Eurocentric Perception of Asian-ness in 1870s American Frontier Melodrama

Abstract

In the second half of the nineteenth century, many East Asians traveled to the United States for various reasons. To Euro-Americans they were regarded as unfamiliar and strange. Due to economic reasons pertaining to the growing number of East Asian immigrants, the American print media invented degrading stereotypes that eventually became standard characters in the frontier melodramas of the 1870s American Theatre. This study examines three stereotypes of East Asian people and their application in four frontier melodramas that were written by prominent authors of the time: Two Men of Sandy Bar (1876) by Bret Harte, Ah Sin (1877) by Bret Harte and Mark Twain, The Danites in the Sierras (1877) by Joaquin Miller, and My Partner by Bartley Campbell (1879). By highlighting examples of how these playwrights reinforced attitudes of prejudice toward Asians in that time period, this study provides a contribution to the understanding of the long history of racism in the United States and the power of the performing arts to strengthen or weaken an ideology.