Transpacific Cartographies: Narrating the Contemporary Chinese Diaspora in the United States, written by Melody Yunzi Li

In 2009, President Obama signed an Executive Order calling for strategies to improve the health of Asian Americans and to seek data on the health disparities in Asian American subgroups.1 Data on Asian American subgroups are scarce and many health disparities remain unknown. The purpose of this Advisory is to highlight the gaps in existing research on cardiovascular disease (CVD) among Asian Americans, and to serve as a call to action on behalf of the American Heart Association to address these areas of need. Asian Americans are the fastest growing racial/ethnic group in the United States, representing 25% of all foreign-born people in the United States.2 They are projected to reach nearly 34 million by 2050.3 Several major Federal surveys (eg, the American Community Survey, the National Health Interview Survey, and the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey) only recently started to classify Asian Americans into 7 subgroups: Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Other Asian. The first six of these subgroups together constitute >90% of Asian Americans in the United States.4 Although some data are available on Asian subgroups from these major federal surveys, in general, these data are not available for public use because of the privacy concerns resulting from the small sample sizes within subgroups. This situation limits their utility for health-related research. Because health surveys and questionnaires almost universally combine persons of Asian ancestry into a single group, the heterogeneity within this classification is masked. Socioeconomic and cultural factors have been found to be associated with CVD and its risk factors, which is why it is important to understand these differences among Asian subgroups. The Table shows the number of persons in each group based on the most recent US Census data available (American Community Survey, 2008), with the recognition that …

Between Two Worlds: Chinese Immigrant Children and the Production of Knowledge in the Era of Chinese Exclusion

The Reconstruction of the Image of Chinese Female Immigrants in Full Moon in New York, Siao Yu, and Finding Mr. Right Kaby Wing-Sze Kung This article explores the changing cinematic images of Chinese women immigrants in the United States, focusing on three films by directors from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, respectively, in order to demonstrate ways in which contemporary transnational Chinese cinema introduces alternatives to established stereotypes. Full Moon in New York (1989) by Stanley Kwan (關錦鵬), Siao Yu (1995) by Sylvia Chang (張艾嘉), and Finding Mr. Right (2013) by Xiaolu Xue (薛曉璐) all illustrate how the social, political, and economic changes that have taken place in China since the 1980s have inspired contemporary Chinese filmmakers to construct new images of Chinese female immigrants. The new transnational Chinese cinema develops female characters who are more complex than the stereotypical images of the Lotus Blossom or the Dragon Lady (Tajima 309), and introduces elements of Chinese culture that are less known to Western viewers. To this end, the characters may represent stronger traditional views, as in Kwan's film; may adapt multicultural traits, as in Chang's film; or may be American Dreamers, as in Xue's comedy. In the early history of Chinese immigrants in the United States, Chinese women were stereotyped as "exotic curios, sexual slaves, drudges, or passive victims" (Yung 3). Based on these stereotypes, most Hollywood films portrayed Chinese women in a derogatory manner. In "Lotus Blossoms Don't Bleed: Images of Asian Women," Renee Tajima states that "Asian women in film are, for the most part, passive figures who exist to serve men, especially as love interests for white men (Lotus Blossoms) or as partners in crime with men of their own kind (Dragon Ladies)" (309). In light of this, the images of Asian women in American cinema could be confined to two types: "the Lotus Blossom (also known as China Doll, Geisha Girl, shy Polynesian beauty), and the Dragon Lady (Fu Manta's various female relations, prostitutes, devious madames)" (309). One prominent example of a Lotus Blossom is featured in the aptly [End Page 424] named film Lotus Blossom (1921), starring Lady Tsen Mei, while one famous example of a Dragon Lady is Anna May Wong's character in Thief of Baghdad (1924) (Tajima 309). Owing to deep-rooted prejudice, many influential forms of Western popular culture have marginalized Asian women (Uchida 167); in order to create new images of Chinese immigrants, the three directors discussed here use Self-Orientalism to deconstruct traditional Western stereotypes and then reconstruct images of Chinese women immigrants by focusing on depicting their female characters' personal frustrations and struggles while living in the United States. Although the three directors are from different Chinese locales and depict different types of problems that Chinese immigrants in America face in different eras, they all focus on female immigrants' struggles for survival in their new milieu. They depict Chinese female immigrants as powerless, with no choice but to stay in America. In light of this, comparison of these three films reveals different facets of the images of Chinese female immigrants. Xiaolu Xue, from China, Sylvia Chang, from Taiwan, and Stanley Kwan, from Hong Kong, each bring distinct backgrounds, idiosyncratic ideas, and particular filmic techniques to the depiction of Chinese immigrants to the United States. Each film also presents the experiences of Chinese female immigrants in a different historical period: Full Moon in New York is set in the 1980s, Siao Yu was filmed in the 1990s, and Finding Mr. Right was made in the 2010s. Stanley Kwan's Full Moon in New York tells the story of three Chinese women in New York. Zhao Hong (Siqin Gaowa) who is from mainland China, has just married Thomas, an American-born Chinese man, and is trying to adjust to her new American lifestyle. However, she is not completely content, as she longs to bring her mother to America. Li Feng Jiao (Maggie Cheung) is from Hong Kong and is burdened with managing a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown, working as a real estate agent, and confronting her homosexuality. Wang Hsiung Ping (Sylvia Chang), an actress from Taiwan, attends multiple auditions for stage performances without much success. The...

