Yellow Peril Research Articles

Diverse Attitudes of French Pacifists and Socialists Towards the ‘Yellow Peril’ in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

This essay examines the various ways in which pacificists and socialists in France responded to the ‘yellow peril’ from the beginning of the Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) to the end of the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905). I identify and examine four different attitudes they developed towards the ‘yellow peril’. On the one hand, some pacificists and socialists perceived it as a reality and used it as a means of exposing the problems of expansionism but differed on their views of what Asia would become for the West: whereas pacifists like Paul d’Estournelles de Constant invoked Asia as a potential existential threat, certain socialists welcomed ‘yellow’ workers as future comrades. On the other hand, there were people who viewed the ‘yellow peril’ as a myth or some sort of ideological smokescreen. Roughly speaking, they fell into two groups: socialists who treated it as a set of false ideas created to justify Tsarist imperialism, which practically led them to embrace Japanese imperialism, and revolutionary syndicalists who, opposing capitalist exploitation and expansionism in general, dismissed it as part of bourgeois ideology. Thus, I ultimately argue that the ‘yellow peril’ was less of an imperialist ideology consisting of negative racial stereotypes about East Asians than a versatile concept that was used against as well as for racial stereotyping and expansionism.

Racializing Print Capitalism in the Transimperial Pacific: “The Printers Fear the Invasion of the Yellow Peril”

Racializing Print Capitalism in the Transimperial Pacific: “The Printers Fear the Invasion of the Yellow Peril”

At the gate to Australia’s heavenly peace: Asian racialization and Australia’s Tiananmen Chinese

ABSTRACT This paper considers the racialization of Asians in Australia through the dialectic of the “yellow peril” and “model minority”. It uses the specific historical case study of People’s Republic of China nationals in Australia at the time of the Tiananmen Square massacre (1989) who were ultimately given permanent residence. Through analysis of archival sources and Australia’s print media in this period (1989–1993), the article identifies how the Tiananmen Chinese were at once characterized as educated, hard-working and worthy additions to the Australian nation (model minority), while also appearing as a threat to the order and integrity of the immigration system (yellow peril). The article draws on Asian American theorist Colleen Lye’s argument about the economistic character of Asian racial form. By using her framework, I suggest the value of deepening engagements with Asian American studies in examining the racialization of Asians in Australia.

The reincarnation of the Asian Buddhist peril: White Christian nationalism and contestations of mindfulness in K-12 public schools

This article explores legal contestations to school based mindfulness programs in the context of an increasingly overt White Christian nationalist agenda in the United States. By illuminating the force and logic of White Christian nationalism in education, I demonstrate that though Christian organizations’ legal opposition to mindfulness is framed around defending First Amendment Establishment Clause protections in schools, their ultimate objective is to safeguard Christian hegemony and structurally reinforce a racial-religious belief of the US as a White Christian nation. Interrogating the discursive invocation of Buddhism as a “danger” helps to reveal this intention, and its exclusionary function. In this light, I trace how the claims of Buddhist treachery recall and reaffirm 19th century White Christian nationalist imaginations of Asian immigrants as embodying dangerously foreign religions and inassimilable behaviors in order to facilitate their legal exclusion from the nation. Understanding this historical context sheds light on the ways these Christian legal contentions of mindfulness attempt to maintain a historical racial-religious subjugation of Asians as a “Yellow Peril” and inculcate anti-Asian phobias of national invasion. Thus, I also argue that the current legal disputes over mindfulness are not new assertions of White Christian nationalism. Rather, they illuminate the ongoing legacy of White Christian nationalism, and represent attempts to maintain the structure’s hegemonic positioning in the 21st century. In highlighting these arguments, this article demonstrates that we cannot understand the debate around mindfulness in schools (and secular mindfulness programs themselves) without understanding the White Christian nationalist history of Asian racial-religious exclusion in the US.

