tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/chinese-americans-21538/articlesChinese Americans – The Conversation2023-05-25T15:10:22Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2047212023-05-25T15:10:22Z2023-05-25T15:10:22ZListen: A 5th generation New Yorker traces her family history and finds the roots of anti-Asian violence – and Asian resistance<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/de138b12-ba9e-4e14-9a19-46cdefce0299?dark=true"></iframe>
<p>In this episode of <a href="https://dont-call-me-resilient.simplecast.com/episodes/a-5th-generation-new-yorker-reveals-tales-of-asian-resistance-since-the-19th-century"><em>Don’t Call Me Resilient</em></a>, author and CUNY professor Ava Chin, a 5th generation Chinese New Yorker, discusses her new book, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/563929/mott-street-by-ava-chin/"><em>Mott Street: A Chinese American Family’s Story of Exclusion and Homecoming</em></a>. </p>
<p>The book artfully explores themes of exclusion as it relates to all Chinese Americans, plus personally for Chin with her father, a “crown prince” of Chinatown that she didn’t meet until adulthood. Chin reveals personal family stories against the backdrop of the U.S. eugenics movement and draws a connecting line between <a href="http://aapidata.com/blog/year-after-atlanta/">the current rise in violence against Asians in North America</a> and anti-immigration laws more than 100 years old. </p>
<p>Chin also showcases the resilience, love lives and dreams of Chinese immigrants as well as their resistance to the attitudes and laws of the era.</p>
<p>In our conversation, Chin said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>This story goes back to a period in time, in the era of reconstruction, when the young country was asking itself, who is an American and who is not…And the decisions that they made back then in the 19th century set us on a course as a nation towards viewing all Asians as being foreign and suspicious. And so the great aim of this book is to shed light on Asian American stories and place Asian Americans into our proper space into the larger American story.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Listen and Follow</h2>
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<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="(Alfred A. Hart Photographs, 1862-1869, Stanford University Libraries)" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528034/original/file-20230524-17-dehexd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528034/original/file-20230524-17-dehexd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528034/original/file-20230524-17-dehexd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528034/original/file-20230524-17-dehexd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=300&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528034/original/file-20230524-17-dehexd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528034/original/file-20230524-17-dehexd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528034/original/file-20230524-17-dehexd.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Chinese railroad workers were often left off the official story. Here, they construct a section of the First Transcontinental Railroad on the Humboldt Plains of Nevada. Archival research by Gordon Chang.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<h2>Resources</h2>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528157/original/file-20230525-17-si8tvn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528157/original/file-20230525-17-si8tvn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528157/original/file-20230525-17-si8tvn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528157/original/file-20230525-17-si8tvn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528157/original/file-20230525-17-si8tvn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=913&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528157/original/file-20230525-17-si8tvn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1147&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528157/original/file-20230525-17-si8tvn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1147&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/528157/original/file-20230525-17-si8tvn.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1147&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Ava Chin’s ‘Mott Street: A Chinese American Family’s Story of Exclusion and Homecoming.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Penguin</span></span>
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<p><a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674260351"><em>The Chinese Must Go: Violence, exclusion and the making of the Alien in America</em></a> by Beth Lew-Williams </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=29278"><em>The Chinese and the Iron Road: Building the Transcontinental Railroad</em></a> by Gordon Chang and Shelley Fisher Fishkin</p>
<p><a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2022/05/18/confronting-the-invisibility-of-anti-asian-racism/">Confronting the invisibility of anti-Asian racism</a> by Jennifer Lee</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssaho.2021.100232">Anti-Chinese stigma in the Greater Toronto Area during COVID-19: Aiming the spotlight towards community capacity</a> - <em>Social Sciences & Humanities Open</em> </p>
<p><a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/society/asian-american-anti-racism/"><em>“Multiple Things Can Be True”: Understanding the Roots of Anti-Asian Violence</em></a> - <em>The Nation</em></p>
<h2>From the archives, in The Conversation</h2>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-model-minority-myth-hides-the-racist-and-sexist-violence-experienced-by-asian-women-157667">The model minority myth hides the racist and sexist violence experienced by Asian women</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/year-of-the-tiger-an-opportunity-for-bold-changes-in-combatting-anti-asian-racism-174385">Year of the Tiger: An opportunity for bold changes in combatting anti-Asian racism</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204721/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Author Ava Chin, a 5th generation New Yorker, traces the roots of today’s high rates of anti-Asian violence back to 19th century U.S. labour and immigration laws.Vinita Srivastava, Host + Producer, Don't Call Me ResilientLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1983732023-01-24T18:40:32Z2023-01-24T18:40:32ZMonterey Park: A pioneering Asian American suburb shaken by the tragedy of a mass shooting<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506119/original/file-20230124-19-5f1ehp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C0%2C7309%2C4883&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A community in mourning.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/mourner-attends-a-candlelight-vigil-for-victims-of-a-mass-news-photo/1459049683?phrase=Monterey%20Park&adppopup=true">Qian Weizhong/VCG via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For Americans of Asian descent, Monterey Park – a town near Los Angeles, located in the San Gabriel Valley – is a cultural center. </p>
<p>It embodies <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520345850/resisting-change-in-suburbia">the modern Asian American experience</a>; that is, a place where Asians in America can access and practice a diverse array of traditions and cultural pursuits in an environment where they are the norm, as opposed to marginal.</p>
<p>The tragic <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-01-22/la-me-monterey-park-mass-shooting">mass shooting of Jan. 21, 2023</a>, in which 11 people were killed by a gunman who later took his own life, has put an unwanted spotlight on a site held near and dear to the Asian diaspora in the U.S. As an <a href="https://www.usfca.edu/faculty/james-zarsadiaz">Asian American scholar who has written about the importance</a> of communities like Monterey Park, I know the trauma felt there will ripple across all of Asian America.</p>
<h2>Asian America’s ‘town square’</h2>
<p>Monterey Park is the <a href="https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/ethnoburb-the-new-ethnic-community-in-urban-america/">original Asian “ethnoburb”</a> – that is, a suburb featuring a large, palpable concentration of immigrants or refugees and their kin. Businesses and community spaces in the town often reflect the cultural sensibilities and needs of these populations.</p>
<p>In the case of Monterey Park, Chinese immigrants from Hong Kong, Taiwan and, later, Mainland China and Vietnam have shaped the suburb’s landscapes and lifestyles for decades.</p>
<p>Like other inner-ring <a href="https://calisphere.org/exhibitions/40/california-and-the-postwar-suburban-home/">suburbs of postwar Los Angeles</a>, Monterey Park offered modest, affordable homes. It appealed to white mainly middle-class buyers who wanted to be near, but not in, the city.</p>
<p>In the 1950s and 1960s, a handful of Latino and <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-04-19-ga-1788-story.html">Japanese American families</a> settled in the predominantly white community, making Monterey Park a relatively diverse suburb for the era. That diversity would only grow in the late 1970s when <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1999/08/20/us/frederic-hsieh-is-dead-at-54-made-asian-american-suburb.html">Frederic Hsieh</a> – a Chinese investor – purchased property in Monterey Park and dubbed it the future “Chinese Beverly Hills.” </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A man in dark pants and a light blazer sits on a car in front of a building with 'Mandarin Realty Co. Inc' written on it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506121/original/file-20230124-20-wyj60f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/506121/original/file-20230124-20-wyj60f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=895&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506121/original/file-20230124-20-wyj60f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=895&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506121/original/file-20230124-20-wyj60f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=895&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506121/original/file-20230124-20-wyj60f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1124&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506121/original/file-20230124-20-wyj60f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1124&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/506121/original/file-20230124-20-wyj60f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1124&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Real estate broker Fred Hsieh.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/FredHsieh/f9f6f4f194bc4b28b9baa876ec6936b8/photo?Query=Monterey%20Park&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:asc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=428&currentItemNo=5">AP Photo/Wally Fong</a></span>
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<p>Hsieh believed its location was ideal for like-minded immigrants in search of the suburban good life. And his transnational effort in making Monterey Park a magnet for Chinese families worked. During the 1980s, settlers from Hong Kong and Taiwan bought homes. Within a decade, Chinese restaurants, shops, language schools, and community organizations dotted Monterey Park’s hills and boulevards. </p>
<h2>Building a community</h2>
<p>While Asian Americans found a handful of sympathetic allies across racial lines in their efforts to turn Monterey Park into a vibrant immigrant community, they also <a href="https://www.latimes.com/local/la-xpm-2013-aug-03-la-me-english-signs-20130804-story.html">encountered critics</a> who claimed they did not “Americanize” enough. Naysayers condemned Chinese-language business signage or Asian-owned properties that transgressed Monterey Park’s aesthetic norms.</p>
<p>Over time, dissatisfied white <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-04-12-ga-991-story.html">suburbanites left Monterey Park</a>. Those who stayed built multiracial coalitions for the sake of moving forward. Today, <a href="https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/montereyparkcitycalifornia/PST045222">Monterey Park is two-thirds Asian</a>, with Chinese residents comprising the majority.</p>
<p>With the passage of time and the rapid growth of Asian settlers, Monterey Park became known as the “first suburban Chinatown.” With its overtly Asian strip malls and plazas, Monterey Park’s novelty is its difference – showcasing the diaspora all day, every day, in the most “typical” of American landscapes: the suburbs.</p>
<h2>Ripples of grief</h2>
<p>And now, Monterey Park must contend with what is also an all-too-familiar part of the American landscape: <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/gun-violence-7990">gun violence</a>.</p>
<p>Residents in Monterey Park – and in neighboring ethnoburbs like Alhambra, San Gabriel and Rosemead – have been left shaken. But the news and images from the mass shooting will haunt all Asian Americans because of the location’s familiarity. Monterey Park’s Lunar New Year celebrations were not unlike gatherings throughout the country: house parties with families and friends dressed to the nines, restaurants open long hours to serve the community, and dance halls packed with multigenerational revelers. Those tender moments were ruined in just minutes.</p>
<p>While the <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-01-23/jealousy-possible-motives-in-monterey-park-shooting">motives of the perpetrator</a> are under investigation, the tragedy in America’s “first suburban Chinatown” revealed that there is still much to do in keeping our communities safe. Moreover, for countless Asian Americans, grief has become all too familiar as <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/anti-asian-hate-crimes-increased-339-percent-nationwide-last-year-repo-rcna14282">anti-Asian hate crimes have risen</a> across the nation – sparking initial concern that the shooting might have been race-related.</p>
<p>Time will tell how Monterey Park recovers, but at least the community there can take comfort in knowing that millions of Asian Americans will be alongside their journey.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198373/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Zarsadiaz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Once seen as the Chinese Beverly Hills, Monterey Park is now seen as Asian America’s ‘town square’ – the impact of a mass shooting there will ripple across the country.James Zarsadiaz, Associate Professor of History, University of San FranciscoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1881272022-08-03T18:06:22Z2022-08-03T18:06:22ZNancy Pelosi’s Taiwan visit sparked international tension, but isn’t likely to shake up her popularity with Chinese American voters at home in San Francisco<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477461/original/file-20220803-14-r0xjbm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her delegation leave Taipei on August 3, 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/house-speaker-nancy-pelosi-and-her-5member-congress-delegation-depart-picture-id1242283734?s=2048x2048">Taiwanese Foreign Ministry/Handout/Andalou Agency via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-nancy-pelosis-visit-to-taiwan-puts-the-white-house-in-delicate-straits-of-diplomacy-with-china-188116">visit to Taipei</a>, Taiwan, prompted warnings and threats from the Chinese government, but it is unlikely to upset her Taiwanese American and Chinese American constituents in San Francisco.</em></p>
<p><em>Pelosi left Taiwan on Aug. 3, 2022, after a whirlwind 24-hour trip, during which she <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/08/02/world/pelosi-taiwan#pelosi-taiwan">met with lawmakers</a> and Tsai Ing-wen, president of Taiwan. While Pelosi defended her trip <a href="https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/8222-3">by writing that</a> it shows the United States’ “commitment to democracy,” China responded with <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/03/pelosi-departs-taiwan-as-furious-china-holds-military-drills.html">military drills</a> and <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220803-how-is-china-punishing-taiwan-for-the-pelosi-visit">threats of future punishment</a> for the U.S. and Taiwan.</em></p>
<p><em>Taiwan, an island off the coast of China, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-59900139">considers itself</a> an independent country – while China maintains that it is a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taiwan-is-part-china-beijing-tells-us-2022-04-20/">breakaway province</a> it wants to again officially oversee.</em></p>