Reviewed by: Chinese Immigrants, African Americans, and Racial Anxiety in the United States, 1848–1882 Arnoldo De León Chinese Immigrants, African Americans, and Racial Anxiety in the United States, 1848– 1882. By Najia Aarim-Heriot. (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2006. Pp. 312. Foreword, acknowledgments, illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 0252073517. $25.00, paper.) Until very recently, historians treated Chinese immigration to the United States as an experience distinct from that of European groups. Similarly, they attributed attitudes toward the Chinese as rooted in forces unique to the western United States, namely labor competition. Najia Aarim-Heriot takes such older understandings to task, exploring instead the links between racism toward African Americans and the Chinese, and noting similarities between Asian and European immigration. Chinese Immigrants, African Americans, and Racial Anxiety in the United States, 1848–1882, has many purposes. It seeks to integrate the Chinese experience into the scholarship of U.S. immigration; determine the causes behind efforts to ban immigration from China; rebut the standard interpretation that attributes Chinese exclusion to labor competition; place apprehensions about the Chinese presence in the West within the context of Reconstruction politics and other national currents; and to show proof that labor, politicians, the courts, and U.S. presidents all account for the anti-Chinese movement that culminated in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. With such purposes in mind, Aarim-Heriot focuses on post–Civil War movements that deprived blacks of rights, finding a similar campaign unfolding against the Chinese living in the American West. Numerous debates occurred during Reconstruction, according to the author, regarding the place of African Americans and the Chinese within the American political and social milieu. Then, when Radical Republicans moved away from their commitment to insure African American rights, the lot of the Chinese suffered concurrently. Anti-Chinese attitudes nationally became increasingly hostile after Redemption occurred in the South during 1870s, Aarim-Heriot observes, and such attitudes culminated in the contentious debates of the era that produced the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. The book is persuasive in its thesis that the Chinese became victims of "Negroization" and that American immigration policy toward the Chinese rested on racist ideology grounded in antiblack attitudes. It is equally convincing in arguing that it was a national movementand not solely the reaction of labor groups in the Westthat accounts for the virulent treatment of the Chinese in the West and the prohibition placed on their immigration to U.S. shores. It is obvious, furthermore, that the later immigration policies adopted by the United States toward European immigrants had their origins in the Chinese exclusion campaigns. Many of the earlier explanations regarding Chinese American history consequently lose credibility under the weight of Aarim-Heriot's research. So falters the understanding that Chinese immigration policy was disconnected from the one applied to Europeans. Arnoldo De León Angelo State University Copyright © 2007 The Texas State Historical Association

