The Chinatown trunk mystery
Subtitle: murder, miscegenation, and other dangerous encounters in turn-of-the-century New York City
By: Mary Ting Yi Lui.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2005
Place of publication: Princeton, NJ
Language: eng
Number of pages: 298
Subjects: Immigrants -- New York (State) -- New York -- Public opinion; Chinese -- New York (State) -- New York -- Public opinion; Interracial dating -- New York (State) -- New York -- Public opinion; Murder -- New York (State) -- New York -- Case studies; United States -- Emigration and immigration -- Government policy
Genres: Case studies.
Description: "In the summer of 1909, the gruesome murder of nineteen-year-old Elsie Sigel sent shock waves through New York City and the nation at large. The young woman's strangled corpse was discovered inside a trunk in the midtown Manhattan apartment of her reputed former Sunday school student and lover, a Chinese man named Leon Ling." "Through the lens of this unsolved murder, Mary Ting Yi Lui offers a fascinating snapshot of social and sexual relations between Chinese and non-Chinese populations in turn-of-the-century New York City. Sigel's murder was more than a notorious crime, Lui contends. It was a clear signal that attempts to maintain geographical and social boundaries between the city's Chinese male and white female populations had failed."

"Through her thorough re-examination of this notorious murder, Lui reveals in unprecedented detail how contemporary politics of race, gender, and sexuality shaped public responses to the presence of Chinese immigrants during the Chinese exclusion era."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.