<p><em>Some experts called Pelosi’s trip reckless, threatening U.S.-China relations – but she won’t necessarily need to answer to <a href="https://www.sfgate.com/elections/article/SF-neighborhoods-where-Pelosi-got-least-votes-17226501.php">her voting base</a> in San Francisco, where there are 187,000 Chinese and Taiwanese Americans. Asian American studies scholar <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=U2OFos4AAAAJ&hl=en">Jonathan H.X. Lee</a> in San Francisco explains why many voters in this community are not intensely invested in the escalating political tensions in the South China region. Here are four key points to keep in mind.</em></p>
<h2>This is unlikely to turn voters away from Pelosi</h2>
<p>For many Chinese Americans it is just not an issue that’s really on their radar. <a href="https://bancroft.berkeley.edu/collections/chinese-immigration-to-the-united-states-1884-1944/timeline.html">Most are</a> second- and third-generation Chinese Americans, and maybe sometimes even fourth-generation. They don’t have a lot of deep connections or nationalist kind of connections to mainland China. </p>
<p>If you were to ask a group of Chinese American college students about Taiwan, the majority would probably reflect the general kind of understanding that the general American public would have, which is not very much. They don’t know the history of Taiwan <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/why-relations-between-china-and-taiwan-are-so-tense">breaking off from China</a> in 1949. So the reason this doesn’t register with Chinese American voters in San Francisco is that this geopolitical issue is just not on their list of major issues. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477463/original/file-20220803-11-gxlkvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People wear masks and hats and appear to protest in the streets, holding signs that say stop Asian hate." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477463/original/file-20220803-11-gxlkvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477463/original/file-20220803-11-gxlkvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477463/original/file-20220803-11-gxlkvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477463/original/file-20220803-11-gxlkvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477463/original/file-20220803-11-gxlkvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477463/original/file-20220803-11-gxlkvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477463/original/file-20220803-11-gxlkvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Demonstrators listen to speakers during a march protesting Asian hate crimes and actions in San Francisco in March 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/william-guo-left-francis-kwok-henry-lei-right-all-of-alameda-and-a-picture-id1309485284?s=2048x2048">Ray Chavez/MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Other priorities for voters</h2>
<p>I know that the leadership in Taiwan and people in Taiwan <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/03/nancy-pelosi-taiwan-visit-reaction/">are loving this visit</a> by Pelosi. So in terms of her approval with Taiwanese American voters, this will do a lot, because it really reaffirms the <a href="https://www.fpri.org/article/2022/05/believe-biden-when-he-says-america-will-defend-taiwan/">United States’ commitment to Taiwan’s sovereignty</a>, which Taiwanese Americans care about.</p>
<p>But currently, the <a href="https://apiavote.org/policy-and-research/asian-american-voter-survey/">major political issue</a> on many Chinese Americans’ and Taiwanese Americans’ minds would be <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/anti-asian-hate-crimes-increased-339-percent-nationwide-last-year-repo-rcna14282">anti-Chinese and anti-Asian hate</a> that has occurred since the start of this global pandemic – fanned by former president Donald Trump, who racialized the pandemic by using terms like “<a href="https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2021/03/420081/trumps-chinese-virus-tweet-linked-rise-anti-asian-hashtags-twitter">China virus</a>,” the “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-53173436">kung flu</a>” and so on. Inflation and economic issues are also a serious concern. </p>
<h2>Chinese Americans aren’t a homogeneous voting bloc</h2>
<p>Chinese American is an umbrella category that at times has its function. So in my research and in my discussions with Taiwanese foreign students, when they come to the U.S. they find themselves sometimes coming to the conclusion that it’s easier for them to just say, “I’m Chinese,” because they speak Mandarin. If they say they’re Taiwanese, they would be required to then explain. </p>
<p>Something that I hear them say quite often is, “I’m from Taiwan.” And then the person, not knowing anything about Taiwan versus China, says, “Oh, I love Thai food” – meaning food from Thailand, a totally different country. There’s that level of unawareness.</p>
<p>The Taiwanese American identity is a very unique identity within the Chinese American community. It <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/taiwanese-us-insist-identity-not-political-choice-must-census-option-rcna2225">says very clearly</a> that these people inherently support Taiwan’s geopolitical sovereignty. It is, in essence, a very nationalistic identity, not just a cultural one. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=pcLQCgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=info:iKhXum4cN3IJ:scholar.google.com&ots=Y5fzZ-m7mA&sig=tU2dNgTdHNKJRPKqqr21vGsNLx0#v=onepage&q&f=false">Chinese Americans are less nationalistic</a>, because we’re not identifying with mainland China. Rather, we are identifying as members of a community that is linked to Chinese heritage, so it becomes more cultural, more linguistic.</p>
<p>Second- and third-generation Chinese Americans, especially, have lost some of the skills or don’t have some of the skills that help maintain a very strong cultural link, such as <a href="https://dailynorthwestern.com/2018/10/22/opinion/the-spectrum-im-still-chinese-even-if-i-cant-speak-the-language/">not speaking Mandarin or Cantonese</a>, or many of the other dialects of China. </p>
<p>And if anything, Chinese Americans are critics of China, <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2022/country-chapters/china-and-tibet">in terms of</a> human rights, <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/chinas-tibet-policy-the-aftermath-last-springs-unrest">Tibet and</a> child labor issues. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477498/original/file-20220803-19-jcyz9p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A white woman in a beige pantsuit and blue face mask stands next to a middle-aged Asian woman also wearing a pantsuit. Both wave their hands." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477498/original/file-20220803-19-jcyz9p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/477498/original/file-20220803-19-jcyz9p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477498/original/file-20220803-19-jcyz9p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477498/original/file-20220803-19-jcyz9p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477498/original/file-20220803-19-jcyz9p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477498/original/file-20220803-19-jcyz9p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/477498/original/file-20220803-19-jcyz9p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi poses with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen in Taipei on Aug. 3, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/speaker-of-the-us-house-of-representatives-nancy-pelosi-left-poses-picture-id1412590000?s=2048x2048">Handout/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The overall political effect</h2>
<p>Taking a step back and looking at the history of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/01/nancy-pelosi-taiwan-china/">U.S. officials going</a> to Taiwan reveals that <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/3584189-gingrich-china-threats-over-pelosi-taiwan-visit-a-bluff/">nothing has really</a> materialized from the <a href="https://theconversation.com/rethinking-the-us-china-fight-does-china-really-threaten-american-power-abroad-148672">threats from China</a>. In terms of retaliation, there has always been very strong, public kind of speech about how they disapprove, and maybe some strong threats. But nothing came of those threats, and relations quickly normalized. And I think that’s going to be the case here, too.</p>
<p>I think the question of whether or not it will affect her <a href="https://pelosi.house.gov/about/our-district">constituents in San Francisco</a> is a very interesting question. And I think it’s exciting, because it reveals the diversity in terms of understanding Chinese Americans versus Taiwanese Americans. </p>
<p>The majority of Chinese Americans and Taiwanese Americans vote Democratic, so if Pelosi went or didn’t go, I don’t think it’s going have a huge effect. Because they’re <a href="https://theconversation.com/asian-americans-political-preferences-have-flipped-from-red-to-blue-145577">going to still vote blue</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188127/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan H. X. Lee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>While Chinese American voters are not a homogeneous group, many people who have ancestral ties to the region are unlikely to question their support for Nancy Pelosi just because of her Taiwan trip.Jonathan H. X. Lee, Professor of Asian American Studies, San Francisco State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1761202022-02-02T14:59:27Z2022-02-02T14:59:27ZBeijing Olympics may get points for boosting China’s international reputation, but Games are definitely gold for Xi Jinping’s standing at home<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444062/original/file-20220202-19-1kqcsi3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=33%2C11%2C7413%2C5006&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Skiers practice at the Olympic cross country venue in Zhangjiakou, China on February 1, 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/athletes-practice-at-the-cross-country-venue-in-zhangjiakou-news-photo/1238110550?adppopup=true">Photo by Jewel Samad/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 2022 Winter Games in Beijing provide many benefits for China, and really don’t have any downsides for the country.</p>
<p>For China’s leader, Xi Jinping, the most important result of the Games will likely be their impact on his domestic audience, as Chinese media coverage of the Games will be highly nationalistic and laudatory, aimed at impressing the Chinese people. To this home audience, the spectacle of the Games reinforces government propaganda about China’s success and progress toward achieving the “<a href="https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/19thcpcnationalcongress/2017-11/04/content_34115212.htm">Chinese Dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation</a>.” </p>
<p>But I don’t predict the 2022 Games will have the same effect, either domestically or internationally, that the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/21/asia/beijing-olympics-2008-2022-soft-power-dst-intl-hnk/index.html">Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics</a> had, partially because the Winter Olympics are smaller and the weather is harsher, and partially because 2008 was the first time China hosted the Olympics. </p>
<p>In 2008, stunning opening ceremonies including <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bufV3EgyPGU">5,000 syncopated dancers</a> telling a stylized story of 5,000 years of Chinese history astonished the international audience. The power of that first time cannot be repeated.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/T9PmD3K1eJc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">CCTV+, a China state video news agency, issued video of rehearsals for the 2022 Olympics opening ceremony on Jan. 25, 2021.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nonetheless, China has spared no expense to prepare, <a href="https://www.insider.com/real-cost-of-beijing-games-10-times-chinas-reported-figure-2022-1">with a report from Insider pegging the total cost “in excess of US$38.5 billion</a>, 24 times the country’s initial budget of $1.6 billion.” As with everything China does, when it wants to occupy the center stage internationally, it will put on a big show.</p>
<p>The domestic payoff of the Olympics matters because China will face a trying year in 2022. Xi is seeking an unprecedented <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-12/why-china-s-2022-party-congress-will-be-a-landmark-quicktake">third term as general-secretary of the Communist Party</a>. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/16/business/economy/china-economy.html">The nation’s economy is slowing</a>. International opposition to China’s <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2021/country-chapters/china-and-tibet">human rights abuses in Xinjiang</a> <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/hong-kong-freedoms-democracy-protests-china-crackdown">and Hong Kong</a> and to its <a href="https://www.cfr.org/blog/understand-chinas-aggressive-foreign-policy-look-its-domestic-politics">aggressive foreign policy</a> is growing. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/22/world/asia/winter-olympics-china-beijing-xi-jinping.html?searchResultPosition=1">Xi is hoping</a> that the “bread and circuses” diversionary aspect of the Games will help him overcome the stresses of this year and advance his political standing.</p>
<h2>Domestic standing is crucial focus</h2>
<p>Chinese leaders care about improving the nation’s international status, but they’re already working from a position of relative strength. China’s rise internationally, especially since 2008, <a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2018/10/15/china-s-rise-as-geoeconomic-influencer-four-european-case-studies-pub-77462">is undeniable</a>. Its <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/power-rankings">status as the number two power in the world</a> is almost universally acknowledged.</p>
<p><a href="https://jsis.washington.edu/people/david-bachman/">As a scholar of Chinese politics and foreign policy</a>, I believe that Xi wants the Games to impress the world. </p>
<p>But that is less important to him than the domestic effect of the Games. </p>
<p>China is <a href="https://www.startribune.com/china-skis-olympics-brings-on-boom-in-winter-sports/600140468/">not traditionally strong</a> in winter sports. But the country has invested heavily in preparing increasingly competitive teams for these Games. The success of Chinese athletes at the Games will enhance China’s reputation and thus Chinese citizens’ sense of pride. In turn, this <a href="https://jamestown.org/program/as-rival-factions-gain-traction-xi-seeks-to-secure-support-from-the-military/?mc_cid=d45b5fb28f&mc_eid=d227fab65e">will mute competition</a> from Xi’s opposition within the Chinese Communist Party. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.espn.com/olympics/story/_/id/33160624/olympics-2022-freeski-star-eileen-gu-delicate-balancing-act-china-us">FreeSki world champion Eileen Gu</a> <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-01-27/eileen-gu-china-s-best-hope-for-winter-olympics-gold-is-being-very-careful">chose to compete</a> for China – her mother is Chinese – and not the U.S., where she was born and is a citizen. Her choice may yield golds in areas where China is not a strong competitor. </p>
<p>Her decision also reverberates with <a href="http://en.qstheory.cn/2020-10/04/c_607586.htm">Xi’s call on all ethnic Chinese worldwide to aid China’s development</a>. Chinese domestic propaganda will highlight how she chose China over the U.S., and implicitly urge <a href="http://journal.kci.go.kr/japs/archive/articleView?artiId=ART002429534">others to do the same</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/443876/original/file-20220201-18-13imsl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Eileen Gu, a young American-Chinese skier, holds her skis up as she stands in front of a ski slope" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/443876/original/file-20220201-18-13imsl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/443876/original/file-20220201-18-13imsl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443876/original/file-20220201-18-13imsl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443876/original/file-20220201-18-13imsl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443876/original/file-20220201-18-13imsl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443876/original/file-20220201-18-13imsl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443876/original/file-20220201-18-13imsl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Eileen Gu, an American-Chinese skier, chose to compete for China.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/ailing-eileen-gu-of-team-china-poses-for-a-picture-after-placing-in-picture-id1363484842?s=2048x2048">Maddie Meyer/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Burying dissent</h2>
