Re-Mapping Chinese America from the Margins, 1875-1943 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment Of
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Race, Space, and Gender: Re-mapping Chinese America from the Margins, 1875-1943 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Adrienne Ann Winans, M.A. Graduate Program in History The Ohio State University 2015 Dissertation Committee: Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, Advisor Kevin Boyle Lilia Fernández Katherine Marino Copyright by Adrienne Ann Winans 2015 Abstract This dissertation interrogates the experiences of Chinese immigrant and Chinese American women and families during the era of Chinese exclusion. The enforcement of anti-Chinese immigration laws, starting in the late 19th century, initiated the creation of the U.S. as a “gatekeeping nation-state.” Scholars have examined the boundaries formed by exclusion of Asians and Asian Americans from the social and physical spaces of U.S. society. In this work, an intersectional analysis of Chinese immigrant and Chinese American women and families complicates existing narratives of U.S. immigration, race, and gender. By focusing on women’s experiences as boundary-crossers who challenged community prescriptions and anti-Chinese policies, this work shifts the historiography away from male, working-class immigrants. In its broadest arguments, this dissertation 1) constructs a social history of Chinese America using the experiences of transnational students, interracial families, and Chinese American women who were expatriated via marriage and then re-claimed their U.S. citizenship; 2) argues that these women’s gendered negotiation of state power changed the ways in which white immigration officials perceived them, a ground-level foreshadowing of post-World War II raced and gendered immigration dynamics; 3) challenges the normative idea of Chinese America as coastal, urban Chinatown space and co-ethnic community; and 4) re-maps Chinese ii America through regional mobility and networks, focusing on understudied areas of the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic. A focus on the histories of everyday people resulted in exceptional stories of women. They not only crossed the physical borders of the U.S., but also engaged in interracial marriage, used their student status to challenge Orientalist perceptions of Chinese women, and claimed legitimacy as U.S. citizens. Employing historical, feminist, and anthropological methodologies, this analysis draws on archival case files from the Chinese Exclusion Act files of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service regional centers (Seattle, Chicago, and Philadelphia) and from Chicago School of Sociology researchers. In reading these materials “against the grain,” rich stories of women’s negotiation emerged. Each chapter addresses different permutations of race, gender, class, citizenship status, and family. These analyses in conjunction with community archival materials and public sphere publications support a re-mapping of Chinese America. Utilizing the federal census and archival material from the border-crossings of the Pacific Northwest, the Midwest, and the Mid-Atlantic to trace lived experiences revealed patterns of local and regional mobility in addition to transnational movements. Their histories from the margins of the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic re-map exclusion-era Chinese America as socially and geographically heterogeneous, beyond ethnic enclaves, i.e. Chinatowns. The results challenge coastal, urban spatializations of a pre-World War II history dominated by the West Coast. iii Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to my family, Mom, Dad, Amy, Alyssa, and in memory of Bessie Lee Jue. iv Acknowledgments While we often think of the processes of research and writing as solitary pursuits, I could not have finished this dissertation without the support of a network of professional and personal colleagues and boosters. The strengths of this work are a result of this support and the weaknesses are all my own. My research road tips to Chicago and the Mid-Atlantic, as well as time in the rich archives in Seattle, were funded by numerous sources at the Ohio State University. This research could not have been completed without the support of the Department of History’s Genevieve Brown Gist Dissertation Research Award in Women’s History and the Retrieving the American Past Award, as well as the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences at the Ohio State University’s Alumni Grant for Graduate Research and Scholarship and Arts & Humanities Graduate Research Small Grant. I felt fortunate to receive interdisciplinary support from the Coca-Cola Critical Difference for Women Graduate Studies Grant for Research on Women, Gender, or Gender Equity from