If America and China went to war, which side would you be on?
Maybe it’s a silly question, but I didn’t think so in second grade. I don’t remember if the question was posed to me or if it planted itself in my head without provocation, but I remember how profoundly it shook me—even as a seven-year-old whose conception of war was something my brother and I played in pillow forts. Of course, it wasn’t really a question of war. It was: who am I, really? Am I the descendant of five thousand year’s worth of fire and blood, the dragon’s daughter, as my parents said, the seed of a Chinese Century? Or am I just a girl with dark hair who likes cartoons and brand-name cereals and who looks down when her classmates ask if her family really eats dog?
I never told anyone about how I tortured myself with these questions, so imagine my surprise when, less than ten pages into Iris Chang’s The Chinese in America: A Narrative History, I stumbled upon my second grade conundrum again. Chang narrates the experience of a curious white classmate asking her
if, in the event of war, she would leave America to fight for China or try to sabotage the Americans from the inside. “All I could think of at that moment,”Chang writes, “was how disastrous such a scenario would be for the Chinese American population, who would no doubt find themselves hated by both sides.” The
crux of the Chinese American experience: neither truly one thing nor the other,unable to find a niche in both.
if, in the event of war, she would leave America to fight for China or try to sabotage the Americans from the inside. “All I could think of at that moment,”Chang writes, “was how disastrous such a scenario would be for the Chinese American population, who would no doubt find themselves hated by both sides.” The
crux of the Chinese American experience: neither truly one thing nor the other,unable to find a niche in both.
I was astonished that someone else had wrestled with the exact same question, but then maybe I shouldn’t have been—the Chinese American experience is more universal than we think. This is the
purpose of Chang’s book, an epic history that spans from before the arrival of the first prospective gold miners in San Francisco in 1848 to the successes and struggles of modern Chinese Americans. Chang shows that although Chinese American immigrants are often lumped together by whites as indistinguishable—a nameless,faceless threat—each has a exceptional story, coming to America as laborers,entrepreneurs, scholars, prostitutes, scions of aristocratic families. And,conversely, that although each individual immigrant has a unique experience,these experiences are inexorably linked.
Chang, acclaimed historian and author of The Rape of Nanking, unearths more than a century and a half of these experiences in The Chinese in America. She tells the story of Afong Moy, a sixteen-year-old girl brought to New York City in 1834 as part of a cultural exhibit, who sat in a life-size diorama dressed in silk and eating with chopsticks to entertain white audiences; of Chinese men sold into slavery and women
forced into prostitution en route to America; of arson and rioting in the first Chinatowns; of the laws that barred Chinese immigrants from equality of opportunity in business, agriculture, and the political process. Without doubt a history of racism and violent transgressions of human rights that should be addressed, but is often neglected in American schools—besides, perhaps, a brief nod to the transcontinental railroad workers.
forced into prostitution en route to America; of arson and rioting in the first Chinatowns; of the laws that barred Chinese immigrants from equality of opportunity in business, agriculture, and the political process. Without doubt a history of racism and violent transgressions of human rights that should be addressed, but is often neglected in American schools—besides, perhaps, a brief nod to the transcontinental railroad workers.
But Chang makes clear that the history of the Chinese in America is not merely one of humiliation and passive acceptance of the status quo: characteristics that seemingly define the image of Chinese Americans today. From the beginning, the Chinese fought back. They brought lawsuits to court, challenging legal barriers to their rights. They fought alongside white Americans in the world wars. They found success in academia, athletics, the arts, and the booming technology industries. Household names: Dr.Qian Xuesen, who helped pioneer the American space program. Michelle Kwan, world-renowned figure skater. Anna May Wong, the first Chinese American movie star. JerryYang, the founder of Yahoo.
All these success stories, as well as the continuing achievements of Chinese American students, helped mold the image of the “model minority”: a silent mass of immigrants who keep their heads down, do their work well, and don’t complain. One of the central aspects of The Chinese in America is Chang’s neat dismantling of this stereotype. Chinese American history is just as colorful, sordid, and complex as that of another other minority. For a time, street gangs prevailed in Chinatowns, and younger immigrants beat up their American-born Chinese counterparts, exposing tension and hostilities within the community itself. Taiwanese “parachute kids,” sent to America by their parents to get a good education, acted out and blew extravagant allowances without adult supervision; some,traumatized by being separated from the families, were expelled from school and became juvenile delinquents. A far cry from the picture-perfect Chinese student.
Chang’s book resonates because it does not merely tell these stories with care and precision. It resonates because it draws clear parallels between the challenges Chinese Americans faced then and now, both from within the ethnic community and without. It describes not only the problems faced, but the lasting scars they left on an entire people, and the ways in which they are viewed. The first Chinese immigrants were favored over other laborers of minority groups because they were believed to be
obedient and unlikely to seek self-promotion; Chinese Americans today face the same stereotype when trying to break through the bamboo ceiling in their own fields and industries. Their children grew up going to “normal” school during the day and Chinese school at night, encouraged by their parents to retain the
cultural values of the Old World while yearning for American independence—a familiar feeling to the children of any wave of immigrants. In the early twentieth century, Chinese girls often taped their eyelids in order to achieve a desirable double lid and look like the white girls at school. Today they get plastic surgery.
obedient and unlikely to seek self-promotion; Chinese Americans today face the same stereotype when trying to break through the bamboo ceiling in their own fields and industries. Their children grew up going to “normal” school during the day and Chinese school at night, encouraged by their parents to retain the
cultural values of the Old World while yearning for American independence—a familiar feeling to the children of any wave of immigrants. In the early twentieth century, Chinese girls often taped their eyelids in order to achieve a desirable double lid and look like the white girls at school. Today they get plastic surgery.
Growing up in the 1980s, Iris Chang asked herself what she would do if she were forced to choose between two halves of herself. Twenty years later, I had the same question, but I shouldn’t have felt alone in asking it. The Chinese in America is more than a history lesson: it is a guide that every Chinese American can consult as they grapple with their own identity. Chang hopes that we will “rediscover a basic truth—that while identity may be shaped and exploited by the powerful, its essence belongs,
ultimately, to the individual.” In laying out the intricacies of a long and proud history, The Chinese in America tells us that we are not alone, giving us the power to make that decision while learning to embrace both sides of ourselves.
ultimately, to the individual.” In laying out the intricacies of a long and proud history, The Chinese in America tells us that we are not alone, giving us the power to make that decision while learning to embrace both sides of ourselves.