<p>In the run-up to the August 2008 Summer Games, China faced widespread human rights criticism for its <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/magazine/30olympics-t.html">support for the Sudanese government’s crimes against humanity in Darfur</a> and its <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/15/world/asia/15tibet.html">suppression of massive protests by Tibetans</a>. </p>
<p>The breathtaking opening ceremonies and the successful Games muted the criticisms. When the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/a-guide-to-the-financial-crisis--10-years-later/2018/09/10/114b76ba-af10-11e8-a20b-5f4f84429666_story.html">global financial crisis erupted the next month</a>, the Games were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/29/mind-games-china-confidence-soared-between-two-olympics-beijing">taken by the Chinese people as a symbol of China’s ascendence</a>, and <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-china-watcher/2021/03/11/beijings-visions-of-american-decline-492064">the financial crisis as a sign of the United States’ decline</a>. </p>
<p>Similarly, in the run-up to 2022, China’s <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2021/country-chapters/china-and-tibet">human rights practices</a> are under heavy fire, especially for its <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2021/country-chapters/china-and-tibet">mass incarcerations in Xinjiang and suppression of basic rights in Hong Kong</a>. </p>
<p>The Winter Games may not have the symbolic power of the 2008 Olympics. But <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/31/world/asia/winter-olympics-crackdown.html">human rights will likely not receive much attention</a> despite full-page advertisements in The New York Times condemning China’s human rights record and urging U.S. companies to not buy ads on NBC, the <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/sports/nbc-olympics-live-streaming-peacock-20220105.html">television network carrying the Olympics in the U.S</a>. </p>
<p>Among the elements which help Xi achieve the propaganda and political goals he wants: <a href="https://stillmed.olympics.com/media/Documents/Olympic-Games/Beijing-2022/Playbooks/The-Playbook-RHBs-IFs-TOP-OF-PF-Press-Workforce-December-2021.pdf">the threat from COVID-19</a>.<br>
<a href="https://www.cbssports.com/olympics/news/beijing-olympics-2022-tickets-not-on-sale-to-general-public-will-only-be-offered-to-selected-people/">No spectators from the general public</a> will attend the events. Athletes, officials and journalists will be kept in a small geographic bubble to ensure that they will <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory/beijings-olympic-bubble-makes-slightly-surreal-experience-82505480">not bring COVID-19 to China nor spread it once there</a>. <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/foreign-journalists-in-china-say-they-face-deepening-intimidation-11643590861">Journalists will neither have the ability to interview ordinary Chinese people</a>, nor any chance to investigate any non-Olympics-related news stories. </p>
<p>There may be individual acts of protest by some non-Chinese athletes against Chinese human rights practices. But those protests will not be shown on Chinese television, and the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/beijing-2022-official-says-athlete-protests-will-lead-punishment-2022-01-19/">protesters will likely be forced to leave China</a>. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2022/01/19/china-winter-olympics-politics-speech/">The Washington Post reported that in late January</a>, Yang Shu, a member of China’s Olympic Organizing Committee, said in a press conference that “Any expression that is in line with the Olympic spirit I’m sure will be protected … Any behavior or speech that is against the Olympic spirit, especially against the Chinese laws and regulations, are also subject to certain punishment.” </p>
<p>With no spectators and a highly controlled environment for the athletes and foreign observers, there is little chance for significant demonstrations to break out.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/443874/original/file-20220201-25-2othgm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a yellow shirt holds up a Tibetan flag, marching in front of a person who has a sign that says 'Don't believe China's Olympic lies.' They walk across the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/443874/original/file-20220201-25-2othgm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/443874/original/file-20220201-25-2othgm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443874/original/file-20220201-25-2othgm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443874/original/file-20220201-25-2othgm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443874/original/file-20220201-25-2othgm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443874/original/file-20220201-25-2othgm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/443874/original/file-20220201-25-2othgm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pro-Tibetan human rights advocates marched in San Francisco during the launch of the 2008 Summer Olympics.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/photos/tsering-gyatso-and-lobsang-tsering-join-other-protibetan-human-rights-picture-id82222865?s=2048x2048">David Paul Morris/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What’s the payoff?</h2>
<p>China spent billions to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/22/world/asia/winter-olympics-china-beijing-xi-jinping.html">construct the sites for the events</a> and it will use untold <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/28/china/china-green-olympics-alpine-ski-nature-reserve-intl-hnk-dst/index.html">millions of gallons of water</a> to manufacture artificial snow for the skiing competitions. Winter is the dry season in Beijing, and snowfall is rare despite the very cold temperatures. </p>
<p>The costs may produce some grumbling by environmentally and fiscally concerned Chinese which will <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/31/world/asia/winter-olympics-crackdown.html?searchResultPosition=3">quickly be suppressed</a>. And if the Chinese team performs well, these complaints may be seen as unpatriotic.</p>
<p>For Xi Jinping and the rest of Chinese leadership, the gains of the Olympics are immediate, and the costs are diffuse and longer-term. In the end they will – through propaganda and the suppression of dissent – tell a story of triumph to their domestic audience, which makes holding the Olympic Games useful for their political purposes. </p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Bachman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A strong turnout by Chinese teams during the 2022 Winter Olympics could help build national pride in China — and, in turn, help Xi Jinping’s bid for a third term this year.David Bachman, Henry M. Jackson Professor of International Studies, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1577622021-03-26T15:46:49Z2021-03-26T15:46:49ZTwo stereotypes that diminish the humanity of the Atlanta shooting victims – and all Asian Americans<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391714/original/file-20210325-23-v8hhgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C6%2C4436%2C2941&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A rally against violence toward Asian Americans, after the March 16 attack in Atlanta, Georgia, that killed eight people, including six Chinese and Korean women. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/as-child-holds-a-asian-lives-matter-sign-at-the-rally-news-photo/1308338677?adppopup=true">Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>After the Atlanta spa shootings in March 2021, the U.S. media worked harder than usual to describe and understand Asian Americans. </p>
<p>Asian Americans represent a population of 21 million people, with astounding ethnic and socioeconomic diversity. Yet the <a href="https://go.gale.com/ps/anonymous?id=GALE%7CA581024580&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=10517642&p=AONE&sw=w">same two stereotypes often emerge</a> in news coverage about them.</p>
<p>One is that of Asian Americans as the “perpetual foreigner” – immigrants who constantly struggle, never assimilate. That’s how the <a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta-news/what-we-know-about-the-spa-shooting-victims/OVPCGHAFZVGNRCUY3YUYM2ZQVI/">six Chinese and Korean American women killed in the Atlanta area on March 16</a> came off in early stories about the massacre. The news media persisted in referring to victims as “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/17/us/asian-women-victims-atlanta-shootings.html">women of Asian descent</a>” – versus “Asian American women” – even after it became clear several were not recent immigrants. </p>
<p>These victims, six of the eight dead, don’t fit into the other Asian American stereotype of the upwardly mobile, educated and eager-to-fit-in immigrant – the “model minority.” </p>
<p>As a journalism <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Qdl-b1cAAAAJ&hl=en&authuser=1">researcher who has published studies</a> on the news media’s tendency to render some groups in the U.S. as more American than others, I know both the “model minority” and “perpetual foreigner” myths well. </p>
<p>Both stereotypes have been levied in tandem against Asian immigrants to the U.S. for centuries. </p>
<h2>Model minority</h2>
<p>In the mid-1800s, <a href="https://bancroft.berkeley.edu/collections/chinese-immigration-to-the-united-states-1884-1944/timeline.html">Chinese laborers</a> made up the first significant wave of Asian immigration to the United States. Recruited during the Gold Rush and to build the Transcontinental Railroad, the men were described by employers like industrialist Leland Stanford as “<a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-chang-transcontinental-railroad-anniversary-chinese-workers-20190510-story.html">quiet, peaceable, patient, industrious and economical</a>.” </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391719/original/file-20210325-13-11uws6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three Asian-American men stand on a railroad pushcart" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391719/original/file-20210325-13-11uws6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391719/original/file-20210325-13-11uws6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=647&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391719/original/file-20210325-13-11uws6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=647&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391719/original/file-20210325-13-11uws6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=647&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391719/original/file-20210325-13-11uws6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=813&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391719/original/file-20210325-13-11uws6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=813&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391719/original/file-20210325-13-11uws6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=813&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In California, Chinese immigrants were employed by the railroads to do the toughest work.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/in-early-california-thousands-of-chinese-immigrants-were-news-photo/530853974?adppopup=true">George Rinhart/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>As that initial population of 4,000 Chinese Americans in 1850 burgeoned, though, they were accused of taking white men’s jobs. Hostility and violence also grew against them. From the subsequent <a href="https://guides.loc.gov/chinese-exclusion-act">Chinese Exclusion Act</a> of 1882, which prohibited the immigration of Chinese laborers, to the <a href="https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/japanese-relocation">imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II</a>, Asian Americans were still seen as hardworking and submissive – yet also dangerous and alien.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27246287/">model-minority myth</a> emerged later. In 1965 the <a href="https://www.mackseysymposium.org/virtual2020/all/presentations/353/">Hart-Celler Act</a> opened immigration quotas that had previously favored Western Europeans. That spurred a major wave of immigration from across the globe, including Asia, to the United States. </p>
<p>Bolstered by university offers of international graduate scholarships, this policy favored <a href="https://history.house.gov/Exhibitions-and-Publications/APA/Historical-Essays/Growing-Diversity/Hart-Celler/">highly skilled immigrants</a> from Taiwan, South Korea, India, Japan and beyond. </p>
<p>My father, Tien-Yuh Chuang, who boarded a trans-Pacific flight from Taipei to San Francisco in 1965 with US$300, a suitcase and his letter of admission to an engineering doctoral program at University of California, Berkeley, was among them. </p>
<p>Many of the Hart-Celler immigrants were funneled into growing numbers of professional jobs in science and technology fields. They were part of the United States’s <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/sputnik-impact-on-america/">push to become a world leader in everything from the space race to transportation</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/asian-women-and-men-earned-more-than-their-white-black-and-hispanic-counterparts-in-2017.htm">Out-earning all other racial groups</a>, Asian Americans became the “model minority,” a term first coined by <a href="https://depts.washington.edu/sibl/Publications/Model%20Minority%20Section%20(2011).pdf">sociologist William Petersen in a 1966 New York Times article</a>, “Success Story: Japanese American style.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391718/original/file-20210325-17-138ug8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two Asian American women in graduation gowns pose with other people" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391718/original/file-20210325-17-138ug8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391718/original/file-20210325-17-138ug8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391718/original/file-20210325-17-138ug8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391718/original/file-20210325-17-138ug8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391718/original/file-20210325-17-138ug8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391718/original/file-20210325-17-138ug8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391718/original/file-20210325-17-138ug8d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A family in Los Angeles celebrates college graduation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/asian-graduate-students?agreements=pa:91269&family=editorial&phrase=Asian%20graduate%20students&sort=oldest#license">Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Perpetual foreigner</h2>
<p>As U.S. immigration policy shifted to <a href="https://cis.org/Historical-Overview-Immigration-Policy">favor family reunification and diversity of origin</a>, waves of Asians came to the U.S. from the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1982/05/09/magazine/the-new-asian-immigrants.html">mid-1970s to 1980s and onward</a>.</p>
<p>Some were refugees resettled from places where the U.S. had gotten involved in wars, like Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and South Korea. Other immigrants came from <a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/immigrants-asia-united-states-2020">China, South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, India, Bangladesh, the Philippines and more</a>, attempting to lift their families out of poverty. </p>
<p>Without the same educational and professional sponsorships as my father had, many in these later waves founded mom-and-pop businesses and <a href="https://www.marketplace.org/2017/11/20/immigrant-lending-clubs-provide-capital-cost/">peer lending</a> networks. They gravitated toward blue-collar industries and “pink-collar” jobs in salons, food service or child care. </p>
