The Cultural Clash

Chinese Traditional Native-Place Sentiment and the Anti-Chinese Movement

Yucheng Qin

This book is a fresh approach to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Drawing on stunning evidence from newspapers and exciting currents in scholarship, Qin presents a new interpretation of the anti-Chinese movement. By examining Chinese native-place tradition in Chinese history, he shows that Chinese native-place sentiment was responsible for almost all important features of Chinese community in the nineteenth-century America. Qin further argues, the main lines along which the anti-Chinese movement ran had been all predetermined in the Chinese native-place rootedness which saw the problem originate and develop. This statement, however, should not cause us to overlook racial prejudice within the movement, which actually received an uninterrupted supply of ammunition from Chinese native-place sentiment and practices.

University Press of America

Pages: 310 • Trim: 6 x 9

978-0-7618-6632-9 • Hardback • January 2016 • $102.00 • (£78.00)

978-0-7618-6633-6 • eBook • January 2016 • $96.50 • (£74.00)

Subjects: Social Science / Ethnic Studies / Asian American Studies, History / United States / 19th Century, History / Asia / China, Social Science / Minority Studies, Political Science / Civics & Citizenship

The Cultural Clash

Chinese Traditional Native-Place Sentiment and the Anti-Chinese Movement

Hardback

eBook

Summary

This book is a fresh approach to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Drawing on stunning evidence from newspapers and exciting currents in scholarship, Qin presents a new interpretation of the anti-Chinese movement. By examining Chinese native-place tradition in Chinese history, he shows that Chinese native-place sentiment was responsible for almost all important features of Chinese community in the nineteenth-century America. Qin further argues, the main lines along which the anti-Chinese movement ran had been all predetermined in the Chinese native-place rootedness which saw the problem originate and develop. This statement, however, should not cause us to overlook racial prejudice within the movement, which actually received an uninterrupted supply of ammunition from Chinese native-place sentiment and practices.

Details

University Press of America

Pages: 310 • Trim: 6 x 9

978-0-7618-6632-9 • Hardback • January 2016 • $102.00 • (£78.00)

978-0-7618-6633-6 • eBook • January 2016 • $96.50 • (£74.00)

Subjects: Social Science / Ethnic Studies / Asian American Studies, History / United States / 19th Century, History / Asia / China, Social Science / Minority Studies, Political Science / Civics & Citizenship

Author

Yucheng Qin is associate professor of Asian history at the University of Hawaii-Hilo and the author of The Diplomacy of Nationalism: The Six Companies and China’s Policy toward Exclusion, among others. He is also one of the winners of the 2012 University of Hawaii Board of Regents’ Medal for Teaching Excellence.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. The Moon is Rounder in the Native Place: Chinese Native-Place Tradition and Associations
2. Huiguan and Companies: Chinese Native-Place Associations in California
3. Canton of the West: Chinese Native-Place Sentiment and the Cantonese Cultural Enclosure in California
4. “Cheap Labor” Means “Coolie”: Chinese Native-Place Sentiment and the Economic Charges
5. An Imperium in Imperio: Charges against Chinese Native-Place Associations
6. Undesirable Members of Society: Social and Cultural Charges against Chinese Native-Place Sentiment
7. A Stone in the Stomach of the Body Politic: Chinese Native-Place Sentiment and the Non-Assimilation Charges
8. The Sound Grew into Thunder: A Cultural Clash Is Translated into Legislation
Conclusion
Bibliography