Nearly sixty years ago, Henry R. Luce envisioned that the twentieth century was first century as a dominant power in the world.(1) His famous vision of American Century showed America's commitment to exert upon the whole world the full impact of American influence. At century's end, it seems appropriate to assess how the United States attempted to exert its influence, particularly to spread American-style freedom and democracy in its foreign policy and to evaluate its relations with East Asia, particularly with China over the last one hundred years. To begin thinking about America's engagement with China historically, World War II provided a special stage for an American image of an American-oriented China. Because of the war, the United States came to embrace a vision of a strong and independent China emerging in postwar Asia. How did this new vision emerge in the American imagination, and how did it affect America's East Asian policy? This essay examines how the United States transformed its China policy to promote China as an equal state in international relations during World War II. In particular, it focuses on the repeal of racially discriminatory legislation against the Chinese in 1943. By examining the process of repeal, we can see that the abolition of the discriminatory laws against the Chinese not only marked a historic turning point in America's China policy in wartime, but also had a great impact on the transformation of America's East Asian policy in the postwar period. Formation of Chinese Exclusion Policy The first Asian immigrants to enter the United States were Chinese, lured to California by the Gold Rush of 1848. By 1850 there were over 20,000 Chinese immigrants in the United States, most of them in California. Railroad construction in the United States during the 1860s further accelerated the influx of Chinese laborers. There were 63,199 Chinese in the United States in 1870. Ten years later there were 105,465 Chinese in America, over ninety percent of who settled on the Pacific Coast.(2) As the number of Chinese increased, however, Caucasian workers in California began to resent Chinese laborers. The Chinese were considered culturally and racially inferior and a threat to wage levels and working conditions. By the mid-1870s, the completion of the transcontinental railroad, the growth of the white labor force in the West, and the nationwide economic depression all encouraged white working men to turn against the Chinese. With the development of anti-Chinese sentiment in the Pacific states, especially in California, on May 6, 1882, the U.S. Congress enacted a bill prohibiting Chinese immigrants from entering the United States.(3) The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was the first racially restrictive immigration law in American history.(4) The emergence of this discriminatory legislation initiated a gradual process of immigration restriction based on race. The enactment of this legislation marked the end of the free immigration era in American history. This discriminatory law not only had long-term repercussions for America's relations with China, but also affected overall immigration policy and internal politics. On the other hand, it can also be considered as merely the first step in the growth of anti-Asiatic legislation. Following enactment of this law, Asian immigration became a constant target of American nativism and racism. Subsequently, the Immigration Act of 1924 stopped the flow of immigrants from Asia into the United States. Emergence of the Sino-American Alliance On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked on Pearl Harbor. That sudden attack led directly to a reversal of America's anti-Chinese immigration policy. The day after the attack, the United States together with China declared war on Japan, and the two countries became allies immediately. The special wartime alliance between China and the United States initiated a far-reaching transformation in America's East Asian policy, especially its China policy. …

The majority of Chinese Americans is foreign-born, and it is well-documented that immigration to the United States (US) leads to increased risk for chronic diseases including type 2 diabetes. Increased disease risk has been attributed to changes in lifestyle behaviors following immigration, but few studies have considered the psychosocial impact of immigration upon biomarkers of disease risk. To examine associations of psychological stress and social isolation with markers of type 2 diabetes risk over time among US Chinese immigrants. In this longitudinal study of 614 Chinese immigrants, participants completed assessments of perceived stress, acculturative stress, negative life events, and social isolation annually at three time points. Fasting blood samples were obtained at each time point to measure blood glucose, glycated hemoglobin, and insulin resistance. Mean duration between baseline and follow-up assessments was approximately 2 years. Increases in migration-related stress, perceived stress and social isolation were associated with significant increases in fasting glucose at follow-up independent of age, body mass index, length of US residence, and other potential covariates. Moreover, increases in glucose varied depending on perceived stress levels at baseline, such that those with higher baseline stress had a steeper increase in glucose over time. Psychological stress and social isolation are associated with increases in fasting glucose in a sample of US Chinese immigrants. Findings suggest that the unique experiences of immigration may be involved in the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, a condition that is prevalent among US Chinese despite relatively low rates of obesity.