<p>Often serving affluent Americans who looked the other way at their struggle, or their very existence, members of this Asian America are perpetually foreign, and doubly invisible.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391725/original/file-20210325-23-j299ht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Asian woman hands change back to three Asian American customers, over a large outdoor fruit display" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391725/original/file-20210325-23-j299ht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391725/original/file-20210325-23-j299ht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391725/original/file-20210325-23-j299ht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391725/original/file-20210325-23-j299ht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391725/original/file-20210325-23-j299ht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391725/original/file-20210325-23-j299ht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391725/original/file-20210325-23-j299ht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A mom-and-pop grocery store in Chinatown, New York City.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/man-paying-a-woman-at-a-fresh-fruit-stand-in-chinatown-news-photo/916117612?adppopup=true">Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The women who worked and died at Young’s Asian Massage, Gold Spa and Aromatherapy Spa lived in this Asian America – not my father’s or mine.</p>
<p>Between the ages of 33 and 74, more than half were over 50. They worked in a low-wage industry in which Asian immigrant ownership is linked to assumptions about <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/03/19/asian-massage-business-women-atlanta/">sex work</a>. This fits into the exotic <a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/jgrj1&div=11&id=&page=">Asian prostitute stereotype</a>, as old as Suzie Wong or <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25069626">Miss Saigon</a>.</p>
<p>However, immigrant-run massage and spa establishments perform <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/21/opinion/atlanta-shooting-asian-massage.html">legitimate business transactions</a> every day. They massage feet and backs, do acupuncture, give facials. It’s also possible for both legal massage and sex work to occur at the same business, not involving every worker or every client.</p>
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<p>Such workers make up the other side of the high-earning “model minority” statistic. That data masks the fact that Asian Americans have the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/07/12/income-inequality-in-the-u-s-is-rising-most-rapidly-among-asians/">highest income inequality of any racial group</a>, with the top 10% of this population earning more than 10 times what the bottom 10% earns. </p>
<h2>Dangerous stereotypes</h2>
<p>This second Asian America is less likely to work from home or have access to power. That, combined with perceptions that they are not fully American, may make them more vulnerable to attacks like the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/17/us/hate-crimes-against-asian-americans-community.html">3,800 documented hate incidents against Asian Americans</a> since the pandemic started. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391726/original/file-20210325-21-1v1frcv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Exterior of the spa at dark with flowers all around it" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391726/original/file-20210325-21-1v1frcv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391726/original/file-20210325-21-1v1frcv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391726/original/file-20210325-21-1v1frcv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391726/original/file-20210325-21-1v1frcv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391726/original/file-20210325-21-1v1frcv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391726/original/file-20210325-21-1v1frcv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391726/original/file-20210325-21-1v1frcv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A memorial at Gold Spa, in Atlanta, after the March 16 shootings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-bring-flowers-to-the-memorial-sight-set-up-outside-news-photo/1231818325?adppopup=true">Megan Varner/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When Asian Americans are so easily, and so often, stereotyped, they become categories, not people – not individuals who make lives, raise families and do the best they can in their adopted homeland. </p>
<p>In the case of the Atlanta killings, many early media portrayals obscured the victims’ dignity or distinctness as mothers and grandmothers, a business owner, a former school teacher, an avid line dancer and a lover of Korean soap operas who cooked a mean kimchi jjigae — in short, as Americans. </p>
<p>“My mother didn’t do anything wrong,” the son of 63-year-old Yong Ae Yue, the fan of Korean soap operas and cooking, told the <a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/breaking-officials-release-names-of-4-women-killed-in-atlanta-spa-shootings/UJR22SSUQZE2JHB7EFWRT6DUZI/">Atlanta Journal-Constitution</a>. “And she deserves the recognition that she is a human.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157762/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Angie Chuang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The media tends to render Asian Americans as either a ‘perpetual foreigner’ or ‘model minority’ – both stereotypes that have been levied in tandem against immigrants from Asia since the 1830s.Angie Chuang, Associate Professor of Journalism, University of Colorado BoulderLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1468142020-10-14T12:17:11Z2020-10-14T12:17:11ZWeChat: why Donald Trump’s push to ban the app would be so hard on the Chinese diaspora<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/361645/original/file-20201005-18-1i3gvfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=437%2C259%2C4348%2C2975&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Is time up for WeChat in the US?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cellphone-wechat-icon-front-flag-america-1818221336">Boumen Japet/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Chinese Americans are waiting nervously to hear whether the Trump administration’s efforts to ban the app WeChat in the US will be successful. </p>
<p>Donald Trump issued <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-addressing-threat-posed-wechat/">an executive order</a> on August 6 placing the Chinese-owned app in the firing line, claiming it was a “threat” to US national security. The order propelled the <a href="https://www.commerce.gov/news/press-releases/2020/09/commerce-department-prohibits-wechat-and-tiktok-transactions-protect">US Department of Commerce</a> into action to propose banning WeChat from US app stores and prohibit money transfers using the app. This move was met with <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/news/wechat-china-social-media-tech-chinese-immigrant-20200927.html">dismay</a> by many Chinese Americans, who rely on the app as a source of both news and connection with family and friends in China. </p>
<p>On September 20, a few days before the executive order was due to take effect, a federal judge put a preliminary injunction on the ban, bringing temporary relief to the Chinese diaspora. But the Trump administration has since <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-wechat-ban-idUSKBN26N2SV">lodged an appeal</a>, indicating a determination to pursue the ban and leaving WeChat users in America uncertain of the app’s future. </p>
<h2>Multiple apps in one</h2>
<p>WeChat, like the <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-tiktok-deal-explained-who-is-oracle-why-walmart-and-what-does-it-mean-for-our-data-146566">video-sharing app TikTok</a>, has been caught up in mounting <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2020/08/07/more-pain-than-gain-how-the-us-china-trade-war-hurt-america/">trade tensions</a> and a growing <a href="https://www.fm-magazine.com/news/2020/aug/geopolitical-tensions-threat-to-china-businesses.html">geopolitical rivalry</a> between the US and China. The ownership of data and the digital technology companies behind popular apps has taken centre stage. </p>
<p>While Tiktok has a strong presence in the US, with an estimated user base of 100 million, WeChat use is more highly concentrated in the Chinese American community, with an average US monthly user-base of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/22/trump-wechat-executive-order-chinese-americans">19 million active daily users</a>. However, WeChat is a behemoth in the global app market, with more than <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/255778/number-of-active-wechat-messenger-accounts/">1.2 billion monthly active users</a> in the second quarter of 2020. </p>
<p>WeChat’s multifunctionality makes it difficult to characterise in terms of platforms familiar to a western audience. This single app offers text, voice and video communication among different types of social networks, games, QR code scanning, taxi hailing, mobile commerce and phone payment functionality. </p>
<p>Its core function, <em>qun</em>, is similar to WhatsApp – allowing users to create a group of up to 500 members, send text, voice, photo and video messages to the group and organise group calls. <em>Pengyouquan</em> (similar to Facebook posts) enables users to share updates, while <em>Gongzhonghao</em> (official accounts) is similar to Twitter, allowing individuals, government, media and enterprises to set up official accounts and feeds. The app’s commercial functionality also makes it similar to apps such as Apple Pay and Paypal.</p>
<p>With this combined massive user-base and range of functionality, WeChat is a central feature of daily life in China. It’s one of the relatively few apps that is available both within and outside of China – representing a vital link for the Chinese diaspora to friends, family and news from home. </p>
<h2>WeChat and <em>guanxi</em></h2>
<p>In our <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1461444819830072">research</a> on WeChat use by Chinese citizens living in the UK, it was clear how central the app was to their daily lives. Our participants discussed using WeChat “every minute” and told us that: “Checking updates on WeChat is the first thing I do in the morning and the last thing I do before going to bed in the evening.” Research from <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/miad/173/1">Australia</a> shows the app is being used in similar ways there too. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Woman holding phone and coffe cup sitting in a cafe." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363256/original/file-20201013-21-1rao4xx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363256/original/file-20201013-21-1rao4xx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363256/original/file-20201013-21-1rao4xx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363256/original/file-20201013-21-1rao4xx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363256/original/file-20201013-21-1rao4xx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363256/original/file-20201013-21-1rao4xx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363256/original/file-20201013-21-1rao4xx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Glued to WeChat.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/woman-use-smart-phone-coffee-shop-399188647">By leungchopan/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In political terms, WeChat serves a rather subtle function. On one hand, it can be an effective way to raise awareness and mobilise on issues that affect people’s lives. On the other, the platform is steeped in <a href="https://citizenlab.ca/2020/05/we-chat-they-watch/">well-founded fears</a> around censorship and monitoring, which can inhibit discussions that challenge authority. </p>
<p>It’s also a space where an emphasis is put on pragmatism – and where social ties, or <em>guanxi</em> in the Chinese context, are constructed. <em>Guanxi</em> refers to a range of socio-cultural components such as trustworthiness, reputation, reciprocity and obligation that can <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002764215580613">make or break people’s standing in Chinese society</a>. <em>Guanxi</em> provides a way for people to cultivate social relations and exchange favours with others – and WeChat provides the only platform for many Chinese people to maintain such social relations overseas.</p>
<h2>Legal fight</h2>
<p>Resistance to the executive order banning WeChat was quickly taken up by five Chinese American lawyers, who established the US WeChat Users’ Alliance (<a href="https://uswua.org/">USWUA</a>). It was this group which initiated the legal challenge to the executive order on the grounds that WeChat is not only an essential network for Chinese Americans to run businesses and engage in diaspora community life, but also the only means for Chinese Americans to remain connected to family and friends in China. </p>
<p>Michael Bien, who represents the USWUA, has <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/US-China-tensions/US-based-WeChat-users-sue-over-Trump-s-unconstitutional-ban">argued</a> that the proposed ban violates the constitutional rights of Chinese Americans as “an insular group that has historically been a minority that’s been subject to discrimination in the US, by law or by practice.” </p>
<p>The legal action was taken because the ban threatens the essential communication lifeline within the community. As USWUA states on its official website: the American Chinese community has never caused trouble in the US. While it’s unlikely there will be a widespread protests if WeChat is eventually banned, doing so will cut off a vital communication tool for this community.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146814/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>WeChat is a key way for the Chinese diaspora to maintain social ties, or guanxi.Yan Wu, Associate Professor in Media and Communications, Swansea UniversityMatt Wall, Associate Professor, Political and Cultural Studies , Swansea UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1118072019-04-02T10:41:13Z2019-04-02T10:41:13Z3 times political conflict reshaped American mathematics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262256/original/file-20190305-48423-h2dtmi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">International forces advancing toward Boxer soldiers outside the Imperial Palace in Beijing, China, during the Boxer Rebellion.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Boxer-Rebellion/media/76364/189665">Library of Congress</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Wars. Politics. Dynasties. Nationalism. </p>
<p>Although mathematics isn’t typically associated with these ideas, they have combined to yield a tremendous impact on its development in the U.S. Political conflicts have led to new study abroad initiatives, the creation or downfall of world-class universities, the migration of mathematicians and the stimulus for educational reforms.</p>
<p>In February, my University of Richmond students and I launched <a href="http://americanmathematics.org">americanmathematics.org</a>, a new website on the history of American mathematics. It showcases the people who create, the institutions that support and the cultures that influence mathematics. </p>
<p>This rich history shows that mathematics is much more than equations or multiplication facts. It’s a living, breathing discipline shaped, in part, by the political forces around it. </p>
<h2>Boxer Scholars</h2>
<p>In the late 19th century, a growing anti-foreign sentiment in China led to the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Boxer-Rebellion">Boxer uprising</a>, acquiring its name from the rebels, known as “Boxers,” who practiced physical movements that they believed made them immune to bullets. </p>
<p>A coalition army of soldiers from eight western countries suppressed the rebellion in August 1900. In 1901, China was <a href="http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Boxer_Rebellion">forced to pay war reparations</a> valued at about US$333 million to the eight foreign governments over the course of 39 years. </p>
<p>The U.S. received about $24 million to $25 million. Many American government officials found this amount excessive, particularly since it exceeded the actual expenses for losses incurred. </p>
<p>Edmund James, then president of the University of Illinois, helped persuade President Theodore Roosevelt to return some of these funds and create educational opportunities for Chinese students to study in the U.S. These <a href="https://earlychinesemit.mit.edu/three-waves/boxer-indemnity-scholarship-program">Boxer Indemnity Scholarships</a> brought more than 900 Chinese students to America from 1911 to 1929. </p>
<p>Wang Renfu was the first Boxer Scholar to study mathematics in America. After earning his degree from Harvard in 1913, he returned to China and joined the Department of Mathematics at Beijing University. He later served on the Board of the Chinese Mathematical Society. </p>
