Synopses & Reviews
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. Tchen tells his story in three parts. In the first, he explores America's fascination with Asia as a source of luxury items, cultural taste, and lucrative trade. In the second, he explains how Chinese, European-Americans in Yellowface, and various caricatures became objects of curiosity in the expansive commercial marketplace. In the third part, Tchen focuses on how Americans' attitude toward the Chinese changed from fascination to demonization, leading to the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Acts beginning in 1882.
Synopsis
In tracing Chinese influence on American cultural identity in the years prior to the emergence of Manhattan's Chinatown in the late 1870s, Tchen (Asian/Pacific/American studies and history, New York U.) explores US fascination with Asia, the marketing of Chinese as exotic curiosities, and demonization culminating in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Illustrations highlight the tea and porcelain trade, New York port culture, stereotypes, and anxieties over "the Chinese invasion".
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [347]-373) and index.