University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository English Language and Literature ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations 7-12-2014 Narratives of Hostility and Survivance in Multiethnic American Literature, 1850-1903 Jennifer M. Nader Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/engl_etds Recommended Citation Nader, Jennifer M.. "Narratives of Hostility and Survivance in Multiethnic American Literature, 1850-1903." (2014). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/engl_etds/28 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in English Language and Literature ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Jennifer M. Nader ________________________________________________ Candidate Department of English Language and Literature _________________________________________________ Department This dissertation is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication: Gary F. Scharnhorst, Chairperson Jesse Alemán, Co-Chairperson Feroza Jussawalla Gerald Vizenor i NARRATIVES OF HOSTILITY AND SURVIVANCE IN MULTIETHNIC AMERICAN LITERAUTRE, 1850-1903 BY JENNIFER M. NADER B.A. English, St. Thomas Aquinas College, 1999 M.A. English, Stony Brook University, 2002 DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy English Literature The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico May 2014 ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am especially grateful to the chair of my dissertation project, Dr. Gary Scharnhorst, who has been a remarkable teacher, mentor, and wordsmith to me. His scholarship and research methods spurred my own research, particularly regarding newspapers, and his guidance will remain with me as I continue my career. I also thank my committee members, Dr. Jesse Alemán, Dr. Feroza Jussawalla, and Dr. Gerald Vizenor for their valuable recommendations, ideas, and comments pertaining to this study, and for their assistance in my professional development. From the English department Ezra Meier, Dee Dee Lopez, Dylan Gaunt, and Linda Livingston all deserve hearty thanks. To my dear friend and colleague, Cindy Murillo a thank you for her willingness to read draft upon draft, and for the many productive conversations we had. Cindy’s astute comments and ideas contributed to the final version of this project, and her support helped carry me through the project. To Erin Lebacqz, Jennifer Castillo, Daoine Bachran, and Pete Marino, thank you: you are true friends. To my mother, Cathy Nader, and my sisters Jessica and Julia, thank you also. Your constant support over these several years helped me more than you know. To Michael Schwartz and Jim Wagner, your support and readings are worth more than I can express to you. To Haylee, my stepdaughter, thank you for being so encouraging. I still have the “Congrats” picture you made for me in December 2012. I look at it frequently and always remember how lucky I am to have you in my life. I love you very much. Finally, I wish to thank Josh Hacker, my best friend and now husband, for his love, support, encouragement, and perpetual curiosity on this topic. iii Narratives of Hostility and Survivance in Multiethnic American Literature, 1850 – 1903 by Jennifer M. Nader B.A. English, St. Thomas Aquinas College, 1999 M.A. English, Stony Brook University, 2002 Ph.D. English, The University of New Mexico, 2014 ABSTRACT In Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation, Mary Louise Pratt coined the term "contact zones," which she defined as "social spaces where disparate cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in highly asymmetrical relations of domination and subordination-like colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived out across the globe today" (4). The United States of America has a dismal history of racially violent encounters between Anglos and indigenous populations, with other settlers, and those who immigrated there. Many of America’s practices, policies, and historical events provide evidence of acts spurred by racism against non-Anglo groups, but evidence of this also exists throughout US media sources. Specifically, from the middle of the nineteenth century to its close, the majority of mass print media written by and controlled by the Anglo American population reveals an excess of discussion and debate regarding non-Anglo races, their places in Anglo society, and how to answer the race “question” of each non-Anglo group. Yet, while violent rhetoric encouraging racially charged mass murder from newspapers and novels dominated the Anglo publishing industry, several non-Anglo American authors used the Anglo publishing industry during the latter half of the nineteenth century to resist the dominant narratives