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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara “Golden Lilies” Across the Pacific: Bodies and Paradoxes of U.S. Inclusion in Enforcing the Chinese Exclusion Laws A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy by Fang He Committee in charge: Professor Xiaojian Zhao, Chair Professor Patricia Cohen Professor Stephan Miescher Professor Mayfair Yang December 2018 The dissertation of Fang He is approved. _____________________________________________ Patricia Cohen _____________________________________________ Stephan Miescher _____________________________________________ Mayfair Yang _____________________________________________ Xiaojian Zhao, Committee Chair December 2018 “Golden Lilies” Across the Pacific: Bodies and Paradoxes of U.S. Inclusion in Enforcing the Chinese Exclusion Laws Copyright © 2018 by Fang He iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the guidance and support from many people on the both sides of the Pacific. I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my dissertation advisors who have nurtured me in this journey of intellectual growth. The committee chair Professor Xiaojian Zhao has provided me extensive professional and personal guidance along the way. I cannot express enough gratitude to the insights, knowledge and innovative ideas she has shared with me. I am extremely grateful to Professor Patricia Cohen for being my source of inspiration and for her unwavering support even after her retirement. I owe enormous debt to Professor Stephan Miescher whose professionalism, intellectual rigor, encouragement, and understanding have played a critical role in my development as a scholar. I very much appreciate Professor Mayfair Yang’s wise suggestions and constructive critiques that greatly broadens the theoretic scope of this dissertation and strengthens its interdisciplinary perspective. My deep gratitude goes to Professor Ann Plane who deeply cares about her students. She made me feel welcome and guided me to navigate a new system in the early phase of my graduate school. The rigorous trainings I received from Professor Plane, Professor Mary Furner and Professor Salim Yaqub in the U.S. historiography reading seminars placed a solid foundation for this study. Enormously helpful was the writing seminar in which Professor Sears McGee showed me the art of writing and revision. He offered thorough comments on my first publication which drew from this dissertation. Professor Erika Rappaport provided invaluable feedback while I was working on a bulk of Chapter two in her research seminar. Professor Paul Spickard offered precious advice on possible venues of primary sources as I iv began this research. It was a joy to learn the craft of teaching along with Professor Laura Kalman and Professor John Majewski, which reinforced my passion in researching and teaching U.S. history. I would forever miss sitting in their classes. Without the support and friendship from all my colleagues and friends at UCSB, my life of graduate school would have been far more difficult. I am deeply indebted to Jason Stohler who generously shared with me his research findings in the National Archives at San Francisco and Seattle when I first started to explore my dissertation topic. I also thank him for scholarly and personal exchanges over the years. I am especially grateful to Ross Melczer for his kindness, open-mindedness and support from the very beginning. Stephanie Seketa, Daniel Siegel, James Williams and Louis Carton offered critical feedback on part of this dissertation. Other colleagues and friends who deserve special mentions are: Laura Hooton, Zamira Abman, Joseph Mann, Xingyue Zhou, Kuan-Yen Liu, Niccole Coggins, Yanjun Liu, Paul Barba, Laura Moore, Kalina Yamboliev, Masha Fedorova, Travis Seifman, Chichi Peng, Francisco Beltran, Christopher MacMahon, Caitlin Rathe and Julie Johnson. I greatly appreciate my students who have pushed me to delve deeper into the subjects I teach and motivated my scholarship. Special thanks to our staff graduate advisor Darcy Ritzau for her professional assistance and emotional support at every critical point of this journey. I want to acknowledge the incredible people who I came across in my travels across the country. Their conversations with me have shed light on the country I study. This dissertation would not have been completed without the financial support from the Department of History and Graduate Division. A research award established by Professor Janet Afary and Professor Eileen Boris funded my travel to the National Archives in Seattle. v I have been very fortunate to work with Professor Catherine Ceniza Choy and Professor Judy Wu on my book chapter in their co-edited anthology Gendering the