I saw this book, I thought it might provide an interesting window into a littleknown episode of American history.
It does do that, but there's not much of a sense of an overarching narrative, nor is there much historical context.
Essentially, each chapter analyzes a separate episode of expulsion, drawing heavily on period documents and oral history, and then moves to the next episode.
I still feel like there's an important niche for this story, but this particular rendition of it wasn't as highquality as I hoped.
This book chronicles the racial conflicts in California fromand the beginning of the Gold Rush to the turn of the century.
During that time America's economy was in persistent depression, and white males took off for California, desperate for work and filled with dreams of a golden future.
After the Civil War, veterans from both North and South came west, accustomed to using force to accomplish their goals.
It wasn't called the "Wild Wild West" for nothing, The native Indian population was moved out, Congress gave away millions of acres of land to railroad barons and the Chinese Six Companies imported male Chinese for indentured service and women for prostitution.
Especially after the Civil War, city, county and state government and law enforcement cooperated with vigilante groups to force the Chinese out.
The book meticulously documents hundreds of public burnings of Chinatowns and individual atrocities, The author evaluates these events from a modern, politically correct, point of view and sensibility, as evidenced by use of the terms "ethnic cleansing," "racism," "homophobia," and the like.
She usually attributes causes to economic forces, and is quick and correct to point out the inconsistency and hypocrisy of white objections to the Chinese presence.
She does not take into account, however, two factors, First is that of language, When people from two very different cultures cannot communicate, then differences of dress, food and social customs cannot be discussed and one cannot come to an understanding of those differences.
Conflict is inevitable. Second, the tale this book tells is also about the innate depravity of man: not just the whites, but the Chinese who exploited their own countrymen and profited from Chinese immigration also are culpable.
As a native Californian who grew up in Northern California, it was disturbing to read about places I knew well where so much violence took place.
I doubt very much that California was a pleasant or comfortable place even for whites in that era.
Excellent book about a part of American history that is not often talked about, Chinese expatriates have often been called the "Jews of Asia," and been treated accordingly in the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, and elsewhere.
Also too in the United States, which put American constitutional principles to the test and found them wanting in flesh and blood practice.
That this major attempt at ethnic cleansing came on the heels of a civil war to "make men free" is doubly ironic and perhaps why its history has been so determinedly funneled down the Orwellian memory hole.
What has also been benignly neglected is the role of organized labor in this legalized lynchery.
Although slighted by labor and left historians, the antiChinese movement was the greatest organizing draw for fledgling unions and the Democratic Party throughout the West.
There is much hypocrisy all around in this, too: Ingrinding pages, Jean Pfaelzer shows an endless attack upon a vulnerable minority, instead of dealing with the powerful vested interests exploiting foreign labor and pitting it against the nativeborn.
Much safer to burn Chinatowns than capitalist property, for that would be "anarchy, " In a period when workers' strikes and riots were put down with ruthless fury per the Chicago Haymarket disgruntled employees were allowed by officials, police, and courts to take their full wrath upon a scapegoat of convenience: much like German conservatives used Hitler to bash the Jews instead of the Gentile rich.
That Americans could embrace such demagoguery in the name of freedom shows us how selfinterest triumphs over principles virtually every time.
One critique I'll make is the author's grammar, Repeated use of "the Chinese's" as a possessive clattered like a rock on a roof every time it crossed the page.
"The role of the Chinese" just sounds right "the Chinese's role" does not, Overall, though, her book remains the definitive examination of this purposelysuppressed history of the American West and the US in general.
I say purposely, because nare a breath is drawn to it in popular Western literature and film, aside from the Cartwright family butler Hop Sing.
This was, btw, the name of a Chinese tong society: yet the violence of highbinder hatchet men, although alluded to, seemed never a direct cause of antiChinese rioting.
Organized crime in Chinatown rarely touched whites, The question remains as to why this history was swept under the bamboo mat,
It seems, ironically, due to the triumph of liberalism, Conforming to modern racial etiquette gives an out for perpetrators and apologists to hide their crimes absolving their role to avoid negativity and divisiveness, allowing healing for later generations.
There is a point here, But like suppressing the history of lynchings and race riots, it also allows popular culture to revel in American exceptionalism and thereby launch crusades in full selfrighteousness against other nations for crimes it has also perpetrated.
A case in point was the Boxer Rebellion of, Retaliation against Western missionaries was in direct response to the "bulldozing" of Chinese in America, and no doubt more than a few Boxers had experienced the wrong end of a fist themselves in a California mining camp.
Such was beyond the comprehension of the fivepower coalition of the willing that invaded China to teach it a lesson about human rights.
This inspiring tradition continues. Maxine Hong Kingston mentioned “the driven out time” in China
Men, but that didnt prepare me for the horrific actions I found in this book.
Having grown up in Northern California, I was amazed to learn how much history has been wiped away in the pastyears.
The contributions to building California have been left out of the history books and this book does a nice job of bringing some of that history back.
A very important book for someone trying to understand the Chinese impact on the growth of the the U.
S. or the systematic removal of a group of people from most of a country, Interesting point of view of why there are certain cities in California that have no Chinese or had race riots.
California's version of the race riots, Jean Pfaelzer's Driven Out: The Forgotten War Against ChineseAmericans explores the harrowing story of harassment, prejudice and violence faced by Asian immigrants to the United States in theth Century.
Pfaelzer's book analyzes the motives and ambitions of these immigrants Chinese hoping to strike it rich in the New World, indentured servants and sex workers exploited by Chinese and American employers alike while assessing the panicked white reaction, ranging from discriminatory laws to violence, from lynchings and riots to fullon pogroms.
The book shows how both unscrupulous politicians, businessmen and even especially unions became complicit in redirecting white working class wage against the Chinese aliens," employing xenophobic rhetoric and slurs sadly still in currency.
She also commendably avoids the pitfalls common to this sort of book, showing the Chinese as possessing agency and the ability to fight back, whether through legal challenges and boycotts through armed resistance.
The prose is a bit dry and academic for easy reading, but it's worthwhile look at a sad chapter of American history whose repercussions are still felt.
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