Yellow Techno-Peril: The ‘Clash of Civilizations’ and anti-Chinese racial rhetoric in the US–China AI arms race

The rhetoric of an ‘AI arms race’ between the United States and China has become increasingly prominent over the past 5 years, despite warnings that it is unnecessarily polarising and undermines safe and ethical artificial intelligence (AI) development. However, existing critiques of the AI arms race narrative engage only sparingly with the racialised dimensions of this discourse. In this article, I draw on the rich theoretical insights of Asian American and Asian diaspora studies to show how the AI arms race narrative is deeply racialised in two key ways. First, I show how the rhetoric of an AI arms race builds upon the myth of a ‘Clash of Civilizations’ between the West and the East. This civilisational rhetoric constitutes China and the United States as distinct and mutually opposed cultural entities, thus foreclosing the possibility of more peaceful and cooperative alternatives to the AI arms race. Second, I demonstrate how the US–China AI arms race specifically draws on previous racialised configurations of anti-Asian sentiment, such as techno-Orientalism and the Yellow Peril. I coin the term Yellow Techno-Peril to connote how older European and Americans fears of being overrun or controlled by China are reproduced in the AI arms race. I close by offering recommendations to key stakeholders such as policymakers, decisionmakers, journalists and media organisations as to how they can mitigate and avoid the racialised rhetoric of an AI arms race between the United States and China.

Examining the Perceptions and Responses to the Concept of the “Yellow Race” in Meiji Japan: A Case Study

In 1904, the Russo-Japanese War broke out. The factors that contributed to the outbreak of the war included the competition between Russia and Japan over spheres of influence, as well as the perspective of the "yellow-white conflict." This calls for research on Japan's perception of the concept of the "yellow race" and its reaction to it during the Meiji period. The concept of the "yellow race" was introduced to Japan as part of the modern Western "knowledge," which led to different perceptions. However, especially after the First Sino-Japanese War, the conflict between the concept of "white superiority and yellow inferiority," typified by the "Yellow Peril," and the concept of "Japan the civilized and the West the barbarian," implied in Japan's anti-foreign (jōi) movement, intensified and finally became irreconcilable.

The Impacts of Social Media on Changing Mass Attitudes Towards Asian Hate in the U.S. During the COVID-19 Outbreak in the U.S.

In this study, our primary research focus was on analyzing the changes in anti-Asian sentiment within the United States during the mid-to-late stages of the outbreak. The authors conducted a critical examination of the context surrounding the 2019 outbreak to explore its correlation with the escalation of anti-Asian sentiment in the United States. First, it is found that historical perceptions, such as the Native American concept of "yellow peril" stemming from the Opium War and the notion of "white privilege" within the mindset of white individuals, could have contributed to the emergence of the anti-Asian phenomenon. Furthermore, the discourse that unfolded on the Internet in response to the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in changes in native Americans perceptions of Asian hate. Our research identified a noticeable surge in racially motivated hate crimes during the pandemic, as indicated by publicly available data. These incidents were predominantly characterized by instances of physical violence and harassment. Asian hatred has seriously disrupted the daily lives of Asian residents in the U.S. This phenomenon may have arisen from the general belief among most Americans that the pandemic originated in Asia, coupled with long-standing tendencies to view Asians as outsiders irrespective of their duration of residence in the U.S. To address these issues, our study aims to compare trends in anti-Asian sentiment before and after the epidemic by analyzing Twitter data from both periods. The authors also conducted a comparative analysis of relevant literature and books to formulate hypotheses explaining the variations in Americans' attitudes toward anti-Asian sentiments across the two timeframes. Ultimately, our goal is to advocate for the cessation of such unequal behavior and the establishment of equality for all.

The Americanized Journey of Chinese Immigrants: The Media Representation of Chinese Immigrants in Disney’s Elemental (2023)

This paper explores the portrayal of Chinese immigrants in the animated film “Elemental,” using Roland Barthes’ semiotic framework to dissect the film’s narrative and thematic elements. “Elemental” serves as a modern allegory, reflecting the historical and ongoing struggles of Chinese immigrants in the United States, blending elements of cultural identity and adaptation within a fantastical setting. The film juxtaposes the fire element of immigrants with the traditional Chinese immigrant experience, examining themes of cultural integration, systemic discrimination, and the influence of media representation on public perceptions. Through denotative and connotative analyses, the research identifies how the film uses visual and verbal cues to construct a narrative that both challenges and perpetuates long-standing myths and stereotypes about Chinese immigrants. This study not only highlights the specific cinematic portrayal of Chinese immigrants but also discusses broader societal implications, including the impact of “Yellow Peril” propaganda and the role of media in shaping immigration policy discourse. The findings suggest that while “Elemental” contributes to a richer dialogue on cultural diversity, it also reveals the enduring complexities and challenges faced by Chinese immigrants in seeking acceptance and identity in a multicultural society.