Trans-Pacific World. I greatly appreciate Professor Choy for expressing her interest in my work and her thorough suggestions on multiple drafts. Both editors’ efforts to organize international conference panels, promote scholarly exchanges and foster community around the anthology have offered me rare opportunities to present my research alongside with other senior scholars. Without this community, my understanding of the trans-Pacific approach would have been shallower. Professor Karen Thornber and Professor Gordon Chang raised important and helpful questions to my conference presentations on this research. I would like to extend my thanks to all the librarians and archivists who helped facilitate my research, especially William Greene at the National Archives at San Francisco who provided insight and expertise that greatly assisted this project during my multiple trips there. During my research trip in China, Professor Xingmei Yang at the Sichuan University directed my attention to the sources on the exhibition of Chinese women in 1904 World’s Fair. Professor Guoxiong Zhang and Professor Jin Liu at the Wuyi University generously shared with me their research findings and the sources housed in their special collection. I cannot leave this page without mentioning Dr. Greg Lewis, who first connected me with UCSB and introduced me Dr. Russell Burrows and Michael Shepard. They offered all sorts of help to support me while I was preparing for my study in U.S. graduate programs. Finally, I wish to express my appreciation to my parents for their profound faith in my abilities. I want to thank my families and old friends who have been supportive of this journey. Their love and trust were an integral part of the days during which I wrote the following pages. vi VITA OF FANG HE December 2018 EDUCATION Bachelor of Arts in History, Southwest University, June 2009 Master of Arts in World History, Renmin University of China, June 2012 Doctor of Philosophy in History, University of California, Santa Barbara, December 2018 PROFESSIONAL EMPLOYMENT 2013-2018: Teaching Assistant, Departments of History and Asian American Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara Spring 2017: Teaching Associate, Department of Asian American Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara PUBLICATIONS Book Chapter (Peer-reviewed), “‘Golden Lilies’ Across the Pacific: Footbinding and the American Enforcement of Chinese Exclusion Laws.” In Gendering the Trans- Pacific World: Diaspora, Empire, and Race, edited by Catherine Ceniza Choy and Judy Tzu-Chun Wu (Brill, 2017). Encyclopedia Entry, “Biography of Mrs. Robert J. Burdette, b.1855-d.1954.” In Biographical Database of NAWSA Suffragists, 1890–1920 (online database: Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000, 2017). Book Review, In Pursuit of Gold: Chinese American Miners and Merchants in the American West, by Sue Fawn Chung. Urbana, Il.: University of Illinois Press, 2011. In Enterprise & Society, 2015, 16: 988 - 990. Encyclopedia Entry, “Charles K. Kao.” In Asian Americans: An Encyclopedia of Social, Cultural, and Political History (ABC-CLIO, 2014). AWARDS 2018 Richard and Jeanne Williams Endowed Graduate Fellowship Department Conference and Research Grants 2017 Graduate Division Dissertation Fellowship Regent’s Dissertation Fellowship Robert O. Collins Prize for “the most impressive first publication” History Associates Fellowship Department Conference and Research Grants 2016 “People’s Choice” Award, UCSB Grad Slam Women, Gender, and Social Justice: Intersectional and Transnational Research Award vii Richard and Jeanne Williams Endowed Graduate Fellowship History Associates Fellowship Regent’s Dissertation Fellowship Doctoral Student Travel Grant, Academic Senate, Santa Barbara Division Department Conference and Research Grants 2015 James D. Kline Fund for International Studies Award Humanities & Social Sciences Research Grant Joseph E. And Gina Laun Janotta Foundation Research Prize 2012 Outstanding Graduate Student Awards of Beijing, only winner of History Department 2011 Department Research Grants, Renmin University of China 2010 “Excellent Paper” Award, World History Forum, Beijing Normal University 2009-2012 Fellowships, Renmin University of China FIELDS OF STUDY Asian American History with Professor Xiaojian Zhao U.S. History with Professor Patricia Cohen Comparative Gender with Professor Stephan Miescher China Studies with Professor Mayfair Yang viii ABSTRACT “Golden Lilies” Across the Pacific: Bodies and Paradoxes of U.S. Inclusion in Enforcing the Chinese Exclusion Laws by Fang He “Golden lilies” is a euphonious English term widely used to refer to bound feet or bound-foot Chinese women. The female foot, although is usually seen as a personal and trivial matter