<p>To prepare students for study in the U.S., the Chinese government also used the Boxer Indemnity Funds to create a college preparatory school in 1911. This preparatory school, known as Tsinghua School, ultimately grew into Tsinghua University.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262528/original/file-20190306-100787-1iehb14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262528/original/file-20190306-100787-1iehb14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262528/original/file-20190306-100787-1iehb14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262528/original/file-20190306-100787-1iehb14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262528/original/file-20190306-100787-1iehb14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262528/original/file-20190306-100787-1iehb14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262528/original/file-20190306-100787-1iehb14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262528/original/file-20190306-100787-1iehb14.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Tsinghua University campus in Beijing, China.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:TsinghuaUniversitypic2.jpg">Tsinghua/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The four faculty members of the initial Department of Mathematics at Tsinghua University included three Boxer Scholars, including Ko-Chuen Yang, whose number theory dissertation improved existing bounds for certain cases of what is known as <a href="http://people.maths.ox.ac.uk/neale/Waring_longer.html">Waring’s Problem</a>. Waring’s Problem considers the possibility of writing every number as a sum of squares, cubes and higher powers. The school continues to enjoy a strong reputation today.</p>
<p>That rebellion created the opportunity for Chinese students to study in the U.S. and return home to establish strong mathematics programs in China. Later, Chinese mathematicians would receive their training in China and make contributions to American mathematics. </p>
<h2>Jewish refugees</h2>
<p>World War II and the events leading up to it influenced mathematics in an entirely different way. </p>
<p>In April 1933, Hitler introduced the <a href="https://www.ushmm.org/learn/timeline-of-events/1933-1938/law-for-the-restoration-of-the-professional-civil-service">Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service</a>, which excluded Jews and others from employment, including involvement in organizations and professorships. Many Jewish scholars or scholars with Jewish families began to seek refuge in the U.S. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262498/original/file-20190306-100784-wlof7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262498/original/file-20190306-100784-wlof7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262498/original/file-20190306-100784-wlof7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262498/original/file-20190306-100784-wlof7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262498/original/file-20190306-100784-wlof7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262498/original/file-20190306-100784-wlof7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262498/original/file-20190306-100784-wlof7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262498/original/file-20190306-100784-wlof7n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hermann and Helene Weyl.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Hermann_Weyl#/media/File:Hermann_and_Helene_Weyl.jpg">Konrad Jacobs/Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.ias.edu/hermann-weyl-life">Hermann</a> <a href="http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Weyl.html">Weyl</a> and his family, for example, had moved from Zürich to <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-one-german-city-developed-and-then-lost-generations-of-math-geniuses-106750">Göttingen, Germany</a>, for him to assume the chair of mathematics in 1930. By 1933, however, with his wife and children identified as Jewish, Weyl accepted one of the first faculty positions at the newly founded Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.</p>
<p>Once there, Weyl worked with colleagues to help other mathematicians find a home in America. This influx of talented European mathematicians included <a href="http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Courant.html">Richard Courant</a>, <a href="http://www.ams.org/journals/bull/2013-50-02/S0273-0979-2012-01398-8/S0273-0979-2012-01398-8.pdf">Emil Artin</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencenews.org/article/emmy-noether-theorem-legacy-physics-math">Emmy Noether</a>. Their arrival catapulted American mathematics to a new level of international acclaim. </p>
<p>This advancement of American mathematics came at the expense of German mathematics. In 1934, the Nazi minister of culture asked the great Göttingen Professor of Mathematics David Hilbert whether the mathematics institute at Göttingen had suffered since the removal of the Jews. “Suffered?” <a href="https://faculty.math.illinois.edu/%7Ereznick/davidrowe.pdf">Hilbert responded</a>. “It hasn’t suffered, Herr Minister. It just doesn’t exist anymore.” </p>
<h2>New Math</h2>
<p>The launch of Sputnik, the Soviet Union’s first satellite, in October 1957 led to another shift in American mathematics, this time at the K-12 level. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262493/original/file-20190306-100796-wjm084.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262493/original/file-20190306-100796-wjm084.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262493/original/file-20190306-100796-wjm084.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262493/original/file-20190306-100796-wjm084.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262493/original/file-20190306-100796-wjm084.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262493/original/file-20190306-100796-wjm084.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262493/original/file-20190306-100796-wjm084.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262493/original/file-20190306-100796-wjm084.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An artist’s illustration of Sputnik.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/illustration-first-artificial-satellite-sputnik-launched-383756191">AuntSpray/shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During World War II, the U.S. government realized that many Americans were deficient in <a href="https://www.csun.edu/%7Evcmth00m/AHistory.html">arithmetic, geometry and trigonometry</a>. A <a href="https://www.americanheritage.com/whatever-happened-new-math-0">national shortage of mathematics teachers</a> didn’t help matters. Still, very little reform took place immediately after the war. </p>
<p>Sputnik changed all of that. The U.S. now considered how to build a strong sense of scientific prowess and national security within the American populace. The <a href="http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/Biographies/Begle.html">School Mathematics Study Group</a>, the National Science Foundation-funded group that included research mathematicians and schoolteachers, aimed to produce textbooks for every grade of K-12 that explained the “why” of mathematics along with the “how.” Their approach became infamously known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Math">New Math</a>. </p>
<p>The School Mathematics Study Group worked within an American culture that began to rethink its view of mathematics. Suddenly, mathematics was linked with national security. Politicians endorsed this new approach to math. Parents attended classes to learn how to help their children with the New Math. Teachers attended training sessions. </p>
<p>In the end, however, the introduction of the program occurred so swiftly that educators could not keep up with the materials, when they simply did not understand. Meanwhile, the approach proved uneven for students. For example, students might understand the commutative law that allows multiplication of integers in any order, but not the multiplication table it relies on for the computation. </p>
<p>Nationalism and political agendas were not enough to make the program successful. Taken together, these three historical events show how political conflict can help or harm the advancement of mathematics.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111807/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Della Dumbaugh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When is math not just math? Political conflicts have led to new study-abroad initiatives, the creation of a world-class university, the migration of mathematicians and serious educational reforms.Della Dumbaugh, Professor of Mathematics, University of RichmondLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1110342019-02-06T19:59:51Z2019-02-06T19:59:51ZDemocrats court rural Southern voters with Stacey Abrams’ State of the Union response<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257570/original/file-20190206-174880-ct6nqp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Stacey Abrams is the first African-American woman to deliver a State of the Union response in the 53-year history of this tradition.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/State-of-Union-Democratic-Response/ee7ce0fdc196420ba8fa70a3b5c067cd/1/0">Pool video image via AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/full-text-stacey-abrams-response-trump-s-state-union-n968221">brief, direct and optimistic speech</a> about fighting immigrant scapegoating, racism and voter suppression, Stacey Abrams celebrated diversity in her Democratic rebuttal to Donald Trump’s divisive 2019 State of the Union address. </p>
<p>“We will create a stronger America together,” she said.</p>
<p>Abrams is the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/04/stacey-abrams-first-black-woman-to-give-the-state-of-the-union-response.html">first African-American woman</a> to deliver a State of the Union response in the 53-year history of this tradition. She is the first black woman to be nominated by a major party to run for governor. Before that, she was the first African-American ever to serve as <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/04/stacey-abrams-first-black-woman-to-give-the-state-of-the-union-response.html">House minority leader in the Georgia General Assembly</a>.</p>
<p>Her State of the Union response has increased speculation that she is a <a href="https://www.salon.com/2019/01/30/rising-star-stacey-abrams-to-deliver-democratic-response-to-trumps-state-of-the-union-address/">rising political star</a> with a bright future in the Democratic Party.</p>
<p>By choosing Abrams to give the State of the Union response, Democrats were clearly <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/05/politics/stacey-abrams-state-of-the-union-democratic-response/index.html">reaching out to African-Americans and women</a>, a key base for the party. </p>
<p>But Abrams’ speech also spoke to an often-overlooked constituency the Democratic Party may not have even thought about when they picked her. It’s a constituency Abrams has already cultivated: rural Southerners of color. </p>
<p>Abrams campaigned in <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/black-rural-voters-could-prove-key-to-georgia-democrats/4597431.html">both urban and rural counties</a> last year, defying the logic of a Democratic Party that tends to court big city voters while leaving rural Americans to be <a href="https://www.npr.org/2016/11/14/501737150/rural-voters-played-a-big-part-in-helping-trump-defeat-clinton">won over by Republicans like Donald Trump</a>.</p>
<h2>Forgotten Southerners</h2>
<p>I have been studying <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=V8VhlpAAAAAJ&hl=en">minority politics in the South</a> for over 20 years. </p>
<p>The rural South is home to about <a href="https://www.facingsouth.org/2017/06/rural-south-defies-demographic-and-political-stereotypes">90 percent of America’s entire black rural population</a>, and politics in this region have long been defined by black and white polarization. The South was a Democratic stronghold until the civil rights movement, and Democrats know <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-12/democrats-discover-new-path-to-beating-trump-in-deep-south">they can’t win national office</a> without winning here.</p>
<p>But the South – both urban and rural – is changing. In recent decades, a large number of Asian and Hispanic immigrants have <a href="https://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/blrlj/vol10/iss1/3/">settled</a> in <a href="http://www.ruralhome.org/storage/research_notes/rrn-race-and-ethnicity-web.pdf">Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina</a> and other southern states, bringing greater demographic and political diversity to this formerly black-and-white region.</p>
<p>Chinese immigrants <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/13/lens/mississippi-delta-chinese-americans.html">first came to rural southern areas</a> like the Mississippi Delta after the Civil War, so Asian-Americans have deep roots in the South. But between 2000 and 2010, the population of Asian-Americans in the South <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/asian-american-growth-south_us_5a948133e4b0699553cb5834">grew 69 percent</a>, to <a href="https://www.advancingjustice-aajc.org/sites/default/files/2016-09/2014_Community%20of%20Contrasts.pdf">over 3.8 million</a>, largely due to the region’s many <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/asian-american-growth-south_us_5a948133e4b0699553cb5834">job opportunities and affordable housing</a>.</p>
<p>The South’s Hispanic population has <a href="https://www.frbatlanta.org/economy-matters/2015/10/15/hispanics-in-the-southeast">grown by 70 percent in recent years</a>, surpassing 2.3 million people in 2010, when the last U.S. Census was taken. Many of these individuals have settled in rural communities, filling agricultural and other jobs <a href="https://www.frbatlanta.org/economy-matters/2015/10/15/hispanics-in-the-southeast">and sending their children to public school</a>. </p>
<p>Racial and ethnic minorities now make up over 20 percent of the entire rural population in <a href="https://www.facingsouth.org/2017/06/rural-south-defies-demographic-and-political-stereotypes">10 southern states</a>, from Florida to Virginia. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257374/original/file-20190206-86224-uq88m6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257374/original/file-20190206-86224-uq88m6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257374/original/file-20190206-86224-uq88m6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257374/original/file-20190206-86224-uq88m6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257374/original/file-20190206-86224-uq88m6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=380&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257374/original/file-20190206-86224-uq88m6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257374/original/file-20190206-86224-uq88m6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257374/original/file-20190206-86224-uq88m6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">U.S. President Donald Trump enters House chamber to deliver the State of the Union address before Congress, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-State-of-Union/0e0ecb712fbb4b01a36557a2e312222a/1/0">AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Democrats’ rural base</h2>
<p>Democrats can and should court these communities if they want to win in the South. Stacy Abrams knows that. She even opened her speech wishing viewers a “happy Lunar New Year,” a nod to Chinese-Americans. </p>
<p>The overwhelming majority of <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/black-rural-voters-could-prove-key-to-georgia-democrats/4597431.html">black rural Southern residents are Democrats</a>. <a href="http://www.apiavote.org/research/2018-asian-american-voter-survey">Asian-American</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/18/most-hispanics-vote-democrat-but-most-hispanic-politicians-are-republican-marco-rubio-ted-cruz">Latino voters</a> across the nation lean Democratic.</p>
<p>Abrams <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/06/us/elections/results-georgia-elections.html">won big</a> in rural northern Georgia, in places like Calhoun County, which in addition to being heavily African-American has one of the <a href="https://www.homesnacks.net/most-hispanic-cities-in-georgia-1210756/">highest Latino populations in the state</a> outside Atlanta.</p>
<p>Abrams benefited not just from rural votes but also from their turnout. </p>
<p>In predominantly black and rural Washington County, Georgia, where Abrams received 69 percent of the primary vote, the turnout rate <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/black-rural-voters-could-prove-key-to-georgia-democrats/4597431.html">nearly doubled from 2014</a>. From the first days of her campaign, Abrams targeted rural voters, bringing them into the electoral process.</p>
