From racism to a reckoning: Chinese Americans given tough history lesson

How did people in the United States view China, Chinese and Chinese Americans more than a hundred years ago? How did those images impact people’s perceptions and US policy?

Those issues were taken up in an online discussion organized by the United States Heartland China Association on Thursday.

Rollins College Professor Wenxian Zhang, presenting an overview of his 2018 book China Through American Eyes: Early Depictions of the Chinese People and Culture in the US Print Media, said he examined the dynamics of US and Chinese cultural exchanges to help people develop a broad comprehension of historical errors and events in US history and contribute to a better understanding between the peoples of the two countries.

The book is a collection of images of engravings, lithographs, cartoons, sketches and illustrations mostly from newspapers, magazines, books, brochures, and political and commercial advertisements from 1840 to 1911.

During that time frame, the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) collapsed, the Republic of China was founded, and Chinese began a large-scale interaction with and migration to the United States with the advent of the gold rush on the US west coast.

“So that’s a very significant and very important historical period in modern Chinese history, but also the peak era for the news report in the US,” Zhang said. “However, Chinese immigrants had been subject to racial prosecutions, racial discrimination in the United States since they arrived on the west coast.”

Many of the early images had an undertone of “oriental” otherness and contained racism, Zhang said.

One illustration by political cartoonist Victor Gillam was called The White Man’s Burden, depicting Uncle Sam, emerging from the depths of barbarism to the height of civilization, carrying people of color — Egyptian, Indian, African and Chinese, among others — on his back, to climb even higher under obvious strain. The African was portrayed as a monkey. “That is overtly racist,” Zhang said.

Another image, titled The Last Addition to the Family, featured a beautiful white woman holding a screaming Chinese baby. It implied that the Chinese had become the newest member of the country’s family. The sharp contrast between the lady’s “gentle beauty” and the “dreadful face” of the Chinese baby “is very disturbing”, Zhang said.

Rejecting demonization

Showing a picture depicting a rally against Chinese immigrants in 1876 attended by then-California governor William Irvin, Zhang said: “The railroad built led to a great population growth in the American West, which resulted in a major recession. So, Chinese immigrants became the source of all evil and all the problems. Fears had been entertained for several months that animosity toward the Chinese culminated into a riot, a war by extermination.

“This image demonized the Chinese American and implied that his presence will be just detrimental to the future of the United States, and it will be impossible to put the genie back into the bottle,” Zhang said as he pointed to the drawing.

A series of illustrations done by

George Frederick Taylor for WASP magazine served as a vanguard of anti-Chinese sentiment, Zhang said.

“Chinese was demonized as infestation, as a subversive labor monster, as immoral, as disease, as a ruthless competitor. So, this documentation of racial discrimination in the late 19th century really serves as a very important reminder of this reprehensible cultural legacy in America. If you want to know … the origin of the Asian hate, that’s where they’ve come from,” Zhang said.

Some images helped in a positive way, Zhang pointed out. One group of illustrations in Harper’s Magazine depicting the exploitative coolie (laborer) trade led to its ban by the US Congress and by then-president Abraham Lincoln.

Xin Huang, an associate professor at the University of WisconsinMilwaukee, said that in Zhang’s book, Chinese were often construed as stereotypes.

“We see for instance representation of the emasculated Chinese man whose sexuality is either excessive or lacking, or Chinese women with bonded feet, as concubines or prostitutes controlled and confined by the local patriarchy,” she said.

However, Zhang’s book also shows there was genuine interest in Chinese and their culture by some in the US, and there existed some multidimensional representations of Chinese women in various social roles, Huang said.

Zhang said that cultural exchanges and efforts to foster understanding between the United States and China make up a long, complex process.

“Despite the noise, despite all the disputes, I believe that Chinese people are good people, American people are good people. So, we need to learn from each other, and the world will be a better place if China and the United States can work together instead of as enemies,” he said. “I would like to conclude my presentation with this quote from Confucius: Study the past, divine the future.”

We need to learn from each other, and the world will be a better place if China and the United States can work together instead of as enemies.”

Xin Huang, associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee