[For this week's post, I will attempt to explore the idea of being Chinese American in the years of anti-Chinese movement. I wish to highlight the complexities of Mary and Jeu Dip/Joseph's identity as assimilated, English speaking, Chinese American, and how the role of language and culture played a huge role in their individual and familial lives in a time of great racial sentiment and strife.]
Dear Diary, May, 1877
Today was a horrible day, though I cannot express this feeling fully to Mary or anyone else really. To I went to work as usual, transporting newly arrived immigrants from China from the docks to their quarters. As seems the custom nowadays for my business, there was some significant violence and difficulty getting work done and transporting these people. Many white people nowadays have become very hateful toward the Chinese immigrants. They seem to not want them to come to America because they are "taking their jobs" and "driving whites out of work." Whites feel as if they have a superiority, racially, which means economically, politically, and culturally as well. They say Chinese will "drive down the standard of living of whites" because the Chinese are so "inferior" They identify the Chinese, even Chinese Americans like myself and Mary, as either coolies or prostitutes, thinking that these groups make up all of the Chinese, and therefore we are of a lower race, an inferior race.
Oh, there I go again..."we". That word is hard to explain, let alone use in these contexts. My wife and I have been in America for over 10 years. We grew up here. Our daughter was born here. We speak English, fluently. We barely remember any Chinese dialect (I really don't think my wife remembers any). We talk with white people, we have white friends, colleagues, and community it seems. We have felt relatively included in the American way of life. Though my wife had a heartbreaking past that she never mentions nowadays, we have never been "coolies" or really associated with such. We don't even really know Chinese customs, ceremonies, and barely burial practices (though for my job that's one of the things I've observed while being here). We do still like to eat some Chinese foods like bok choy and gailan, but nothing too noticeable and different to intrude upon our good relations with our white associates and community. For all purposes, we are Americans. Yet what does that mean? I used to associate it with language and knowing English and white social customs. I've been lucky to have worked as a houseboy when I first arrived, so I learned English quickly and have really used and prospered from that skill interpreting and being able to communicate with Americans. But now more and more I think that being "American" is more than knowing the language, or the social experiences. Each day I am placed in an uncomfortable situation as I, Chinese and American, am placed in the middle of the white hatred and the Chinese race. I am American I say, but they look at me with hatred, with rage and violence, as if I just left China yesterday. They think because of my race we are all the same, just illiterate, insubordinate, inferior, foreign immigrants - they are wrong. I would dare to say that I am MORE American than some of those lowly lower-class Irish that pick on Chinese and think they are so "white". The violence is getting out of hand and what should we do about it? I've heard some people want to kick the Chinese out of America, or at least prohibit more Chinese from immigrating here. I know all white people are not hateful towards the Chinese and Chinese Americans. That's one of the benefits of my jobs and my family life. I work with and live around whites who are so welcoming. My wife says the hatred is from ignorant whites of lower-class who don't know any better, but we really never talk about it because I do not want her to worry. I guess we will stick with it and try to be more "American"...whatever that means.
- Joseph
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