This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History. Please check back later for the full article. Mexican immigration to the United States is a topic of particular interest at this moment for a number of political reasons. First, and probably foremost, Mexicans are currently the single largest group of foreign-born residents in the country. In 2013, the United States counted 41.3 million individuals of foreign birth; 28 percent, or 11.6 million, were Mexican. If census data are aggregated more broadly, adding together the foreign-born and persons of Mexican ancestry who are citizens, the number totals 31.8 million in 2010, or roughly 10 percent of the country’s total population of 308.7 million. What has nativists and those eager to restrict immigration particularly concerned is that the Mexican origin population has been growing rapidly, by 54 percent between the 2000 and 2010 censuses, or from 11.2 million to 31.8 million persons. This pace of growth has slowed, but not enough to calm racial and xenophobic fears of the citizenry fearful of foreigners and terrorists. Mexican immigration to the United States officially began in 1846 and has continued into the present without any significant period of interruption, also making it quite distinct. The immigration histories of national groups that originated in Asia, Africa, and Europe are much more varied in trajectory and timing. They usually began with massive movements, driven by famine, political strife or burgeoning economic opportunities in the United States, and then slowed, tapered off, or ended abruptly, as was the case with Chinese immigration from 1850 to 2015. This fact helps explain why Mexico has been the single largest source of immigrants in the United States for the longest period of time. The geographic proximity between the two countries, compounded by profound economic disparities, has continuously attracted Mexican immigrants, facilitated by a border that is rather porous and that has been poorly patrolled for much of the 20th century. The United States and Mexico are divided by a border that begins at the Pacific Ocean, at the twin cities of San Diego, California and Tijuana, Baja California. The border moves eastward until it reaches the Rio Grande at El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Júarez, Chihuahua. From there the border follows the river’s flow in a southeastern direction, until its mouth empties into the Gulf of Mexico where Brownsville, Texas and Matamoros, Tamaulipas sit. This expanse of over 1,945 miles is poorly marked. In many places, only old concrete markers, sagging, dry-rotted fence posts with rusted barbed wire, and a river that has continually changed its course, mark the separation between these two sovereign national spaces. Since 1924, when the U.S. Border Patrol was created mainly to prohibit the unauthorized entry of Chinese immigrants, not Mexicans, American attempts to effectively regulate entries and exits has been concentrated only along known, highly trafficked routes that lead north. The inability of the United States to patrol the entire length of its border with Mexico has meant that any Mexican eager to work or live in the United States has rarely found the border an insurmountable obstacle, and if they have encountered it temporarily so, they have simply hired expensive professional smugglers (known as coyotes) to maximize safe passage into the United States without border inspection or official authorization. In 2014, there were approximately 11.3 million such unauthorized immigrants in the United States; 49 percent, or 5.6 million of them were Mexican. Over the long course of history Mexican immigration is best characterized as the movement of unskilled workers toiling in agriculture, railroad construction, and mineral extraction; for the last two decades, they have worked in construction and service industries as well. This labor migration has evolved through five distinct phases, each marked by its own logic, demands, and governance.

ABSTRACTCoronaviruses are known to infect humans and other animals and cause respiratory and gastrointestinal diseases. Here we report the emergence of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) in the United States and determination of its origin, evolution, and genotypes based on temporal and geographical evidence. Histological lesions in small intestine sections of affected pigs and the complete genomic sequences of three emergent strains of PEDV isolated from outbreaks in Minnesota and Iowa were characterized. Genetic and phylogenetic analyses of the three U.S. strains revealed a close relationship with Chinese PEDV strains and their likely Chinese origin. The U.S. PEDV strains underwent evolutionary divergence, which can be classified into two sublineages. The three emergent U.S. strains are most closely related to a strain isolated in 2012 from Anhui Province in China, which might be the result of multiple recombination events between different genetic lineages or sublineages of PEDV. Molecular clock analysis of the divergent time based on the complete genomic sequences is consistent with the actual time difference, approximately 2 to 3 years, of the PED outbreaks between China (December 2010) and the United States (May 2013). The finding that the emergent U.S. PEDV strains share unique genetic features at the 5′-untranslated region with a bat coronavirus provided further support of the evolutionary origin of PEDV from bats and potential cross-species transmission. The data from this study have important implications for understanding the ongoing PEDV outbreaks in the United States and will guide future efforts to develop effective preventive and control measures against PEDV.