Immigrant Exclusion Acts: On Early Chinese Labor and Domestic Matriarchal Agency in Lin Yutang’s Chinatown Family

In the introduction to her influential work on Asian American cultural studies and feminist materialist critique, Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics, Lisa Lowe shatters the contradictions manifested in Asian immigration, wherein Asians’ entry into the United States marked them either as marginalized from “within” the national political sphere or as linguistically, culturally, and racially “outside” of the national polity For Asian immigrants, the debate of being simultaneously needed and excluded is no more evidenced historically than using Chinese labor during the California Gold Rush in the mid-nineteenth century. Their migratory relocation was hardly met with ease and public enthusiasm, however. Evoking anxiety in their Anglo counterparts, the Chinese were characterized as foreign noncitizens: barbaric, alien, and dangerous, the quintessential “yellow peril” threatening to displace white European immigrants such as the Irish. The irrational fear of the “Oriental” from the Far East led to a succession of immigration exclusion laws passed by Congress that denied the Chinese from entering the U.S. and their rights to naturalization in 1882. Passed by Congress and signed by President Chester A. Arthur, the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act suspended the entry of Chinese laborers into the U.S. based on their nationality for ten years. This paper argues that the possibility of agency for Chinese workers existed throughout the exclusionary period. Specifically, this site of agency resides with Chinese women and is expressed through a literary mode. For instance, Lin Yutang’s Chinatown Family (1948) captures this moment of immigrant agency in the post-exclusion era. Lin, a pioneering Chinese writer and inventor who wrote texts such as My Country and My People (1935), The Importance of Living (1937), and Moment in Peking (1939), often utilized his narratives to bridge the clash between the East and West. Identifying what I see as the inadequacy of probing one of the earliest Chinese American texts from a rigid literary mode, I move to reconsider the novel as a legal counternarrative to the three exclusionary laws: the Page Law of 1875, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and the Cable Act of 1922. To direct my critical reorientation of Lin’s novel away from, though not necessarily against, literary castings of this early immigrant tale, I take the narrative as a strategic literary re-imagination that structures itself around these three legislative pieces to critique restrictive practices enacted upon the Chinese. The novel showcases how Chinese immigrants maneuvered and manipulated the legal system in their favor during assimilation. In this context, critical reappraisal is needed in scrutinizing how the Exclusion Act generated a wave of domestic-based diasporic relocation of Chinese workers from California to New York. Due to acute anti-Chinese sentiments on the West Coast, resetting Chinese workers in the northeast in search of a new Gold Mountain led to a unique phenomenon. This dispersal elevated Chinese women as valuable social capitals who transformed metropoles like New York City and redefined their views as nationalist subjects of the “about-to-be” in industrial capitalist modernity. Through a legal framework, then, Lin’s portrayal of the Fong clan suggests the emergence of a gendered Sino-immigrant agency, one that enabled the Chinese woman/mother to situate herself as the locus of the traditional patriarchal Chinese entrepreneurial family and the forefront of the northeast industrial capitalist scene.

Isamu Noguchi's Gardens: Yellow Peril in the Age of Information

ABSTRACT: The origins of the information and digital age can be traced to Norbert Weiner's wartime document "Yellow Peril," a yellow-bound book of "perilous" statistics introducing his eventual science of prediction (cybernetics). This essay situates the emergence of "prediction science" alongside the growing sentiment of Japanese "unpredictability," two corresponding experiments in perception in 1942. It also examines sculptor Isamu Noguchi's blueprints to transform Poston War Relocation Center into a garden. Highly visible, orderly, and physical, a garden was the externalized proxy of Japanese interior desires, historically aligned with information's foundational premise of unpredictability and chaos. Through the case of Asian racialization, this essay contends that the historical formation of the information age is embedded within the historical formation of racial liberalism.