<p>She did the same thing for the Democratic Party in the general election.</p>
<h2>Voter suppression</h2>
<p>Abrams’ State of the Union response also focused on an issue that has <a href="https://theconversation.com/georgia-election-fight-shows-that-black-voter-suppression-a-southern-tradition-still-flourishes-105263">marred Southern elections for over a century</a>: minority voter exclusion.</p>
<p>“Let’s be clear,” <a href="https://www.politico.com/interactives/2019/stacey-abrams-state-of-the-union-2019-response-fact-check-transcript-2/5/19/">she said</a>. “Voter suppression is real. From making it harder to register and stay on the rolls to moving and closing polling places, to rejecting lawful ballots, we can no longer ignore these threats to democracy.” </p>
<p>Abrams’ focus on voter suppression as a candidate was <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-georgias-gubernatorial-race-stacey-abrams-strategy-may-make-victory-easier-for-future-black-candidates-in-the-south-106122">appealing to people of color</a>, some of whom learned late in the 2018 campaign season that many of their ranks had been <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/11/21/669106803/georgia-set-to-remain-a-battleground-for-voting-rights-ahead-of-2020">purged from voting rolls</a>. </p>
<p>Some <a href="https://www.wabe.org/georgia-purged-about-107000-people-from-voter-rolls-report/">107,000 people</a> were removed from Georgia’s voter registration list because they hadn’t voted in previous elections. Another 50,000 applications to vote submitted by black, Asian and <a href="http://remezcla.com/features/culture/latinos-fighting-voter-suppression-in-georgia/">Latino</a> Georgians were invalidated because of Georgia’s “exact match” law, which requires that the name on voter registration applications match exactly the information already on file with the government. </p>
<p>Voting rights groups said the law amounted to <a href="https://theconversation.com/georgia-election-fight-shows-that-black-voter-suppression-a-southern-tradition-still-flourishes-105263">voter suppression</a>, and blamed Abrams’ narrow loss on fraud by then-Secretary of State Brian Kemp, her opponent. Kemp denied the accusations and <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/26/18024468/georgia-voter-suppression-stacey-abrams-brian-kemp-voting-rights">said</a> his office was working to ensure “election integrity.”</p>
<p>Georgia’s exact match law disproportionately affects immigrants who had recently become citizens as well as Asian-Americans, who in 2016 were <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/news/2018/05/07/450310/5-ways-increase-asian-american-voter-turnout/">six times more likely to have their applications rejected</a> because the names they registered to vote with differed minutely from their names on other identification forms.</p>
<p>Because of her political accomplishments, charisma – and, now, her national name recognition – Abrams’ importance for the Democratic Party goes beyond her obvious appeal to African-Americans and women. </p>
<p>If Democrats want to win big in 2020, they’ll need Stacey Abrams.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111034/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sharon D. Wright Austin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The South is changing, with more Asian and Latino immigrants moving in and diversifying a region that was once black and white. Stacey Abrams knows that Democrats can win these rural voters.Sharon D. Wright Austin, Professor of Political Science and Director of the African American Studies Program, University of FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/866492017-11-02T17:27:06Z2017-11-02T17:27:06ZIn America’s sandwiches, the story of a nation<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193075/original/file-20171102-26483-ais8mr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/roast-beef-sandwich-on-plate-pickles-675902929?src=dhOfZe0q8WbQgSGvfCnEXw-1-41">Anna_Pustynnikova</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Everyone has a favorite sandwich, often prepared to an exacting degree of specification: Turkey or ham? Grilled or toasted? Mayo or mustard? White or whole wheat?</em> </p>
<p><em>We reached out to five food historians and asked them to tell the story of a sandwich of their choosing. The responses included staples like peanut butter and jelly, as well as regional fare like New England’s chow mein sandwich.</em> </p>
<p><em>Together, they show how the sandwiches we eat (or used to eat) do more than fill us up during our lunch breaks. In their stories are themes of immigration and globalization, of class and gender, and of resourcefulness and creativity.</em></p>
<hr>
<h2>A taste of home for working women</h2>
<p><strong>Megan Elias, Boston University</strong></p>
<p>The tuna salad sandwich originated from an impulse to conserve, only to become a symbol of excess. </p>
<p>In the 19th century – before the era of supermarkets and cheap groceries – most Americans avoided wasting food. Scraps of chicken, ham or fish from supper would be mixed with mayonnaise and served on lettuce for lunch. Leftovers of celery, pickles and olives – served as supper “relishes” – would also be folded into the mix. </p>
<p>The versions of these salads that incorporated fish tended to use salmon, white fish or trout. Most Americans didn’t cook (or even know of) tuna. </p>
<p>Around the end of the 19th century, middle-class women <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/98859/land-of-desire-by-william-r-leach/9780679754114/">began to spend more time in public</a>, patronizing department stores, lectures and museums. Since social conventions kept these women out of the saloons where men ate, lunch restaurants opened up to cater to this new clientele. They offered women exactly the kind of foods they had served each other at home: salads. While salads made at home often were composed of leftovers, those at lunch restaurants were made from scratch. Fish and shellfish salads were typical fare. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193068/original/file-20171102-26483-15wim46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193068/original/file-20171102-26483-15wim46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193068/original/file-20171102-26483-15wim46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193068/original/file-20171102-26483-15wim46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=841&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193068/original/file-20171102-26483-15wim46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1057&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193068/original/file-20171102-26483-15wim46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1057&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193068/original/file-20171102-26483-15wim46.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1057&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 1949 ad in Ladies’ Home Journal announces a ‘Revolution in Tuna.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/The_Ladies%27_home_journal_%281948%29_%2814766583732%29.jpg">Internet Archive Book Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When further social and economic changes <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/out-to-work-9780195157093?cc=us&lang=en&">brought women into the public as office and department store workers</a>, they found fish salads waiting for them at the affordable lunch counters patronized by busy urban workers. Unlike the ladies’ lunch, the office lunch hour had time limits. So lunch counters came up with the idea of offering the salads between two pieces of bread, which sped up table turnover and encouraged patrons to get lunch to go. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520261846">When canned tuna was introduced in the early 20th century</a>, lunch counters and home cooks could skip the step of cooking a fish and go straight to the salad. But there was downside: The immense popularity of canned tuna led to the growth of a global industry that has severely depleted stocks and led to the unintended <a href="https://swfsc.noaa.gov/textblock.aspx?Division=PRD&ParentMenuId=228&id=1408">slaughter of millions of dolphins</a>. A clever way to use dinner scraps has become a global crisis of conscience and capitalism. </p>
<p>I like mine on toasted rye.</p>
<hr>
<h2>East meets West in Fall River, Massachusetts</h2>
<p><strong>Imogene Lim, Vancouver Island University</strong></p>
<p>“Gonna get a big dish of beef chow mein,” Warren Zevon <a href="https://play.google.com/music/preview/Tzmgsphpess3y2zc3oglxr4aira?lyrics=1&utm_source=google&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=lyrics&pcampaignid=kp-lyrics&u=0#">sings</a> in his 1978 hit “Werewolves of London,” a nod to the popular Chinese stir-fried noodle dish. </p>
<p>During that same decade, <a href="https://folklife.si.edu/talkstory/2015/songs-for-ourselves-an-asian-american-music-playlist">Alika and the Happy Samoans</a>, the house band for a Chinese restaurant in Fall River, Massachusetts, also paid tribute to chow mein with a song titled “<a href="https://soundcloud.com/moyamoya4201/alika-and-the-happy-samoans">Chow Mein Sandwich</a>.”</p>
<p>Chow mein in a sandwich? Is that a real thing?</p>
<p>I was first introduced to the chow mein sandwich while completing my doctorate at Brown University. Even as the child of a Chinatown restaurateur from Vancouver, I viewed the sandwich as something of a mystery. It led to a post-doctoral fellowship and <a href="http://wordpress.viu.ca/limi/files/2012/07/ChowMeinSandwiches1994o.pdf">a paper</a> about Chinese entrepreneurship in New England. </p>
<p>The chow mein sandwich is the quintessential “East meets West” food, and it’s largely associated with New England’s Chinese restaurants – specifically, those of Fall River, a city crowded with textile mills near the Rhode Island border. </p>
<p>The sandwich became popular in the 1920s because it was filling and cheap: Workers munched on them in factory canteens, while their kids ate them for lunch in the parish schools, especially on meatless Fridays. It would go on to be available at some “five and dime” lunch counters, like <a href="http://www.enterprisenews.com/news/20160407/lunch-counter-memories-at-kresges-department-store-in-brockton">Kresge’s</a> and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1997/07/18/business/woolworth-gives-up-on-the-five-and-dime.html">Woolworth</a> – and even at <a href="http://photobucket.com/gallery/http://s143.photobucket.com/user/genalof/media/BLOG/09BLOG-6.jpg.html">Nathan’s</a> in Coney Island.</p>
<p>It’s exactly what it sounds like: a sandwich filled with chow mein (deep-fried, flat noodles, topped with a ladle of brown gravy, onions, celery and bean sprouts). If you want to make your own authentic sandwich at home, I recommend using <a href="https://www.famousfoods.com/newengland-chow.html">Hoo Mee Chow Mein Mix</a>, which is still made in Fall River. It can be served in a bun (à la sloppy joe) or between sliced white bread, much like a hot turkey sandwich with gravy. The classic meal includes the sandwich, french fries and orange soda.</p>
<p>For those who grew up in the Fall River area, the chow mein sandwich is a reminder of home. Just ask famous chef (and Fall River native) Emeril Lagasse, who came up with his own “Fall River chow mein” <a href="https://www.splendidtable.org/recipes/fall-river-chow-mein">recipe</a>. </p>
<p>And at one time, Fall River expats living in Los Angeles would hold a “Fall River Day.” </p>
<p>On the menu? Chow mein sandwiches, of course. </p>
<hr>
<h2>A snack for the elites</h2>
<p><strong>Paul Freedman, Yale University</strong></p>
<p>Unlike many American food trends of the 1890s, such as the Waldorf salad and <a href="http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O93019/chafing-dish-cover-benson-william-arthur/">chafing dishes</a>, the club sandwich has endured, immune to obsolescence. </p>
<p>The sandwich originated in the country’s stuffy gentlemen’s clubs, which are known – to this day – for a conservatism that includes loyalty to outdated cuisine. (The Wilmington Club in Delaware continues to serve <a href="https://www.saveur.com/history-of-turtle-soup-hunting">terrapin</a>, while the Philadelphia Club’s specialties include veal and ham pie.) So the club sandwich’s spread to the rest of the population, along with its lasting popularity, is a testament to its inventiveness and appeal. </p>
<p>A two-layer affair, the club sandwich calls for three pieces of toasted bread spread with mayonnaise and filled with chicken or turkey, bacon, lettuce and tomato. Usually the sandwich is cut into two triangles and held together with a toothpick stuck in each half. </p>
<p>Some believe it should be eaten with a fork and knife, and its blend of elegance and blandness make the club sandwich a permanent feature of country and city club cuisine.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193071/original/file-20171102-26448-193bmll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193071/original/file-20171102-26448-193bmll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193071/original/file-20171102-26448-193bmll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193071/original/file-20171102-26448-193bmll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193071/original/file-20171102-26448-193bmll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193071/original/file-20171102-26448-193bmll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193071/original/file-20171102-26448-193bmll.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The club sandwich: A perfect blend of elegance and blandness.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/club-sandwich-on-rustic-wooden-background-188159096">Alena Haurylik</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2015/11/the-evolution-of-club-sandwich.html">As far back as 1889</a>, there are references to a Union Club sandwich of turkey or ham on toast. The Saratoga Club-House offered a club sandwich on its menu beginning in 1894. </p>
<p>Interestingly, until the 1920s, sandwiches were identified with ladies’ lunch places that served “dainty” food. The first club sandwich recipe comes from an 1899 book of “salads, sandwiches and chafing-dish dainties,” and <a href="http://www.cntraveller.com/news/2012/january/in-praise-of-the-club-sandwich">its most famous proponent</a> was Wallis Simpson, the American woman whom Edward VIII abdicated the throne of Great Britain <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2016/11/edward-viii-wallis-simpson-wedding-photos-auction">to marry</a>. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, an 1889 article from the New York Sun entitled “An Appetizing Sandwich: A Dainty Treat That Has Made a New York Chef Popular” describes the Union Club sandwich as appropriate for a post-theater supper, or something light to be eaten before a nightcap. This was one type of sandwich that men could indulge in, the article seemed to be saying – as long as it wasn’t eaten for lunch.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193059/original/file-20171102-26462-1mm46ms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193059/original/file-20171102-26462-1mm46ms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193059/original/file-20171102-26462-1mm46ms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193059/original/file-20171102-26462-1mm46ms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193059/original/file-20171102-26462-1mm46ms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193059/original/file-20171102-26462-1mm46ms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193059/original/file-20171102-26462-1mm46ms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New York City’s Union Club served an early version of the club sandwich that was a hit.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Union_Club_NYC_003.JPG">Gryffindor</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<h2>‘The combination is delicious and original’</h2>
<p><strong>Ken Albala, University of the Pacific</strong></p>
<p>While the peanut butter and jelly sandwich eventually became a staple of elementary school cafeterias, it actually has upper-crust origins.</p>
<p>In the late-19th century, at elegant ladies’ luncheons, a popular snack was small, crustless tea sandwiches with butter and cucumber, cold cuts or cheese. Around this time, health food advocates like John Harvey Kellogg <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=4UkSAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA140&dq=peanut+butter+inauthor:John+inauthor:Harvey+inauthor:Kellogg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiiuKHl953XAhUT5GMKHQe7A3MQ6AEIMzAC#v=onepage&q=peanut%20butter%20inauthor%3AJohn%20inauthor%3AHarvey%20inauthor%3AKellogg&f=false">started promoting</a> peanut products as a replacement for animal-based foods (butter included). So for a vegetarian option at these luncheons, peanut butter simply replaced regular butter.</p>
