A Quantitative Discourse Analysis of A sian Workers in the US Historical Newspapers (2023)

Abstract: The digitization of historical texts invites researchers to explore the large-scale corpus of historical texts with computational methods. In this study, we present computational text analysis on a relatively understudied topic of how Asian workers are represented in historical newspapers in the United States. We found that the word “coolie” was semantically different in some States (e.g., Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Wyoming, Oklahoma, and Arkansas) with the different discourses around coolie. We also found that then-Confederate newspapers and then-Union newspapers formed distinctive discourses by measuring over-represented words. Newspapers from then-Confederate States associated coolie with slavery-related words. In addition, we found Asians were perceived to be inferior to European immigrants and subjected to the target of racism. This study contributes to supplementing the qualitative analysis of racism in the United States with quantitative discourse analysis.

## introduction digitization of historical texts has opened up new opportunities for researchers to explore a largescale corpus of historical texts with computational methods. especially, the ready availability of datasets required for natural language processing (nlp) research has welcomed researchers from other disciplines to nlp research @xcite and reduced the barriers to entry of nlp research. taking this advantage, many researchers in diverse field, namely sociology, history, english, and information science have applied nlp techniques to historical texts, such as books @xcite , newspapers @xcite @xcite , and/or congressional records @xcite by the help of available archival metadata @xcite . creating an interdisciplinary research space called digital humanities, there have been studies primarily focusing on the race problem in the united states. to introduce a few large-scale computational research, @xcite traced the semantic change of the word, for instance, when and which newspaper started to use the word with a new meaning and when and which newspapers adopted new semantic meaning of the word in abolitionist newspapers from the 19th century. @xcite analyzed racial violence, especially lynching performed by the white mob in the 19th century georgia and presented quantitative narratives of the racial violence. these studies intersect the problem of historical racism and nlp research. however, despite the increasing attention toward the large scale text analysis on historical racism, there has been a gap of understanding the racism posed toward asians in the united states. it is true that the major racial tension in the united states has been between white and black. at the center of secession of the south and the creation of confederacy, there was slavery problem. however, the racial tension between white and asian has also been a part of the history of the united states. to explore understudied topic of how asian population was discriminated in the history of the united states, we present computational text analysis on how asian workers are represented in the u.s. newspapers by searching the derogatory word ("coolie") referencing to asian workers. we further developed research questions as follows: to support open science and transparent data science, we publish the code used in this study at https://github.com/park-jay/coolie . ## background throughout 19th and 20th century, asian immigrant workers were derogatorily called "coolies." britannica entry on "coolie" introduces the word as "pejorative european usage" to describe "an unskilled labourer or porter usually in or from the far east hired for low or subsistence wages." 1 breman and daniel (1992) studied the origin of the word "coolie" and claimed the transformation of the word "coolie" from "kuli" (a type of payment for menial work in tamil) signifies the change of the word from a neutral term to a derogatory term and reflects the person collapse into the payment for labor in english. in seeking to fill the labor shortage in the united states due to the abolition, chinese workers were recruited and the migration of chinese workers arrived in the united states beyond chinaneighboring countries like india and malaysia @xcite ). even though asian coolies were perceived to be patient, tractable, obedient, industrious, and frugal compared to african slaves @xcite , coolies were distrusted, detested, and discriminated @xcite . with influx in the number of chinese workers in the united states, it has come to public's attention that indentured laborers were analogous to modern trafficking and they are no different from slavery @xcite . @xcite argued that the united states minister to china, william b. reed viewed coolie trade more than coercion and perceived the coolie problem with the racial and national interest. reed thought chinese "would either amalgamate with with the negro race, and thus increase the actual slave population." rising anti-chinese sentiment and perceiving as a threat to white workers as their cheap replacement @xcite and inferior, chinese exclusion act of 1882 remarks the watershed of america's gatekeeping and defining the desirability (and "whiteness") of immigrant groups @xcite . the problem of coolie exemplifies the extension of colonial and capitalist exploitation beyond africa and sugarcoated the extended system as indentured migrant contract workers (van rossum, 1 https://www.britannica.com/money/topic/ coolie-asian-labourer 2016). therefore, studying coolie problem in the united states context supplements the historical study of racial tension mostly focused between white and black and extends the racial conflict to include asian population. ## conclusion in this study, we present a quantitative discourse analysis on "coolie," a derogatory term referencing to asian workers which has been understudied in digital humanities field. we used word embedding to compare the meaning of "coolie" in each state and found that massachusetts, rhode island, wyoming, oklahoma, and arkansas showed the most dissimilar meaning of the word "coolie" while illinois, california, wisconsin, virginia, and nevada showed the most similar meaning of the word "coolie" compared to the rest of the states. we found the reason for the dissimilar meaning of the word "coolie" in massachusetts and rhode island could be in part due to the unique discourse created by uncommon words. with log-odds ratio calculation, we found that the discourse of coolie in the then-confederate newspapers was accompanied by the words related to african american slavery as well as where the work force is the most needed (e.g., "cotton" and "plantation"). this finding supplements historical argument that asian workers were introduced to the united states to replace african american labor. with text reuse detection, we found discriminating expression toward asian workers in political statement and poems that could show stereotype of asian workers in the united states history.