Fu Manchu and the characterization of the Chinese as yellow peril in Spain

This article traces the Chinese characters presented as the anti-Western threat in Spanish culture, namely the Yellow Peril discourse, which has not received adequate attention from the academia. Since the 19th-century, Chinese characterization in Spain has taken place as an especial cultural phenomenon, in which the connotation of “peril” first emerged from a press representation from France and England. After a period of inner circulation of stereotypes, it is revived by the irruption of Anglo-American popular culture, in the form of a well-defined Fu Manchu in the first half of the 20th century. The authors examine two films directed by Jesús Franco: The Blood of Fu Manchu and The Castle of Fu Manchu, co-produced by European production companies and shot partly in Spain. In the whole process, the “peril” associated with Chinese characterization maintains both its “vicarious” and “referential” representation. Thus, Jess Franco’s cinematographic version of Fu Manchu anticipates the postmodern pastiche and turns Fu Manchu into an entire “empty” cultural entity. The article aims theoretically to differentiate “media culture”, which is a fertile terrain of both stereotypes and its extreme form, pastiche, from other types of high culture and popular culture. In the case of Chinese characterization in Spanish culture, media and a culture shaped by media can be considered as the producers of the Chinese peril phenomena.

From “Chinese Colonist” to “Yellow Peril”: Capitalist Racialization in the British Empire

The literature on “racial capitalism” exhibits a tension between the term’s evocative power and its conceptual imprecision. This article navigates this tension by developing the mid-level concept of “capitalist racialization,” which specifies the role of capitalist abstractions in the construction of racial hierarchies. I elaborate this notion around the racialization of Chinese migration in nineteenth-century Southeast Asia. I focalize the figure of the “Chinese colonist” as an index of the capitalist standards by which British observers ordered colonial populations in their reflections on imperial political economy. I argue that the racial stereotype of “the Chinese” as commercial, industrious, and “colonizing” people emerged from the subsumption of colonial land and labor under capital. Their “colonizing” capacity rendered Chinese migrants simultaneously an economic asset to the British Empire and a potential threat to the white world order. “Capitalist racialization” therefore highlights new inroads into the entwined histories of capitalism, racism, and empire.

Transculturality, Anti‐Asian Racism and Student Mobility: A Case Study of Chinese International Student Experiences during the COVID‐19 Pandemic1

The breakout and spread of the SARS‐COV‐2/COVID‐19 virus in early 2020 caused a drastic increase in blatant racism and microaggressions against Asians/people of Asian descent. The rise of anti‐Asian racism can be viewed as a repeat of a century‐long narrative of Yellow Peril against Asian newcomers in western societies. While some reports/studies explained the phenomenon with the hegemony of race relations, it is imperative to examine the experiences of anti‐Asian racism in the context of the fast‐changing geopolitical economy and transcultural relations. Using the conceptual frameworks of Intellectual Migration and transculturalism, this study examines how the rise of anti‐Asian racism during the COVID‐19 pandemic affected Chinese international students in Nova Scotia and if their experience of racialization was critical enough to change their post‐graduation plan of staying in Canada or not. In order to provide an overview of international student experiences in Nova Scotia and to assess the significance of ethnicity and racism as factors in student mobility, we analyzed the data from two research projects. First, survey and individual interview data from the IM (Intellectual Migration) Halifax project provided detailed insights on Chinese international students' study and living experiences during the pandemic and their post‐graduation plans. Second, survey and focus group data from the NSIS (Nova Scotia International Students) project allowed a comparison of pandemic experiences between Chinese and other international students in the province of Nova Scotia. This case study aimed to examine the experiences of racialization among Chinese international students in Nova Scotia and assess the extent to which their post‐graduation mobility is shaped by racialization.

Yellow Perils: Pandemic imaginaries and the contest for global power

The precise origins of COVID-19 may never be established, but the weight of available evidence confirms that, together with the pandemics of 1890 and 1918 and the two most recent coronavirus viruses, SARS and MERS, it has followed a zoonotic path of transmission—from animals to humans. In which case the problem lies with the accelerating clearances of forests and woodlands for cattle ranching and palm oil and soya plantations to service a global food system increasingly organised around meat intensive fast and convenience foods. McDonald’s and KFC may have originated in America, but their brightly lit outlets are now a familiar sight in Chinese cities servicing a shared urban lifestyle that supports the unsustainable consumption that is driving the present climate and environmental emergencies. If this analysis is correct, responsibility for COVID-19 and the likelihood of future coronavirus pandemics lies primarily with the corporations promoting the intensified industrialisation of global agriculture. These companies form a complex agribusiness network connecting US and Chinese enterprises and driving deforestation and habitat destruction across the world. By escalating contacts between displaced species and humans these interventions significantly increase the likelihood of zoonotic transmission. Addressing this threat requires transformative changes to prevailing priorities for global production and consumption. Confronting the embedded cultures of distrust and antagonism generated by successive abrasive encounters between China and the West is an essential step towards recognising that the major perils now facing humanity are universal and in urgent need of a common and collaborative response.

