The Chinese Question
The Gold Rushes and Global Politics
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4155446 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Carol Nackenoff (0000-0002-7898-7189, Swarthmore College Emerita, , Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 109 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 665-666 |
| Publication date | 2022-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of American History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8723 • E-ISSN: 1945-2314 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/jahist/jaac384 |
| OpenAlex | W4311807159 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 18 |
In The Chinese Question, Mae Ngai offers a beautifully written and deeply engaging study of the legacies of the gold rushes that began in the middle of the nineteenth century. Their impact extended to migrations; globalization of trade; racial constructions; and political relations between importers and exporters of gold, goods, and labor. She focuses on the United States, China under the Qing dynasty, and England and its Australian and South African colonies. In these places, Chinese labor (regardless of status or condition) was deemed unfree, linked to slavery, and opposed; this is the “coolie myth” that consolidated during the period under investigation. The myth led to policies of exclusion or expulsion and views that the Chinese could not belong in the West. Prior to completing this superb book, Ngai was probably best known for Impossible Subjects (2014), an examination of the quota era (1920s–1965) in U.S. immigration politics of racialized exclusion and the construction of the “alien citizen”—citizens on paper who are treated as not belonging. The Chinese Question ranges widely and is rich with meticulous transnational archival research, including extensive use of Chinese-language sources. We are treated to transcripts of trials, notes written by miners, poetry, speeches by Chinese advocates and opponents, pamphlets, diplomatic communications, and negotiations
Alien · China · Citizenship · Economic history · Globalization · Immigration · Mythology · Negotiation · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Australian History and Society · Classics · Gender Studies · History · Law
Early Chinese cinema and two-way world flows
The Goldbugs Go Global
Asian Americans in a World of White Supremacy and Anti-Black Racism
New Directions in Political History
Refugee Status, Settlement Assistance, and the Educational Integration of Migrants’ Children in the United States
The post-indenture of Chi, New South Wales, Australia, 1857–1908
The “World Migration Congress” of 1926 and the Limits of Socialist Internationalism
The Contribution of Tung Wah Hospital to the Repatriation of Deceased Chinese Expatriates in the Early Twentieth Century
Nordics in Motion
The Asian American experience in the federal workforce
The Politics of the Excluded
Yellow peril or model minority? Measuring Janus-faced prejudice toward Asians in the United States
Scrap Iron Becomes Bullets
Law, Literature, and Poetic Justice
Separate National Apologies, Transnational Injustices
The Chee Kung Tong
At the gate to Australia's heavenly peace
From "Chinese Colonist" to "Yellow Peril
| Unique citing works | 18 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 4,5 |
| Citation span | 2022 - 2025 (4) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 18 |