<p>One of the earliest known recipes that suggested including jelly with peanut butter appeared in a 1901 issue of the Boston Cooking School Magazine. </p>
<p>“For variety,” author Julia Davis Chandler <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=diUjAQAAIAAJ&dq=%22some%20day%20try%20making%20little%20sandwiches%2C%20or%20bread%20fingers%2C%20of%20three%20very%20thin%20layers%20of%20bread%20and%20two%20of%20filling%2C%20one%20of%20peanut%20paste&pg=RA1-PA188#v=onepage&q&f=false">wrote</a>, “some day try making little sandwiches, or bread fingers, of three very thin layers of bread and two of filling, one of peanut paste, whatever brand you prefer, and currant or crabapple jelly for the other. The combination is delicious, and so far as I know original.”</p>
<p>The sandwich moved from garden parties to lunchboxes in the 1920s, when peanut butter started to be mass produced with hydrogenated vegetable oil and sugar. Marketers of the Skippy brand targeted children as a potential new audience, and thus the association with school lunches was forged. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IPDH87kq-6M?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A Skippy peanut butter television ad from 1986.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The classic version of the sandwich is made with soft, sliced white bread, creamy or chunky peanut butter and jelly. Outside of the United States, the peanut butter and jelly sandwich <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/09/peanut-butter_n_5105203.html">is rare </a> – much of the world views the combination as repulsive. </p>
<p>These days, many try to avoid <a href="https://www.salon.com/2012/03/03/the_rise_and_fall_of_white_bread/">white bread</a> and <a href="http://www.latimes.com/food/dailydish/la-dd-rise-and-fall-of-trans-fat-20131107-story.html">hydrogenated fats</a>. Nonetheless, the sandwich has a nostalgic appeal for many Americans, and recipes for <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/food-sqirl-recipe-peanut-butter-and-jelly-sandwich-jam">high-end versions</a> – with freshly ground peanuts, artisanal bread or unusual jams – <a href="http://www.thecheapgourmet.com/2007/08/gourmet-peanut-.html">now circulate on the web</a>. </p>
<hr>
<h2>The Daughters of the Confederacy get creative</h2>
<p><strong>Andrew P. Haley, University of Southern Mississippi</strong></p>
<p>The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch_woodcock">Scotch woodcock</a> is probably not Scottish. It’s arguably not even a sandwich. A favorite of Oxford students and members of Parliament until the mid-20th century, the dish is generally prepared by layering anchovy paste and eggs on toast.</p>
<p>Like its cheesier cousin, the Welsh rabbit (better known as rarebit), its name is fanciful. Perhaps there was something about the name, if not the ingredients, that sparked the imagination of Miss Frances Lusk of Jackson, Mississippi.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193072/original/file-20171102-26448-lh4msg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193072/original/file-20171102-26448-lh4msg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193072/original/file-20171102-26448-lh4msg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193072/original/file-20171102-26448-lh4msg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193072/original/file-20171102-26448-lh4msg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193072/original/file-20171102-26448-lh4msg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193072/original/file-20171102-26448-lh4msg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193072/original/file-20171102-26448-lh4msg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The United Daughters of the Confederacy cookbook features a take on the Scotch woodcock.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://digilib.usm.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/missana/id/1279/show/1254">McCain Library and Archives, The University of Southern Mississippi</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Inspired to add a little British sophistication to her entertaining, she crafted <a href="http://digilib.usm.edu/cdm/ref/collection/missana/id/1268">her own version</a> of the Scotch woodcock for a 1911 United Daughters of the Confederacy fundraising cookbook. Miss Lusk’s woodcock sandwich mixed strained tomatoes and melted cheese, added raw eggs, and slathered the paste between layers of bread (or biscuits). </p>
<p>As food historian Bee Wilson argues in her <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ydR5na_9fnYC&lpg=PP1&dq=bee%20wilson%20sandwich&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false">history of the sandwich</a>, American sandwiches distinguished themselves from their British counterparts by the scale of their ambition. Imitating the rising skylines of American cities, many were towering affairs that celebrated abundance. </p>
<p>But those sandwiches were the sandwiches of <a href="https://restaurant-ingthroughhistory.com/2014/01/19/early-chains-baltimore-dairy-lunch/">urban lunchrooms</a> and, later, diners. In the homes of southern clubwomen, the sandwich was a way to marry British sophistication to American creativity.</p>
<p>For example, the United Daughters of the Confederacy cookbook included “sweetbread sandwiches,” made by heating canned <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/offal">offal</a> (animal trimmings) and slathering the mashed mixture between two pieces of toast. There’s also a “green pepper sandwich,” crafted from “very thin” slices of bread and “very thin” slices of green pepper. </p>
<p>Such creative combinations weren’t limited to the elites of Mississippi’s capital city. In the plantation homes of the Mississippi Delta, members of the Coahoma Woman’s Club served sandwiches of English walnuts, black walnuts and stuffed olives ground into a colorful paste. They also assembled “Friendship Sandwiches” from grated cucumbers, onions, celery and green peppers mixed with cottage cheese and mayonnaise. Meanwhile, the industrial elite of Laurel, Mississippi, served <a href="http://digilib.usm.edu/cdm/ref/collection/missana/id/1351">mashed bacon and eggs sandwiches</a> and <a href="http://digilib.usm.edu/cdm/ref/collection/missana/id/1351">creamed sardine sandwiches</a>.</p>
<p>Not all of these amalgamations were capped by a slice of bread, so purists might balk at calling them sandwiches. But these ladies did – and they proudly tied up their original creations with ribbons.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86649/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Five food experts peer under the bread to plumb the histories of the country’s unique sandwiches, from favorites like tuna fish to lesser-known fare like the woodcock.Paul Freedman, Chester D. Tripp Professor of History, Yale UniversityAndrew P. Haley, Associate Professor of American Cultural History, The University of Southern MississippiImogene L. Lim, Professor of Anthropology, Vancouver Island UniversityKen Albala, Professor of History, University of the PacificMegan Elias, Associate Professor of the Practice of Gastronomy, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/532602016-04-20T10:04:52Z2016-04-20T10:04:52ZWhen Americans thought hair was a window into the soul<p>In 2004, the North Korean government launched one of the oddest <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/jan/12/broadcasting.koreanews">television campaigns</a> in recent history: “Let’s trim our hair in accordance with the socialist lifestyle.” </p>
<p>Accompanied by radio and print ads, the five-part TV series urged North Korean men to wear their hair short. State-approved haircuts, the campaign explained, ranged in length from one to five centimeters, with seven centimeters permitted for men over 50 who sought to hide a balding scalp.</p>
<p>Why, exactly, did the government care so much about how North Korean men chose to wear their hair? Long hair, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4157121.stm">the campaign argued</a>, “consumes a great deal of nutrition” and thus threatened “human intelligence development” by depriving the brain of necessary energy. </p>
<p>Pseudoscientific ideas aside, state media also suggested that hair represented something deeper. The newspaper Minju Choson <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4157121.stm">claimed</a> that hair is a “very important issue that shows the people’s cultural standards and mental and moral state.” </p>
<p>This bizarre campaign might strike a Western reader as just another idiosyncratic North Korean story. But the idea that hair can reflect someone’s character didn’t originate with Kim Jong-il. </p>
<p>Until the early 20th century, people across the United States believed that hair could expose the truth about the person from whose head it sprouted. Hair was not just a means of creative self-expression or political affiliation, as it became in the middle of the 20th century – when it could signal to others that you were a hippie, a company man or a Black nationalist. Nor was it simply a subject of ridicule, like Donald Trump’s hair – a source of endless <a href="http://nypost.com/2016/01/03/hairdressers-reveal-the-secrets-of-donald-trumps-hair/">speculation</a> and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-wig-field_us_57145c30e4b0060ccda395e2">mockery</a>. </p>
<p>Instead, hair was understood to be a reliable – even scientific – method for quickly classifying a stranger. Hair, many 19th-century Americans believed, could reveal qualities like <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=qclGAQAAIAAJ&lpg=PA2194&ots=vz_sPkHIYu&dq=%22All%20About%20Side-Whiskers%E2%80%9D&pg=PA2194#v=onepage&q=%22All%20About%20Side-Whiskers%E2%80%9D&f=false">courage</a>, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=qI7yDdpHuYUC&dq=%22the%20ladies'%20medical%20guide%22&pg=PA467#v=onepage&q=%22the%20hair%20indicates%20races%22&f=false">ambition</a> or <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=qJ9XAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22Criminals%20and%20their%20Characteristics%22%20%22kansas%20city%22&pg=PA640#v=onepage&q=%22in%20criminals,%20as%20a%20rule,%20the%20beard%20is%20scanty%22&f=false">criminal inclinations</a>.</p>
<p>It also held exceptional weight in conversations about race.</p>
<h2>In hair, ‘ruling passions and inclinations’</h2>
<p>Americans used to believe, with surprising confidence, that hair style, color or texture could reveal a range of personal traits. </p>
<p>In 1863, for example, the literary magazine The Knickerbocker dedicated 13 pages to <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=FI8eAQAAMAAJ&dq=%22considerations%20upon%20men%20whose%20hair%22&pg=PA285#v=onepage&q=%22considerations%20upon%20men%20whose%20hair%22&f=false">defending men</a> who parted their hair in the middle – a style thought to indicate weakness. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, a Kansas City medical journal <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=qJ9XAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22Criminals%20and%20their%20Characteristics%22%20%22kansas%20city%22&pg=PA640#v=onepage&q=%22in%20criminals,%20as%20a%20rule,%20the%20beard%20is%20scanty%22&f=false">argued</a>, in 1899, that “in criminals, as a rule, the beard is scanty.”</p>
<p>In the 1870s, multiple newspapers reprinted a lengthy taxonomy of the many temperaments hair could communicate. </p>
<p>“Harsh, upright hair,” <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=L5gBAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22hair%20and%20temperament%22&pg=PA173#v=onepage&q=%22hair%20and%20temperament%22&f=false">for example</a>, signaled “a stubborn and harsh character.” Flat hair indicated “a melancholy but extremely constant character,” while auburn-haired people had “the highest capacity for enjoyment or suffering.” Those with coarse black hair had a “tendency to sensuality.” </p>
<p>This taxonomy ended with a provocative suggestion that highlighted the deference people gave to hair:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“The very way in which the hair flows is strongly indicative of the ruling passions and inclinations, and perhaps a clever person could give a shrewd guess at the manner of a man’s or woman’s disposition by only seeing the backs of their heads.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But more than 100 years before accounts connecting hair with personality traits became commonplace, white Americans had already been using hair as a shorthand for classifying and interpreting race.</p>
<h2>Shame unto a man with long hair!</h2>
<p>Associations between race and hairstyle are somewhat familiar to us today. For example, when the U.S. military <a href="http://ec.militarytimes.com/pdfs/Uniform-Policy-Leaders-Training.pdf">revised its grooming standards in 2014</a> to forbid women from wearing dreadlocks, twists and many styles of braids, many observers <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/04/01/soldiers-complain-army-hairstyle-rule-racially-biased/7149757/">viewed these changes</a> as specifically targeting Black soldiers, despite the race-neutral language of the policies. (Later that year, the military <a href="http://time.com/3107647/military-black-hairstyles/">amended these policies</a> in response to such critiques.) </p>
<p>But before the 20th century, hair wasn’t just associated with a particular racial group; it was understood to be unambiguous, biological evidence of a person’s race.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118947/original/image-20160415-11163-d1m1mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118947/original/image-20160415-11163-d1m1mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118947/original/image-20160415-11163-d1m1mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118947/original/image-20160415-11163-d1m1mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118947/original/image-20160415-11163-d1m1mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118947/original/image-20160415-11163-d1m1mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118947/original/image-20160415-11163-d1m1mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118947/original/image-20160415-11163-d1m1mw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Photographer Edward Curtis’ portrait of Heavy Shield.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://rmparchive.com/images/hosting/600Border/LC917-600Border.jpg">McMahan Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>English colonists to North America linked hair and racial identity from the very beginning of colonization. In political proclamations and religious tracts, Colonial leaders denounced Native American men’s long hair as evidence of their inherent barbarism.</p>
<p>Seventeenth-century ideas of difference – what we might today recognize as racial difference – hinged much more on <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5309/willmaryquar.71.2.0310">Christian beliefs than on physical characteristics</a>, with Colonial critiques of Native American hair practices relying heavily on biblical mandates. Particularly common were references to 1 Corinthians 11, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+11&version=GNV#en-GNV-28602">which asked</a>, “Doth not nature itself teach you, that if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?”</p>
<p>In 1649, Governor John Endecott of the Massachusetts Bay Colony joined with a group of Colonial magistrates <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=9No_AQAAMAAJ&dq=Thomas%20Hutchinson%2C%20The%20History%20of%20the%20Massachusetts%20Bay%20Colony&pg=PA151#v=onepage&q&f=false">to condemn</a> colonists who grew out their hair, stating that it was “contrary to the rule of God’s word,” an allusion to 1 Corinthians 11. </p>
<p>Furthermore, their proclamation argued, choosing such a cut was “uncivil and unmanly,” and male colonists who wore their hair long actually “deforme[d] themselves.” Crucially, Endecott and the magistrates described “the wearing of long-hair” as categorically “after the manner of Ruffians and barbarous Indians.”</p>
<p>To Colonial leaders, long hair wasn’t just a random style that some male colonists picked up in the New World; it was evidence of their un-Christian moral corruption. In critiques like Endecott’s proclamation, white colonists organized their world according a series of binaries, associating whiteness, Christianity, civilization and masculinity with short hair; and nonwhiteness, heathenism, barbarism and effeminacy with long hair.</p>
<h2>Taking a cue from the queue</h2>
