Yellow Peril!
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Yellow Peril! An Archive of AntiAsian Fear Edited and Introduced by John Kuo Wei Tchen and Dylan Yeats VERSO London • New York ^^/p/a ■ The Asian/Paciflc/American InstiJutc at NYU Published in collaboration with the Asian / Pacific / American Institute, NYU First published by Verso 2014 © John Kuo Wei Tchen and Dylan Yeats 2014 In Memory ofYoshio Kishi, Him Mark Lai, and Alexander Saxton All rights reserved The moral rights o f the authors have been asserted 1 3 5 7 9 108642 Verso UK: 6 Meard Street, London W IF OEG US: 20 Jay Street, Suite 1010, Brooklyn, NY 11201 www.versobooks.com Verso is the imprint of New Left Books ISBN13: 9781781681237 (pbk) ISBN13: 9781781681244 (hbk) British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data Yellow peril! : an archive of antiAsian fear / edited and introduced by John Kuo Wei Tchen and Dylan Yeats, pages cm ISBN 9781781681237 (pbk.) — ISBN 9781781681244 (hardcover) 1. Asian Americans in popular culture— History— Sources. 2. Asian Americans— History— Sources. 3. Xenophobia— United States— History— Sources. 4. Racism— United States— History— Sources. 5. United States— Race relations— Sources. I. Tchen, John Kuo Wei, editor, author. II. Yeats, Dylan, editor, author. E184.A75Y45 2014 973’.0495—dc23 2013026694 Typeset in Garamond Pro by MJ & N Gavan, Truro, Cornwall Printed in Singapore by Tien Wah Press ‘"The person who finds his homeland sweet is still a tender beginner; he to whom every soil is as his native one is already strong; but he is perfect to whom the entire world is as a foreign place ” Contents Hugo of St. Victor, Didascalicon, c. 1120 “Every nation ... whether Greek or barbarian, has the same conceit that it Introduction: Yellow Peril Incarnate before all other nations invented the comforts of human life.” Giambattista Vico, The New Science, 1744 (Axiom 125) Part One: The Imagined West 33 “The West is not in the West. It is a project, not a place.” 1. Decolonizing Scholarship 37 Edouard Glissant, Caribbean Discourse, 1989 John Kuo Wei Tchen, “Mapping Boundaries of Difference and Shared Spaces, a Visual Essay” (2013) 39 “We are never as steeped in history as when we pretend not to be, but if we stop pretending we may gain in understanding what we lose in false inno John Kuo Wei Tchen, “Mapping: Local Gone Global” (2007) 45 cence. Naivete is often an excuse for those who exercise power. For those Jack Goody, “The Theft of History” (2006) 48 upon whom that power is exercised, naivete is always a mistake.” MichelRolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past, 1995 Hemispheres of the Globe (1884) 53 Martin W. Lewis and Karen E. Wigen, “WTiere Is The West? “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East. Biblical prophecies are WTiere Is The East?” (1997) 53 being fulfilled ... This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his peoples enemies before a new age begins.” Linda Tuhiwai Smith, “Positional Superiority of Western President George W. Bush to French President Jacques Chirac BCnowledge” (2012) 60 justifying the U.S. invasion of Iraq, 2003 ' Fernando Coronil, “Occidentalism and Modernity” (1996) 64 2. Westernizing Europe 69 St. George and the Dragon (1876) 72 Eurasia 73 David W. Anthony, “Eurasia: The Horse and the WTieel” (2009) 73 CONTENTS CONTENTS Classical Routes 77 “The Jolly Giant’s Artist Agrees with Darwin” (1874) 138 Irene}. Winter, “Homers Phoenicians” (1995) 78 Henry Fairfield Osborn, “Existing Facts of Human Ascent” (1926) 142 Benjamin Isaac, “Isocrates’ ‘Europe vs. Asia’ Rhetoric” (2004) 83 G. W. E Hegel, “Hither and Farther Asia,” (1837) 143 Adam Kuper, “Greeks and Multiple Barbarians” (2005) 85 Brendan O ’Leary, “Race and the Asiatic Mode of Production” Rise of Western Fundamentalism 88 (1989) 148 Alexios I Komnenos, “Letter to Pope Urban 11” (1094/1095) 89 Robert Kurfirst, “John Stuart Mill’s Asian Parable,” (2001) 153 Matthew Paris, “That Detestable Race of Satan” (1240) 90 Gregory Blue, “Gobineau on ‘China as Menace’” (1999) 156 Scott D. Westrem, “The Story of Gog and Magog” (1998) 93 William Z. Ripley, “World Cephalic Index” (1897) 160 Suzanne Conklin Akbari, “Placing the Jews in Late Medieval “Color Map of the World” (1903) 160 English Literature” (2002) 95 Dylan Yeats, “Civilization Stands Up to the Horde, a John V. Tolan, “Christians on Saracens” (2003) 103 Visual Essay” (2013) 163 John Kuo Wei Tchen, “Latin Christendom’s ‘Doctrine of “He Vomits the Yellow to Swallow the WTiite” (1904) 167 Discovery’: Papal Bulls, 1452, 1455, 1493” (2013) 107 H. J. Mackinder, “The Pressure of Asia” (1904) 168 The Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) 109 Theodore Roosevelt, “With Faces like the Snouts of Dogs” (1904) 172 Cantino Planisphere (1502) 114 Jack London, “The Yellow Peril” (1904) '176 Gerard Delanty, “The Westernization of Europe” (1995) 