Overview

A revelatory history of the laws that conditioned the everyday lives of Chinese people in the American West-and of those who negotiated, circumvented, and resisted discrimination. Legal discrimination against Chinese people in the United States began in 1852, when California passed a tax on foreign gold miners that was explicitly designed to exploit Chinese labor. Over the next seventy years, officials in California, Oregon, Washington, and other western states instituted more than five thousand laws that marginalized and controlled their Chinese residents. Long before the Chinese Exclusion Act banned Chinese immigration, these laws constrained the activities and opportunities of Chinese people already living in the United States. In this eye-opening account, Beth Lew-Williams describes a legal architecture redolent of Jim Crow but tailored specifically to people often referred to only as ""John Doe Chinaman"" or ""Mary Chinaman"" in official records. Enforced by police and tax collectors, but also by schoolteachers, missionaries, and neighbors, these laws granted the Chinese only limited access to American society, falling far short of equality or belonging. Cementing stereotypes of Chinese residents as criminals, invaders, and predators, they regulated everything from healthcare to education, property ownership, business formation, and kinship customs. Yet in the face of these limitations, Chinese communities reacted resourcefully. Many fought, evaded, and manipulated these laws, finding ways to maintain their prohibited traditions, resist unfair treatment in court, and insist on their political rights. Drawing on dozens of archives across the US West, John Doe Chinaman reveals the depth of anti-Chinese discrimination beyond federal exclusion and tells the stories of those who refused to accept a conditional place in American life.

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9780674294110

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Reviews

In this powerful, poignant, and disturbing book, Beth Lew-Williams not only illuminates the forgotten struggles of Chinese people in American society but also challenges our understanding of how America's racial regimes were constructed. Deeply researched and profoundly compelling, John Doe Chinaman is a significant contribution to the legal, social, and cultural history of the modern United States. -- Steven Hahn, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian and author of <i>Illiberal America</i> John Doe Chinaman is a brilliant history of Chinese immigrants and the law of race in the American West. As Lew-Williams deftly shows, anti-Chinese racism did not simply replicate earlier forms of anti-Blackness in the law, nor was the legal regime in Western states simply an extension of federal immigration control. Through meticulous and creative research, she has uncovered a treasure trove of stories of Chinese people who challenged their second-class status and forced legal authorities to reckon with them. This book will change the way we understand race in US history. -- Ariela J. Gross, author of <i>What Blood Won't Tell: A History of Race on Trial in America</i> With incisive, groundbreaking research, Beth Lew-Williams has unearthed thousands of state and local laws regulating the lives of Chinese people in America. Her captivating stories vastly expand what is known about people so devalued that US officialdom couldn’t be bothered to record their real names—and offer disturbing parallels to new laws targeting immigrants and Asians in the current political climate. -- Helen Zia, author of <i>Last Boat Out of Shanghai</i> Lew-Williams persistently unearths traces of Chinese struggles against segregationist laws in the American West, excavating court records preserved in dozens of regional archives. Recovering the names and narratives of long overlooked individuals, she illuminates the emerging legal systems that suppressed racial minorities domestically amid the rise of exclusion at the border. -- Madeline Y. Hsu, author of <i>The Good Immigrants </i>

With incisive, groundbreaking research, Beth Lew-Williams has unearthed thousands of state and local laws regulating the lives of Chinese people in America. Her captivating stories vastly expand what is known about people so devalued that US officialdom couldn’t be bothered to record their real names—and offer disturbing parallels to new laws targeting immigrants and Asians in the current political climate. -- Helen Zia, author of <i>Last Boat Out of Shanghai</i> In this powerful, poignant, and disturbing book, Beth Lew-Williams not only illuminates the forgotten struggles of Chinese people in American society but also challenges our understanding of how America's racial regimes were constructed. Deeply researched and profoundly compelling, John Doe Chinaman is a significant contribution to the legal, social, and cultural history of the modern United States. -- Steven Hahn, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian and author of <i>Illiberal America</i> Lew-Williams persistently unearths traces of Chinese struggles against segregationist laws in the American West, excavating court records preserved in dozens of regional archives. Recovering the names and narratives of long overlooked individuals, she illuminates the emerging legal systems that suppressed racial minorities domestically amid the rise of exclusion at the border. -- Madeline Y. Hsu, author of <i>The Good Immigrants </i> John Doe Chinaman is a brilliant history of Chinese immigrants and the law of race in the American West. As Lew-Williams deftly shows, anti-Chinese racism did not simply replicate earlier forms of anti-Blackness in the law, nor was the legal regime in Western states simply an extension of federal immigration control. Through meticulous and creative research, she has uncovered a treasure trove of stories of Chinese people who challenged their second-class status and forced legal authorities to reckon with them. This book will change the way we understand race in US history. -- Ariela J. Gross, author of <i>What Blood Won't Tell</i>

Author Information

Beth Lew-Williams is Professor of History and Director of the Program in Asian American Studies at Princeton University. She is the author of The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America.

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