When considering the process of urbanization in nineteenth century America, classroom teachers often focus their attention on the immigrants and natives of the United States' eastern cities. The purpose of this lesson plan is to redirect that focus by enabling teachers and students to look beyond the Mississippi River and learn about the experiences of an immigrant group who settled originally in the American West. As early as the 1840s, Chinese immigrants came to California looking for gold. During the following three decades, thousands of Chinese men emigrated from China to the United States and worked in agricultural, fishing, retail and manufacturing indus tries. Like other immigrant groups, the Chinese worked long hours for low wages. Unlike many other groups however, the Chinese suffered from the additional burden of racial discrimina tion, which took many forms. The Chinese were barred from applying for U.S. Citizenship. State and city lawmakers in California passed taxes and ordinances specifically aimed against the Chinese. And Chinese immigrants throughout the West were beaten, robbed, and lynched by whites in cities and towns (1). Like many other groups, the Chinese in the United States formed their own communities in urban areas. In part, they did so because they were not welcome elsewhere; it was a means of maintaining their own culture. By the 1870s the of San Francisco was an established community. It served as a port of entry for many of the 132,000 Chinese who had come to the United States by 1880 and as a temporary or permanent home for most of the 23,000 Chinese in San Francisco. Most of the immigrants and inhabitants of Chinatown were men who had come to the United States to earn money, which they sent back to China. Almost all planned to return to their homeland. After years of pressure by labor unions and west coast politi cians, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) which prohibited the immigration of Chinese laborers for ten years. The law was extended in 1892 and again for an indefinite period in 1902. The law had an effect on the population of the Chinese community: in 1880, the Chinese population in the United States totaled 105,465; by 1900, it had dropped to 90,000; and by 1920, the Chinese population in the United States was 61,639 (2). Throughout these years, however, San Francisco's China town provided a hub of intellectual and social life for the Chinese. As a way to maintain their cultural identities and to prepare their children for their eventual return to China, Chinese merchant families sent their sons to Chinese-language schools. Here, they learned Chinese language, history, classics and poetry. In the late 1800s, a number of literary societies emerged where men would read poems they had written on selected topics. The literary societies often sponsored poetry and prose competitions to which Chinese and Chinese-American men who lived throughout the United States and Canada submitted their poems (3).

In the 1970s, Taiwan, officially known as the Republic of China (ROC),suffered a series of diplomatic setbacks. Nixon’s visit to Beijing in 1972 preluded the normalization between the United States (US) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), as well as the estrangement between the Republic of China (ROC)and the US. A year before, Taiwan was forced to withdraw from the United Nations (UN). Many countries then ceased to cooperate with Taiwan and turned to the PRC. This made Taiwan the “Orphan of Asia”. To survive and prevent further isolation, Taiwan rallied support from the international community, especially the US, its old ally. It strengthened propaganda in the US and attempted to build a prosperous and democratic image of itself. It sought to appeal to the American public. This thesis investigates Taiwan’s propaganda activities in the US and explores how the Kuomintang (KMT) government built a favorable image of Taiwan during the 1970s.
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\nThe most notable propaganda organization of the ROC was the Government Information Office (GIO). The GIO’s overseas branch in New York, the Chinese Information Service, launched propaganda campaigns in the US through organizing political, economic and cultural activities. Although the GIO was centrally responsible for propaganda, the execution of the campaigns was a product of collaboration between various government organizations. This thesis analyzes the GIO’s responsibilities within this network of collaboration.
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\n The thesis then explores the variety of Taiwan’s propaganda strategies. The KMT tried very hard to solicit support from different sectors in the US. They appealed to the general public by launching advertising campaigns, cultural exhibitions and art performances. Apart from the general public, they also targeted reporters, members of Congress and scholars by offering material benefits including free trips to Taiwan and academic funding. Several public relation firms were also hired to publicize Taiwan in the US media. Some of these publicity campaigns were even illegal.
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\nThe overseas Chinese formed a large constituent to the Taiwan government’s propaganda efforts. However, the overseas Chinese were not a singular group of people and recognizing this, the GIO tailored their campaigns accordingly. Taiwan wooed Chinatown leaders by giving them financial benefits and educated Chinatown residents through controlling the Chinese media and Chinese language schools. Meanwhile, the KMT threatened and punished Taiwan Independence Movement supporters in American universities. They also made attempts to re-educate these supporters and their families in and out of Taiwan. Through these activities, Taiwan hoped to create an illusion that the KMT supporters were not limited to people in Taiwan, but included the majority of Chinese around the world. By examining Taiwan’s propaganda organizations and strategies in the 1970s, the thesis aims to expand our knowledge of US-PRC-ROC relations in the 1970s, and show how Taiwan adapted to the changing international environment.