iv of the time. In effect, these authors challenge what Gerald Vizenor refers to in Manifest Manners: Postindian Warriors of Survivance as the “literature of dominance” (3). This dissertation considers minority author use of the Anglo publishing industry to respond to the lies and misrepresentations of minorities, racially charged events, and violent encounters printed regularly in newspapers, novels, and other forms of US print media, locally and nationally, with the aim of exposing and excoriating racially charged mass murders of minority groups. These authors achieved this goal both through newspaper articles and through the inclusion of newspaper articles in their literary texts in order to debunk the falsehoods perpetuated by the numerous Anglo publishers at the time, but also through the re-telling of events as minority groups saw and experienced them. In turn, I argue each text works to challenge Anglo readers’ apathy and willing acceptance of such misinformation by enacting various forms of survivance in order to repudiate the victimry that popular Anglo novels of the time depicted in order to perpetuate societal norms and expectations. This includes works by Charles Chesnutt, S. Alice Callahan, and John Rollin Ridge. Finally, I look at Chinese American responses to calls for their extermination and forced deportation/exclusion throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century. Chinese Americans went directly to Anglo-dominant yet friendly newspapers to refute the numerous fabrications many American newspapers printed. These include responses from Norman Asing (Sang Yuen), and Hab Wa and Tong A-chick, as they set the precedent for Chinese American response, as well as Kwang Chang Ling, Yan Phou Lee, and Lee Chew, several of whom wrote in response to Dennis Kearney’s extreme anti- Chinese movement in California. v TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION: FIGHTING THE HISTORY OF HOSTILITY IN PRACTICE AND NARRATIVE………………………………………………..…………......1 Fighting Back: Minority Voices, Survivance, and Mass Print Media…................7 Narratives of Survivance……………………………………………....................13 Mass Murder, Journalistic Moments, and Novels of Hostility…………………..14 Historical Context………………………………………………………………..17 Organization of the Dissertation…………………………………………………23 CHAPTER 1 VOICES FROM WITHIN WILMINGTON: THE MARROW OF TRADITION, HOSTILE NEWSPAPERS, AND CHARLES CHESNUTT’S RESPONSE………………………………………………………………..….....27 Narratives of Hostility in Wilmington and Wellington………………………….39 Novels and Narratives of Survivance from Wilmington and Wellington …….....61 Plans for Violence in Wilmington and Wellington………………………………65 CHAPTER 2 THE BUILDING OF THE REPUBLIC: EXPANSION AT THE EXPENSE OF THE INDIGINEOUS POPULATION AND S. ALICE CALLAHAN’S WYNEMA: A CHILD OF THE FOREST………………......78 Narratives of Hostility in Wynema Regarding Wounded Knee…………………88 The Ghost Dance: Broken Treaties, Forced Famines, and Hostilities…………..95 Misconceptions and False Connections to Racially Charged Mass Murder……100 Wily Reporting: Twisting Events and a Challenge Via Native Voice…………107 Eyewitness to Racially Charged Mass Murder and Survivance………………..121 CHAPTER 3 THE BORDERLAND OF CALIFORNIA: JOAQUÍN MURIETA AND THE FIGHT AGAINST PRINT MEDIA’S GRINGO JUSTICE………...132 vi Navigating a Career Geared to Undermine the Dominant Anglo Press………..135 The Reality of Life for Mexicans in California after the U.S.-Mexico War…...141 Exposing, Challenging, and Undermining Hostile Narratives………………….151 Racially Charged Mass Murder via Lynching and Correcting the Official Record…………………………………………………………………..162 Oppression, Love’s Pursuit of Joaquín, a Pickled Head, and Anglo Media Frenzy…………………………………………………………………..172 CHAPTER 4 THE YELLOW PERIL: FANTASIES OF ECONOMIC THREATS, AND CHINESE AMERICAN RESPONSES TO RACIALLY CHARGED MASS MURDER AND VIOLENCE IN CALIFORNIA…………………..186 The 1850s: Chinese American Responses to ‘check [the] tide of Asiatic Immigration’……………………………………………………………...192 From Economic Terror to National Paranoia: The Origins of the ‘Yellow Peril’…………………………………………………………...214 The Tumultuous Tide of the late 1870s: Dennis Kearney, the Workingmen’s Party, Kwang Chang Ling, and Lee Chew…………………………………218 The 1880s: From Exclusion to the Eureka Method…………….………………233 CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………….….240 NOTES…………………………………………………………………………………251 REFERENCES……………….………………………………………………………..280 vii Introduction: Fighting the History of Hostility in Practice and Narrative The United States has a sordid past regarding racially charged mass murder, though there are few willing to acknowledge it.1 When people do recognize racially charged violence in America, conversations