New York before Chinatown
Subtitle: Orientalism and the Shaping of American Culture, 1776-1882
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: August 2, 1999
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 416
ISBN-13: 9780801860065
Subjects: American history: c 1500 to c 1800; American history: c 1800 to c 1900; Cultural studies; Ethnic studies; Public opinion & polls; Social history; c 1700 to c 1800; c 1800 to c 1900; History: American; Asians In The U.S; History; Sociology; Public Opinion; USA; Minority Studies - Ethnic American; United States - General; History / United States / General; New York City; 18th century; 19th century; China; Foreign public opinion, American; New York; New York (State)
First sentence: ON THE EVENING OF JULY 9, 1776, impassioned New York citizens and Continental soldiers pulled down the two-thousand-pound gilded statue of King George III on Bowling Green, breaking off its head and mutilating its nose.
Description: "From George Washington's desire (in the heat of the Revolutionary War) for a proper set of Chinese porcelains for afternoon tea, to the lives of Chinese-Irish couples in the 1830s, to the commercial success of Chang and Eng (the "Siamese Twins"), to rising fears of "heathen Chinee," New York before Chinatown offers a provocative look at the role Chinese people, things, and ideas played in the fashioning of American culture and politics." "Piecing together various historical fragments and anecdotes from the years before Chinatown emerged in the late 1870s, historian John Kuo Wei Tchen redraws Manhattan's historical landscape and broadens our understanding of the role of port cultures in the making of American identities."--Jacket.