While a growing body of research has examined immigrants’ health generally, less is known specifically about the impact of immigration policy on the health of Chinese immigrants, the second-largest foreign-born population in the United States. This is due, in part, to the lack of methodologically well-trained, cross-cultural researchers who have both the cultural and linguistic expertise and health knowledge to engage with Chinese immigrant populations. This paper addresses this gap by examining Chinese cross-cultural researchers’ roles in the qualitative phase of the Research on ImmiGrant HealTh and State policy (RIGHTS) project, which sought to assess how immigration policies shaped Chinese and other immigrants’ experiences in healthcare and other related sectors in California. We used reflexivity to assess Chinese cross-cultural researchers’ positionality of insiderness and outsiderness and its influence on the process of data collection (i.e., recruitment, conducting interviews, transcription, and translation). Our reflexivity guides the assessment of the opportunities (e.g., expanding the recruitment pool, engaging participants more effectively in interviews, ensuring data integrity, and discussing heterogeneity within the Chinese immigrant community) and challenges (e.g., the difficulty of recruiting low-income and undocumented immigrants, addressing participants’ in-depth thoughts, the time-consuming nature of transcription and translation, and the assessment of power dynamics) in conducting immigrant health research with the Chinese community. These results highlight the need for cross-cultural researchers to help build trusting relationships with ethnic-minority communities, thus gaining new insights and advancing knowledge within the field of ethnic minority health research. These insights can guide future investigations of Chinese and other immigrant communities as research on immigration policy and health expands.