115 4. Anglo America’s “Great Game” 179 Part Two: Manifest Destinies 121 “Justice” and “The Indian Revolt” (1857) 182 3. GeoRacial Mapping 127 William Ward Crane, “The Year 1899” (1893) 185 Carl Linnaeus, “Five Categories of Homo Sapiens” (1758) 129 Ashis Nandy, “The Psychology of Colonialism” (1988) 189 Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, “Five Races of Mankind” (1795) 130 ■ Gary Okihiro, “Perilous Frontiers” (1994) 195 Robert Chambers, “The Development of Color” (1844) 132 Albert Jeremiah Beveridge, “The March of the Flag” (1898) 200 Samuel George Morton, “Types of Mankind” (1854) 135 Victor Gillam, “It Ought to Be a Happy New Year” (1899) 203 PhrenologicalJournal (1870) 138 Luther Bradley, “Trying On Her New Necklace” (1907) 204 138 Ernst Haeckel, “Descendants of the Great Apes” (1876) The Yelbw Danger (1898) 205 CONTENTS CONTENTS Unknown (1939) 206 Carlos Bulosan, “Goddamn Brown Monkeys” (1946) 258 James L. Hevia, “Spectres of the Great Game” (1998) 206 12 Chinamen and a Woman (1950) 260 Urmila Seshagiri, “Modernity’s (Yellow) Perils” (2006) 211 Helen Zia, “AutoWbrld” (1984) 261 The Rising Tide o f Color (1921) 216 Robert B. Reich, “Is Japan Really Out to Get Us?” (1992) 263 Amazing Stories (1927) 218 Dylan Yeats, “Chinese Professors” (2013) 267 Jasbir Puar and Amit Rai, “Monster, Terrorist, Fag” (2002) 272 Part Three: Indispensable Enemies 221 6. The Coming War 277 5. The Enemy Within 227 “Tomorrow” (1939) 280 Dylan Yates, “The Promise and the Peril, a Visual Essay” (2013) 229 “Is This Tomorrow?” (1947) 282 George Frederick Keller, “A Statue for Our Harbor” (1881) 231 John W. Dower, “Patterns of a Race War” (1986) 283 Saum Song Bo, “A Chinese View of the Statue of Liberty” (1885) 232 Remember Pearl Harbor (1942) 287 “The Chinese Exclusion Case” (1889) 233 Rey Chow, “The Age of the World Target” (1998) 289 Dylan Yates, “A Peaceful Invasion, a Visual Essay” (2013) 234 William Pietz, “Orientalist Totalitarianism” (1988) 293 Karen Shimakawa, “National Abjection” (2002) 236 Dan Gilbert, “Why the Yellow Peril Has Turned Red!” (1951) 298 Claire Jean Kim, “Racial Triangulation Theory” (1999) 241 Red Chinas Fighting Hordes (1952) 301 The Turban Tide (1908) 242 Matthew Jacobson and Gasper Gonzales, “Orientalism and “Save Our State from Oriental Aggression” (1918) 246 Brainwashing in The Manchurian Candidate” (2006) 303 The Mongol in Our M idst (1924) 247 GIDRA 307 Randolph Bourne, “A Future America” (1916) 248 H. Bruce Franklin, “Reimaging Vietnam” (2000) 313 W. E. B. Du Bois, “The Shape of Fear” (1926) 251 Myra Mendible, “PostVietnam Syndrome” (2008) 317 “The Marching Chinese” (1929) 254 Jesse Springer, “On Our Knees” (2004) 322 Theodor Seuss Geisel, “Waiting for the Signal from Home ...” John Esposito, “Islam and the West: A Clash of Civilizations?” * ( 1 9 4 2 ) 254 (1999) 323 Edward Duran Ayres, “The Nature of the Mexican American “Militancy Considerations: Violence and Adherence to the Torah, Criminal” (1942) 256 Bible, and Koran” (2010) 328 CONTENTS Eve Bennett, “Orientalisms Old and New in Battlestar Galactica” (2012) 330 Epilogue: Uncle Sam and the Headless Chinaman 337 Acknowledgments 367 Notes 371 Introduction: Yellow Peril Incarnate [A] veritable octopus had fastened upon England—a yellow octopus whose head was that of Dr. FuManchu, whose tentacles were dacoity, thuggee, modes o f death, secret and swift, which in the darkness plucked men from life and left no clew behind. Sax Rohmer, The Insidious Dr. FuManchu (1913) Paired with the quote by Sax Rohmer, our cover image (Figure 1) is a smirk ing yellow octopus possessively hugging the globe. The stylish sea creature with the title “The Japanese ‘brain trust’ and how it plans to act,” drawn by Weimar Berlinbased illustrator Erich Schilling, was printed in the German satirical magazine Simplicissimus in 1935, at a time Japan was expanding into China. ^ This volume juxtaposes fragments of different times and differ ent places to illustrate connections not otherwise imagined or understood. Shown alongside this contemporary political cartoon (Figure 2), we sud denly become aware of a continuity of a visual political language. Appearing seventyfive years later, Colognebased German satirist Heiko Sakurai’s commentary on the Google octopus is part of a visual political culture that is still potent, though we may not understand why. The historical moments are distinct, yet the messages are the same. As we’ll discover throughout this volume, there is a long tradition of European originated visuals representing some part of Asia as competing with and threatening “the West.” Sakurai’s octopus can be viewed as more benign. Perhaps Schilling’s could as well. However, this 1873 railroad monopoly octopus (Figure 3) has no ambiguity—^it threatens the virtue of America. And we’ll discover in this volume how class conflict has been racialized and sexualized.