Alas! What Brought Thee Hither?
Subtitle: The Chinese in New York 1800-1950
Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press
Published: December 1996
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 203
ISBN-13: 9780838637043
Subjects: Ethnic studies; Ethnography; History of specific racial & ethnic groups; Local history; Population & demography; United States - State & Local - General; New York; Asians In The U.S.; New York - Local History; Sociology; History: American; USA; New York (State); General; Chinese Americans; Chinatown (New York, N.Y.); History; Social conditions
Description: This study recovers the history of immigrants who left scant records of their struggle to survive in a society in which the Chinese were reviled as dangerous, opium-soaked, and unassimilable. It is based on about 3,000 contemporary newspaper and magazine articles that reflect the prejudices of the times, a major element shaping the history of the Chinese in New York.

More than 170 illustrations from newspapers and magazines of the time recapture the stereotyping that justified ghettoization and denial of employment opportunities.