OSU’s Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; a DISCO (Diversity and Identity Studies Collective at OSU) Interdisciplinary Travel Grant; and an Asian American Studies Research Grant from OSU’s Asian American Studies program. v Many thanks to the archivists and staff of the University of Chicago’s Special Collections, the National Archives and Records Administration’s Research Centers in Chicago, College Park, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., the Maryland Historical Society, and the University of Washington’s Archives. Special thanks goes to Susan (Sue) Karren at NARA Seattle for her recommendations for specific case files and generously sharing their local database on Seattle’s extensive Chinese Exclusion Act case files. Additionally, I am so grateful for the anonymous local volunteers and staff in Seattle who meticulously cataloged the case files, enabling me to pinpoint relevant files in a matter of hours as opposed to months. Similarly, Peggy Christoff’s book for genealogists, Tracking the Yellow Peril: The INS and Chinese Immigrants in the Midwest, functioned as book-length finding aid for the NARA Chicago case files, and also turned what would have been months of research into weeks. I took a circuitous intellectual pathway to Asian American history but I feel fortunate that I have had such a diversity of experiences along the way. To this day, I believe the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy gave me foundational love of research and discovery. To IMSA’s Social Science Department, especially Dr. Rob Kiely and the departed Dr. Hollister and Mr. Guest, thank you for making history fascinating. My final year in college, I randomly took a history elective called “Overseas Chinese,” team-taught by Mae Ngai and Prasenjit Duara, and five years later the memory of this course played a key part in my application to graduate schools. At New York University, thanks go to Linda Gordon, Andrew Needham, and Daniel Walkowitz for their patience with a Master’s student who had not written a paper in five years. vi The Department of History at The Ohio State University and my interdisciplinary home of Asian American Studies in the Diversity and Identity Studies Collective at OSU helped me develop as a scholar in a multitude of ways. Thank you to my committee members along the way, whose critiques pushed me in the best possible ways in my development as a scholar: Kevin Boyle, Lilia Fernández, Susan Hartmann, Scott Levi, Katherine Marino, and Judy Tzu-Chun Wu. Judy Wu, as my advisor, did not just guide my academic development, but showed by example what it means to be an engaged scholar and community member. I only hope to pay forward the mentorship and guidance I received as her advisee. Thanks to our department’s Jim Bach and Rich Ugland for always being available to help solve problems. Thank you also to the Asian American Studies program, who gave me a second intellectual home. Fellow graduate students, as colleagues and friends, enriched my Columbus journey in many different ways. So many thanks to the members of my dissertation groups who read my roughest prose and provided support throughout the writing process: Delia Fernández, Hideaki Kami, Patrick Potyondy, and Leticia Wiggins; Sandy Bolzenius, Denise Delgado, Aaron George, Kimberly McKee, Peggy Solic, and Jeff Vernon. Colleagues named above, thank you again for your friendship, as well as Krupal Amin, Marisol Becerra, Mark Boonshoft, Annabelle Estera, Keshia Lai, Sanja Kadric, and Tiffany Salter. Kim and Delia, special thanks for seeing me through the final year. I am so fortunate to have many people in my life who nurture my passion for this work, encourage me to be a better teacher, and make me a better human. A special thank you for Hayden Brown, Bevin Miyake, Katie Moran, Vijay Pandurangan, and Gary vii Winans who all helped me stretch my research funding with their hospitality. Dennis Chan, thank you for the last minute help. For my longtime friends who were my faraway support group, thank you to Steve Ho, Helen Kim, Erika Low, Neha Narula, and Tina Pham-Do. Thank you to Max Crowder, for your support here in Columbus and from across the distance these last years. My sisters Amy and Alyssa have always been my biggest boosters. The feelings are mutual. They know me the best and helped keep me going through the roughest spots. Despite his unhealthy interests in shredding paper and shedding fur, Kuma’s (mostly) silent support makes him my best friend. Mom and Dad, simply, thank you and I love you. In many ways, this dissertation was inspired by my grandmother Bessie Lee Jue, who would have been so surprised and, I hope, proud of what I made. viii Vita 2003................................................................B.A. History & Biological Sciences, University of Chicago 2011................................................................M.A.