The Chinese must go
Subtitle: violence, exclusion, and the making of the alien in America
By: Beth Lew-Williams
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 2018
Language: eng
Number of pages: 349
ISBN-13: 9780674976016
Copyright date: 2018
Subjects: Violence against; Chinese; Aliens; Race relations; Border security; Race discrimination; Emigration and immigration law; History
Description: In 1882, the United States launched an unprecedented experiment in federal border control--which promptly failed. The Chinese Must Go examines this formative moment when America's lackluster attempt to bar Chinese workers provoked a wave of anti-Chinese violence across the U.S. West. In 1885 and 1886, white vigilantes in over 150 communities used intimidation, harassment, bombs, arson, assault, and murder to drive out their Chinese neighbors. This little-known outbreak of racial violence had profound consequences. Displacing tens of thousands of Chinese immigrants, the expulsions reshaped America's racial geography. In response, the federal government not only overhauled U.S. immigration law, but also transformed its diplomatic relations with China. The Chinese Must Go recasts the history of Chinese exclusion and its importance for modern America. During a period better known for the invention of the modern citizen, the Chinese in America defined what it meant to be an alien. The significance of the "heathen Chinaman" on American law and society far outlived him.--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: The violence of exclusion; title: Part I. Restriction. The Chinese question; title: Experiments in restriction; title: Part II. Violence. The banished; title: The people; title: The loyal; title: Part III. Exclusion. The exclusion consensus; title: Afterlives under exclusion; title: Epilogue: The modern American alien.