted no exception.This perception had its partial origin in the Christian faith that blacks held dear.But more importantly,it originated from blacks’ sense of being Americans.After all,America had announced to the entire world its intention to be the refuge for all suffering peoples.Blacks’ compassion to and even support for the Chinese mirrored this consciousness.Hence,regardless of the contradiction between blacks’ two divergent attitudestoward the Chinese,they were actually united in their motivation to prove their own Americanness.In this sense,blacks’ reaction to Chinese immigration was an important component of their maneuver for recognition as true Americans and for full citizenship rights.But scholars have so far overlooked the implication of these attitudes for blacks’ civil identity in the United States.