Solving Crime for America's “Others”: Crime Clearance and Asian American Victims

Based on the theoretical notion that racial hierarchy influences inequality in criminal justice outcomes, previous crime clearance studies have included victims’ race as a salient predictor of clearance. However, Asian American victims are seldom studied, often dropped from the analysis or combined as “other” with smaller racial groups. The unique and dialectical position of Asian Americans in the U.S. racial stratification system, simultaneously considered as “honorary White” and stigmatized as “perpetual foreigner” and “yellow peril,” should attract more research interest in the area of racial inequality in criminal justice outcomes. Using National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) data, the current study examines racial/ethnic differences in crime clearance by arrest, with special attention given to Asian victims in comparison to White, Black, Hispanic, and Native American victims. The survival analysis found no statistically significant difference in crime clearance between White and Asian victims, with their clearance likelihood higher than for victims from other minority groups. The current analysis also found that the use of a simpler White/non-White dichotomy or placement of Asians in a broad “other” category risks obscuring important differences in crime clearance between Asians and other minority groups.

‘I’m not a virus’: Asian hate in Donald Trump’s rhetoric

ABSTRACT Since the start of Covid-19, anti-Asian sentiment spiked. From March 2020 to June 2021, there were a total of 9,081 self-reported incidents of hate across the United States (Stop AAPI Hate. (2021). https://stopaapihate.org/stop-aapi-hate-national-report-2/). As Covid-19 spread into the U.S., President Trump immediately blamed China by referring to the virus as the ‘Chinese Virus’ and used the hashtag #ChineseVirus on Twitter (Weise, E. 2021). Anti-Asian hashtags soared after Donald Trump first tied COVID-19 to China on Twitter. (USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com). Anti-Asian rhetoric expressed on Twitter grew after Trump’s tweet about the ‘Chinese virus,’ and the number of Chinese and other Asian hate crimes grew exponentially. This study explores the rhetorical strategies that Trump utilized to create a sense of fear against the dangerous ‘Other.’ We use a rhetorical thematic analysis to analyze Trump’s tweets that contain language such as ‘Chinese virus’ or ‘Kung Flu.’ Themes such as scapegoating, fear of the other, China bashing, and populist appeals were prevalent. Describing Chinese and other Asian bodies as ‘spreaders’ of diseases, reinforces the Yellow Peril and perpetual foreigner stereotypes. The study shows the importance of presidential rhetoric in influencing public opinion in the context of COVID-19 and Asian hate.

South Korean members’ experiences on the LPGA Tour: The first decade after Se Ri Pak's appearance in 1998

This study explored the experiences and perceptions of South Korean players on the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) Tour with respect to stereotyping and discrimination. Specifically, we investigated South Korean Tour members’ perspectives about interactions with their fellow golfers, LPGA officials, and members of the media. A combination of group and individual interviewers with 11 South Korean women who played on the LPGA Tour were conducted, and data were analysed using Hatch’s nine-step inductive analysis method. Researchers identified six themes based on patterns in participants’ responses regarding their experiences. These themes included: (a) inconsistent enforcement of rules regarding use of native language during tournament play; (b) inconsistent enforcement of rules regarding interactions with parents; (c) lack of English fluency impact upon pro-am experiences; (d) limited media coverage; and (e) lack of English fluency limiting self-advocacy. Participants perceived that their race and lack of English fluency impacted their overall experiences, in particular the treatment they received from other tour members, tour officials, and the media. Participants’ perspectives demonstrate the prevalence of the “yellow peril” and “perpetual foreigner” stereotypes during this era of the LPGA Tour.

“There will be, there will be – Tsushima! There will be a New Kalka...”: the Image of Japan in the Literature of Russian Symbolism

The image of Japan and its place in the literature of Russian symbolism go far beyond the image of a certain country in the perception of another country in a specifi c historical epoch. The theme of Japan occupied an important place in the works of Vladimir Solovyov (1853–1900), Valery Bryusov (1873–1924), Andrei Bely (1880– 1934) and Konstantin Balmont (1867–1942), who were the key fi gures of Russian literature and thought of the Silver Age, who had signifi cant infl uence on the contemporaries. For Solovyov, Bryusov and Bely, Japan was of particular importance not in itself, but in connection with the historical destinies of Russia, its present and future. Whether Japan was a force of positive “progress” or a reactionary “order”, an ally of the West or the “East of Xerxes”, what threat it posed to Russia and how it was connected with Russian revolutionary disaster – those problems were the key-note of the most important works of Solovyov, Bryusov and Bely. However, along with the image of Japan as a “yellow peril” there also existed the image of “picturesque Japan”, which received the most vivid embodiment in the poems and essays of Konstantin Balmont. The article summarizes the author’s studies published for over more than 30 years.

