<i>Chinese Americans and the Politics of Race and Culture</i> (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Chinese Americans and the Politics of Race and Culture Min Zhou Chinese Americans and the Politics of Race and Culture. Edited by Sucheng CHANMadeline Y. HSU. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2008. Pp. xx, 266. History and historiography have been central in the emerging field of Chinese American studies. This anthology, edited by Sucheng Chan and Madeline Hsu, uses a cultural history framework that weaves together personal narratives, family histories, case studies, and event analyses to show the lives of Chinese Americans “in more complex, intricate, and intriguing ways” (p. xvi). Sucheng Chan’s introductory chapter offers an excellent and comprehensive literature review to demonstrate the synergy in Chinese American history and historiography. Chan identifies five periods of Chinese American historiography: partisan writings between the 1850s and the early 1920s, social science studies in the mid-1920s to the 1960s, works by Asian American and European American scholars in the late 1960s to the early 1980s, works by university-based historians between the mid-1980s and the early 1990s, and cultural histories since the late 1990s. Chan focuses on three genres in the works of the pre-Asian American Movement — partisan tracts, social science studies, and Chinatown “guides” or exposés (p. 2). She plows widely and digs deeply into the field of Chinese American studies, not merely showing readers what has been done but also paying attention to the legacy of the Asian American Movement and raising profound issues of great theoretical import and practical significance. As always, Chan takes issue with two prevailing perspectives — that of victims being exploited in the United States and that of agents and decision makers capable of making sensible choices that shape their lives. Her actor-oriented approach shows how individuals make history and initiate adaptive responses to the social, economic, and political milieu in which they find themselves. Her passionate and extraordinary commitment to building and defending Chinese American studies and Asian American studies is remarkable. I cannot think of another scholar of Chinese American studies who covers such a broad range of topics, and who always successfully connects the human dimension to the key philosophical and social science concerns. Chan’s introduction is without a doubt a useful guide to the vast literature on Chinese American history and historiography. The anthology consists of seven chapters arranged in chronological order. The chapter by Mae Ngai, “History as Law and Life,” tells the story of a Chinese immigrant family from the late 19th to early 20th century. Ngai questions the canonical assumption that all immigrants necessarily follow a general path of Americanization, socioeconomic mobility, and political inclusion. She points to [End Page 294] the limits of the democratic-political culture in the incorporation of immigrants and argues that the trajectories of exclusion and inclusion are closely entwined. Through her analysis of an 1885 civil rights case, Tape v. Hurley, in which the California Supreme Court ruled that Chinese children could not be excluded from public schools, Ngai demonstrates how the two trajectories converged in a process of ethnic middle-class formation as the legal status of the Chinese in America was being adjudicated in court. The Tape family was an example of the emerging brokering class of the time. Members of this brokering class, serving as transportation agents, immigration-bonds brokers, labor contractors, and language interpreters, were both liminal and powerful figures. Because they were bilingual and bicultural, they were needed and distrusted by both the Chinese and the Europeans. Indispensable for the resettlement and protection of the immigrant laboring classes, they promoted incorporation while simultaneously invested in the exclusion of the immigrants as a means of achieving wealth and social status. Ultimately the brokers’ involvement in illegal immigration and their advocacy for civil rights were an integral part of their struggle for survival and advancement. The chapter illustrates how immigration and exclusion created a site for wealth accumulation and social status attainment and how the entwined processes of inclusion and exclusion produced constraints for some and opportunities for others within the Chinese American community. Josephine Fowler’s chapter, “The Activism of Left-Wing and Communist Chinese Immigrants, 1927–1933,” builds on Him Mark Lai’s study of activism among...