In Herbs and Roots, Tamara Venit Shelton provides a sophisticated account of Chinese medicine in the United States from the late nineteenth century to the present. Drawing creatively from memoirs, interviews, archival documents, census information, newspaper articles, and advertisements, Venit Shelton compellingly analyzes how Chinese doctors navigated an increasingly hostile legal, medical, and political environment to promote their therapies, knowledge, and materia medica in the United States. Often assisted by patrons, politicians, and patients, Chinese herbalists tenaciously fought opposition to their presence. Many Chinese medical practitioners flourished, despite facing periodic imprisonment, fines, license revocation, and outright discrimination. Their dispensing of herbal medicine persisted until the end of World War II, when herbs from China became too difficult to obtain owing to Cold War restrictions. Chinese herbalists' experiences of challenging legal restrictions and promoting their medical therapies in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America left critical legacies for the post-1970s period. In the early 1970s, white American visitors to China experienced medical treatment, and newly interested audiences back home reinterpreted the visitors' experiences for eager clients in the United States. Together with Chinese medical doctors, they elevated acupuncture to a viable therapy across the United States while maintaining long-standing tropes of “orientalism” in promoting classical Chinese medical practices.Chapters 1 and 2 trace how Chinese herbalist immigrants expanded their medical care beyond fellow immigrants to the broader population, who were already sensitized to herbal treatment prior to the arrival of Chinese medicine. Chapter 3 shows how Chinese American herbalists challenged opposition to their practices by promising noninvasive medical treatments and minimal interaction with female patients to promote their approaches as an alternative to mainstream medicine. Chapters 4 and 5 show how Chinese American herbalists worked with sympathetic advisors, patrons, politicians, and patients to subvert legal and cultural attempts to end their practice. Chapter 6 shows that, while opponents of Chinese medicine failed to diminish the herbalists' popularity, both the generational shift among Chinese Americans toward rejecting traditional medicine in favor of biomedicine and the paucity of imported herbal supplies from China during the Cold War led to the demise of the herbalists by the late 1940s. US-China rapprochement by the early 1970s, as chapter 7 shows, led white Americans to visit China; after experiencing acupuncture treatment firsthand on their travels, proponents touted its efficacy, and demand for the treatment back home increased.A key strength of Venit Shelton's account is how she demonstrates that the post-1970s struggles for legal, cultural, and political legitimacy in the United States drew from similar struggles in earlier periods. Like their predecessors, acupuncturists had to appeal to white America in their marketing and leverage sympathetic patrons and patients to evade enormous legal and biomedical scrutiny. Moreover, her rich account of many Chinese American doctors who were central to transforming and promoting Chinese medicine—including the transcultural Fong Wan, reformist Chang Gee Wo, and transpacific Ka-Kit Hui—provides biographies so needed in the global history of medicine as well as the history of medicine in the United States.Venit Shelton's focus on the nineteenth and early and mid-twentieth centuries raises important research questions for the more recent history of Chinese medicine in the United States. In addition to Venit Shelton's excellent account of how Americans' visits to China in the early 1970s popularized acupuncture therapy, additional consideration of immigrants from Taiwan and Hong Kong could also shed light on Chinese medicine in the United States from 1950 to the late 1970s. During this period, practitioners and their clients from Taiwan and Hong Kong (who made up the bulk of “ethnic Chinese” immigrants between 1960 and 1980) engaged with Chinese herbal medicine and acupuncture in alternative spaces such as Asian grocery stores, bookstores, travel agencies, and trading companies. Their experiences suggest that the configuration of Chinese medicine during the Cold War became partly refracted through diasporic experiences in Taiwan and Hong Kong, in addition to long-standing medical practices in the United States and China. Similarly, the presence of some African American activists promoting acupuncture as an alternative to discriminatory mainstream biomedical systems in post-1970s New York also complicates the narrative of Chinese medicine as an encounter only between white and Chinese Americans.In sum, Venit Shelton provides a much-needed narrative on the history of Chinese medicine in the United States. Her deft weaving of stories of expertise, serendipity, courage, self-representation, and the tumultuous migrant experience of Chinese doctors and their collaborators should be reflected in future histories of medicine in the United States. Herbs and Roots deserves to be widely read by scholars interested in the globalization of Chinese medicine, Asian American experiences, and the intersection of knowledge and practice in transcultural contexts.

"Although journalism is a profession of writing and recording, journalism tells little of itself. It is necessary to obtain a background of the social, economic, and political life of a nation before embarking upon any research as to the character and nature of that nation's newspapers, magazines, and periodicals. The Chinese press in the United "Introduction: States came into existence because of Chinese immigrants. In order to have a sufficient background and to give a thorough comprehensive interpretation of the Chinese press in this dissertation, a careful study and a better understanding of the history of Chinese immigration, which involves social, economic, and political conditions, seemed necessary. The first chapter of this dissertation is, therefore, devoted to an account of the Chinese immigration and its effects in the United States. The beginning of the native press in China means the beginning of the press in the world. The Chinese press in the United States is largely an imported press and is modeled after the press of China. A study of the Chinese press in China, or the Chinese press of any foreign country, cannot be complete without a study of the history and development of journalism in China where the newspaper of the world was first born. With a view of making this study complete, the second chapter of this dissertation is, therefore, devoted to an account of the history of the Chinese journalism. In view of the light which the history and contents of the Chinese journalism throw upon the inner life of the Chinese immigrants and their efforts to adjust themselves to a new cultural environment, the Chinese press in the United States is interesting. In order to make this dissertation a faithful reflection of this life, it has been necessary to collect material from a multitude of obscure sources. The development of the Chinese press in the United States, it seems, has never attracted much attention from the scholars of the world. Little has been written that deals directly and inclusively with it. Most of the material of this thesis has been obtained by correspondence with the present proprietors of Chinese newspapers in the United States. Some information and historical facts have been secured from Chinese trade organizations in the States and from N. W. Ayer and Son advertising agency, Philadelphia, Pa. This thesis deals then with the history, development, functions, factors, and organization of all the Chinese newspapers, magazines, and periodicals that have ever existed in the United States from about 1850, when the Chinese immigrants first arrived, up to the present."--Page 1.