From model minority to yellow peril: How threat perceptions and disgust predict anti‐Asian prejudice during COVID‐19

AbstractDuring the COVID‐19 pandemic, hate crimes against Asians sharply increased in the United States. We investigated whether the threat of contracting COVID‐19 and specific negative emotions (disgust, anxiety, fear, and anger) regarding COVID‐19 predicted anti‐Asian prejudice in a 3‐wave longitudinal study of non‐Asian American adults (N = 486) in the early days of the pandemic in 2020. In all 3 timepoints, participants who believed that they may have already contracted COVID and those who expressed greater disgust reported more anti‐Asian attitudes, evaluated Asians as less than human, tolerated anti‐Asian prejudice, and blamed Asians for spreading COVID‐19. In a well‐fitting longitudinal path model, we found longitudinal evidence for these associations, such that the belief that one had already contracted COVID‐19 in March 2020 predicted greater disgust one month later, in April 2020, which in turn predicted greater anti‐Asian prejudice in May 2020.

Biotic Borders: Transpacific Plant and Insect Migration and the Rise of Anti-Asian Racism in America, 1890–1950 by Jeannie Shinozuka

In Biotic Borders, Shinozuka investigates how immigration exclusion affected both race and species during the rise of the U.S. nation-state. Drawing interdisciplinary methods and frameworks primarily from Asian American studies and histories of science, Shinozuka artfully demonstrates how national fears about Asian immigration not only concerned migrant human bodies but also folded nonhuman forms into racial and exclusionary policies. Although “open border” policies prior to the Page Act of 1875 and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 applied to both human and nonhuman migrant species, xenophobia stoked by the rise of Asian immigration constructed new “categories of native- and invasive-defined groups as bio-invasions that must be regulated or somehow annihilated during American empire-building” (11, emphasis added). Thus, the management of species at the U.S. border, as Shinozuka demonstrates, was predicated on the racial logics of exclusion that governed immigration during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Biotic Borders powerfully expands critiques of the history of U.S. immigration to encapsulate the transpacific movement of nonhuman insect and plant species, revealing how race and species have productively co-constituted one another as categories of social and political difference.In recent years, work in Asian American studies has productively engaged the theoretical and conceptual implications of the entwinement between race and species, such as in the work of Lee, Chen, Huang, and Ahuja, among others.1 More broadly, Asian American studies have always been invested in the dehumanizing rhetoric that casts Asian immigrants as infectious alien invaders, in what is commonly referred to as Yellow Peril discourse.2 More than merely revealing xenophobic rhetoric as dehumanizing, this work underscores the material and historical processes of Asian American racial formation as a political project contingent on U.S. nation-building—the consolidation of the U.S. empire through the degradation of Asian bodies at its borders. Within this genealogy of robust intellectual inquiry, Shinozuka reveals how the imaginaries of entomologists, botanists, and other scientists produced the social and political conditions for the Yellow Peril rhetoric, thus implicating scientific knowledge in the creation of racial meaning.Moving through different moments in entomological and botanical history that cast foreign plants and insects as racialized invaders threatening the biotic ecosystem of the United States, Biotic Borders insists that the regulation of plant and insect immigration was integral to the racial exclusion that contributed to building the U.S. empire. Science, as Bahng argues, is a cultural, not an objective, form of knowledge that “participate[s] in the construction of national and international ideas about modernity and futurity.”3 Shinozuka’s careful reading of immigration policy alongside intellectual exchanges between scientists aptly demonstrates the cultural and political force behind the intertwined formations of race and species as nodes of difference. By bringing these histories together, Biotic Borders is an important intervention into ideas about immigration and the function of race and species in nation-building. This book offers urgent contributions to Asian American studies, the history of science, environmental studies, and posthumanism. Its interdisciplinary engagement sheds new light on the histories of race, species, and immigration.