The Visual Production of Chinese Masculinity in Political Cartoons, Photography, and Laundry

Abstract

The act of oppressing a group to improve the economic, social, mental, and racial standing of another has remained a constant within United States society. The ways historians and individuals have studied this systematic discrimination, however, have changed and will most likely continue to evolve as new evidence and theories are introduced. In considering today's events and the political tone used to defne "us," versus "them," it is relevant to focus on this pattern of fear associated with immigrants or "foreigners." As a group that experienced some of the first xenophobic legislation and founding ideas for immigrant exclusion, the Chinese in North America provide an important narrative and contribution to the overall study of American exclusion. Their entrance into the United States and what it entailed for the racial order of society was unprecedented. In an attempt to study the Chinese American experience it proved to be a unique challenge because of the language barrier that rendered verbal primary accounts more obscure. The growing body of literature in material and gender studies has provided insightful avenues, however, for identifying the varying methods by which Chinese immigrants were subordinated, particularly in contradictory ways.

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