Contemporary transnational organizations’ recent success in circumventing or challenging nation-state hegemony has spurred scholars to look at alternative systems of economic and political power and to assess critically the relationship between formal and informal spheres of power. Forming part of this current, Eduardo Sáenz Rovner’s La conexión cubana examines drug smuggling, consumption, and gambling in Cuba from the 1920s through the first years of the revolution. The narrative history aims to present the forces integral to these activities and thereby show the historical antecedents of modern-day drug trafficking and related enterprises in the Americas. To do this, the author has turned to an array of published and unpublished sources from Cuba, the United States, and Britain, including U.S. Department of Justice and State Department files, criminal records, Cuban state papers on economics, policing, and diplomacy, Cuban and U.S. newspapers, and corporate records.The author argues that in the early twentieth century, various forces combined to make Cuba, and especially Havana, a vital node in the international drug trade. These included a booming sugar economy, rapid urbanization, migration to the island, and Cuba’s increasingly intimate cultural, economic, and political ties to the United States. These elements, along with Cuba’s political development, form the basis of Sáenz Rovner’s discussion. La conexión cubana is for the most part organized chronologically and by political regime. The study opens with the 1920s and the impact Prohibition had on Cuba’s economy and its relationship with the United States. It ends with the first years of the revolution, when the long collaboration between Cuban and U.S. officials abruptly ceased and cold-war strategy and rhetoric subsumed concern over drug trafficking. Interspersed are thematically organized chapters on Chinese immigrants and opium consumption in Cuba, gambling on the island, the French and Andean involvement in Cuban criminal enterprises, and Lucky Luciano.There is much to commend in La conexión cubana. Sáenz Rovner successfully demonstrates Cuba’s advantages as a center in transnational criminal enterprises. The author has meticulously tracked the participation of key individuals and groups involved in drug running, including players from the United States, the Andean nations, Spain, France, and Cuba. Furthermore, the study shows that many of the dynamics of contemporary narcotics trafficking replicate, albeit on a larger scale, those of an earlier age. The same applies to strategies used to counter it. For example, the U.S. effort to impose its drug policy on other nations comes across clearly, as do the lengthy collaborations between the Cuban and United States governments.The book’s structure does not do justice to its empirical advances. The data is impressive, but its presentation often makes it hard to discern how specific discussions contribute to the author’s larger points. Introductory information and framing arguments are buried under the flow of empirical data, some of it tangential. At times the chapters read more like a collection of essays and less like pieces in an argumentative or narrative whole. In particular, the chapters on the Chinese immigrants, the Prío Soc-carás government, and Lucky Luciano are disjointed and unfocused.Sáenz Rovner has consulted an abundance of previously unexamined documents, yet considerable portions of the study rely heavily and uncritically on a limited body of materials, especially U.S. government papers. This is troublesome, for too often the author lets these sources dictate the shape and trajectory of discussions. Money laundering, for example, receives scant attention in the official sources reviewed. As a consequence, this integral piece in the extralegal puzzle does not receive the attention it deserves. The chapter on gambling opportunely places casinos in a larger Cuban cultural context and indicates the factors that made Havana a hemispheric gambling center. But the discussion does not fully convey the critical role casinos played in the U.S. mafia’s financial strategies for their far-flung commercial enterprises. The source problem is made clear by the final chapter on the revolution, which does examine these records skeptically and critically. The result is a concise, cogent chapter, although one that is less about gambling, drugs, and smuggling in Cuba and more about U.S. efforts to portray these activities as part of international socialism’s campaign to undermine the United States. Finally, while this last chapter does discuss the revolutionary regime’s closing of the casinos, the study leaves open important questions: how did the environment once so attractive to extralegal enterprise change under the new regime, and what adjustments did the networks that once thrived on the island make after they lost their Havana base?Experts in the fields of contemporary Cuban history, drug trafficking in the Ameri-cas, and transnational crime should profit from Sáenz Rovner’s careful and copious documentation. Students of Latin American history less familiar with these subjects should also appreciate the study’s detail but may find it challenging to navigate.

Mark Twain in China