<p>Two centuries later, similar associations between barbarism and men’s hair length still remained, shaping the way that white Americans responded to the Chinese immigrants who arrived in California after the discovery of gold in 1848.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118933/original/image-20160415-11198-2mka73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118933/original/image-20160415-11198-2mka73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118933/original/image-20160415-11198-2mka73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=690&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118933/original/image-20160415-11198-2mka73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=690&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118933/original/image-20160415-11198-2mka73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=690&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118933/original/image-20160415-11198-2mka73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118933/original/image-20160415-11198-2mka73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118933/original/image-20160415-11198-2mka73.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An elderly man with a queue in San Francisco.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/hb7c60059b/?order=1">California Historical Society</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Almost uniformly, Chinese immigrant laborers of Han ethnicity donned long braided ponytails called queues, which they wore during the Qing dynasty as a symbol of their loyalty to the emperor. (Since most Chinese immigrants to California in this period intended to eventually return to China, they did not cut off their queues.) Because queues were very different from the short hairstyles American men commonly wore, they fascinated white Americans, who referenced them constantly in images and print.</p>
<p>In the eyes of white people, however, the queue was not simply a novel hairstyle or an emblem of political allegiance. Instead, it quickly came to mean that Chinese men were not simply racially foreign, but also barbaric, old-fashioned and backwards.</p>
<p>The meaning of the queue was especially evident in the way American newspapers discussed the end of the Qing dynasty, when Chinese men in China and the United States cut off their queues. </p>
<p>On June 18, 1911, the San Francisco Call described how queues were “being sheared off by the thousands.” That “the bulk of Chinese men will wear their hair as do the men of Europe and of America” was evidence of China “at last…awakening from its sleep of ages.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118962/original/image-20160415-11194-k9ztc6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118962/original/image-20160415-11194-k9ztc6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118962/original/image-20160415-11194-k9ztc6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118962/original/image-20160415-11194-k9ztc6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118962/original/image-20160415-11194-k9ztc6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118962/original/image-20160415-11194-k9ztc6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118962/original/image-20160415-11194-k9ztc6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118962/original/image-20160415-11194-k9ztc6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A racist cartoon from 1874 features a Chinese immigrant evolving from a monkey – and donning a queue.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2014/02/jolly_giants/bdd72d0ef.png">The Wong Ching Foo Collection</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>When ‘locks’ could enslave</h2>
<p>But the stakes for attaching racial meaning to hair were never greater than when hair entered the courtroom. </p>
<p>In the decades before the Civil War, mixed-race slaves would sometimes sue for their freedom, claiming that they were not actually Black, and thus could not be enslaved. In court, judges and lawyers frequently utilized hair as reliable biological evidence of racial identity.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://lawlibrary.wm.edu/wythepedia/index.php/Hudgins_v._Wrights">Hudgins v. Wrights</a>, which reached the Supreme Court of Virginia in 1806, the enslaved Wright family argued that they were descended from Native Americans, not Africans, along their maternal line. (Virginia had outlawed the enslavement of Native Americans in 1777.) </p>
<p>The judge ultimately ruled in favor of the Wrights, and <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=8Xo0AQAAMAAJ&dq=%22has%20stampt%20upon%20the%20African%22&pg=PA133#v=onepage&q=%22has%20stampt%20upon%20the%20African%22&f=false">his decision</a> illustrates the authority hair possessed: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Nature has stampt upon the African and his descendants two characteristic marks […] which often remain visible long after the characteristic distinction of colour either disappears or becomes doubtful; a flat nose and woolly head of hair. The latter of these characteristics disappears the last of all…”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In other words, in a 19th-century courtroom, hair revealed Black identity even more reliably than skin color.</p>
<p>For centuries, racial judgments have been rooted in haircuts, hair textures and strands. And though it can be tempting to conclude that hair has always reflected the wearer’s identity, one’s haircut – like all aspects of the past – meant different things to people in different times and places. Hair is both historically and culturally specific.</p>
<p>And before the 20th century, hair spoke more loudly than we might have ever imagined.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/53260/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Gold McBride has received funding from the University of California at Berkeley and the University of California at Los Angeles. She is a member of UAW Local 2865.</span></em></p>Christian, criminal or cowardly? People once thought your hair could hold the answer.Sarah Gold McBride, Ph.D. Candidate in History, University of California, BerkeleyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/474522015-10-14T02:51:30Z2015-10-14T02:51:30ZIs it time America finally took a chance on Syria’s refugees?<p>Afghan, Syrian and Eritrean refugees <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34483681">keep arriving</a> on Europe’s shores, reputedly at an increasing rate. </p>
<p>They attempt to traverse the Mediterranean by land and sea, presumably <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/07/middleeast/russia-syria-isis/">hastened</a> by Putin’s bombing campaign. Now some even arrive by traveling <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/10/world/europe/bypassing-the-risky-sea-refugees-reach-europe-through-the-arctic.html">across the Arctic</a>.</p>
<p>So how does the proposed American response to this crisis compare to that of European countries? And how surprised should we be by the US’ relatively paltry effort?</p>
<h2>Two remarkable responses</h2>
<p>Sweden’s response has been remarkable. </p>
<p>The Swedes’ longstanding “open door” policy means that they have now accepted <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/09/world/welcome-syrian-refugees-countries/">the largest number of refugees per capita</a> of any <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/09/daily-chart">European</a> country. One hundred and fifty thousand asylum seekers <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/latest-boat-runs-aground-baby-dies-greek-incidents-063446312.html">are expected</a> to arrive there this year. Not surprisingly, it has been the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-24635791">preferred destination</a> of many seeking asylum for quite some time. </p>
<p>Germany, of course, has accepted the largest total number of refugees. <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/16/markets-germany-migrants-idUSL5N11M21Q20150916">The estimated numbers</a> could reach two million over the next two years at a cost of 25 billion Euros. </p>
<p>Yet Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, has remained resolute. She has ruled out imposing a freeze on the numbers, even as the refugees keep arriving every day by the thousands. And despite growing right-wing domestic criticism, “We will manage,” <a href="http://www.dw.com/en/merkel-rules-out-freeze-on-refugee-intake/a-18767224">declared Merkel</a>. “I am quite strongly convinced of that.” </p>
<p>Members of other European countries, of course, like the Hungarians and Czechs, remain stubbornly opposed. </p>
<p>Even those generally in favor of accepting refugees, like the French, have become noticeably nervous as the estimated numbers grow, seeking “European-wide” solutions instead of just taking unilateral action. The UK’s nominal acceptance of 20,000 refugees over five years <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34502419">has drawn derision</a> from 300 of its own former judges and lawyers. </p>
<h2>How’s America doing?</h2>
<p>By comparison, however, the American response can generously be described as anemic.</p>
<p>The US has taken in about <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/09/us-will-accept-more-syrians-but-not-many.html">1,600 Syrians</a> since 2011. Last month, <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/john-kerry-says-u-s-to-admit-30-000-more-refugees-in-next-2-years-1442768498">John Kerry announced </a>that the US would raise its annual ceiling of refugees and asylum seekers to include 10,000 more Syrians next year. </p>
<p><a href="http://iprnewswire.com/u-s-to-boost-refugee-intake-by-30000-over-two-years-update-2/">Kerry claimed</a> the move would be “in keeping with America’s best tradition as a land of second chances and a beacon of hope.” But nowadays 10,000 refugees is just a busy day in Bavaria. If it took in the same proportion as the Germans or Swedes over the next two years, America would now be accepting nearer 10 million refugees, not 10,000.</p>
<p>It is important to put Kerry’s proposed paltry figure in some perspective. </p>
<p>Since the early days of the Cold War, the United States characteristically has had one of the more generous asylum policies in the world. It routinely accepts approximately <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/43442030/ns/us_news-life/t/us-system-refugee-asylum-seekers-explained/">70,000 refugees a year</a> from around the world – until very recently far more than any other country. And Kerry did note that the total figure would be increased to 85,000 in 2016 and 100,000 in 2017. But even this plan obscures a series of issues.</p>
<p>First of all, the total numbers of refugees the US intends to accept – assuming that the next president even abides by this plan – obviously makes no serious contribution to the overall problem at all.</p>
<p>Second, as columnist Josh Rogin <a href="http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-09-16/white-house-refugee-plan-overwhelmed-by-syrian-exodus">wrote</a> in a recent piece in Bloomberg,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The problem with the plan, no matter how quickly adopted, is how long it will take to have any effect. Migrants applying for refugee asylum in the United States now will not have their applications considered until at least 2017 because of a long backlog. And once an application begins to be considered, the asylum seekers can face a further 18 to 24 months before they are granted or denied asylum. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>So next year’s proposed 10,000-person increase would come almost exclusively from the backlog of Syrians who have <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/11/world/middleeast/refugees-stuck-in-grinding-us-process-wait-and-hope.html?ribbon-ad-idx=5&rref=world/middleeast&module=Ribbon&version=context&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Middle%20East&pgtype=article">already applied</a>. It would not help the people who are fleeing now. </p>
<p>Arguably, exceptional times call for exceptional measures. </p>
<p>Americans like to pride themselves on their humanity and generosity. And there are groups in the US calling for a more generous response. Notably <a href="http://www.hias.org/">HIAS</a> – the prominent American Jewish organization focused on Jewish refugee resettlement since 1881 – has been outspoken in supporting the mass resettlement of Syrians in the US in far greater numbers.</p>
<p>Furthermore, there is the issue of responsibility: after all, a good argument can be made that America’s two wars in Iraq over the last decade have significantly contributed to the regional instability that bought about this crisis. The US owes the Syrian refugees far more than the Germans or Swedes.</p>
<p>So why, faced with such a humanitarian crisis, the refusal to drastically increase these numbers and act more quickly to process applications?</p>
<h2>It’s national security, stupid</h2>
<p>The answer, of course, is political – and tied to perennial American concerns about national security. </p>
<p>Republicans have been particularly vocal <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/11/world/middleeast/obama-directs-administration-to-accept-10000-syrian-refugees.html">in arguing</a> that accepting refugees poses a potentially serious security threat, as Jihadists could embed themselves in the refugee population arriving in the US. Both America’s <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/RichLowry/Emerging-Threats-Homeland-Security-Immigration-Syria/2015/09/22/id/692676/">right-wing press</a> and the <a href="http://www.debbieschlussel.com/68629/outrage-obama-seeks-to-bring-30000-syrian-muslim-refugees-to-us-waive-counterterrorism-laws/">conservative blogosphere </a>have exploded with anger at the prospect of what they regard as President Obama’s disregard for the counterterrorism legislation.</p>
<p>It’s easy to conclude that these are exceptional times and they require exceptional diligence. But this national security syndrome when it comes to refugees and migrants is nothing new. </p>
<p>America has an unenviable historical record when it comes to barring immigrants or refugees from entry to the US, or denying them of their rights once they have settled, in the name of national security.</p>
<p>The list of nationalities, ethnic groups and religions that have been barred or denied their constitutional rights is long and shameful. Some advocates of exclusion are also quite surprising.</p>
<h2>The historical record</h2>
<p>National security and nationality? Benjamin Franklin <a href="http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/letter-to-peter-collinson/">once suggested</a> that German immigrants were unable to subscribe to American values and republican political principles. Franklin worried that German immigrants would overwhelm America and change its most basic virtues, possibly bringing an end to the fledgling republic. “Not being used to Liberty,” Franklin wrote, “they know not how to make a modest use of it.” </p>
<p>National security and religion? Many thought that Republican candidate <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/09/25/a_muslim_president_was_ben_carson_right_128207.html">Ben Carson’s comments</a> about a Muslim being unsuitable for the position of president because they might follow Sharia law was novel. But the <a href="http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Alien.html">Alien and Sedition Act </a>signed by John Adams in 1798 authorized the president to imprison or deport aliens considered “dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States.” The legislation did not specifically single out any group. But it did in fact, herald a nativist crusade that focused on Irish immigrants and Catholics more generally. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98284/original/image-20151013-31135-xedlrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98284/original/image-20151013-31135-xedlrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=726&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98284/original/image-20151013-31135-xedlrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=726&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98284/original/image-20151013-31135-xedlrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=726&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98284/original/image-20151013-31135-xedlrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98284/original/image-20151013-31135-xedlrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98284/original/image-20151013-31135-xedlrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=912&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Samuel Morse.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Samuel_Morse_LIFE_1.jpg">LIFE photo archive</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That crusade was epitomized by Samuel FB Morse, more famous for inventing Morse Code and developing the telegraph. He <a href="http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1798.html">once wrote,</a> “It is a fact that popery is opposed in its very nature to democratic republicanism; and it is, therefore, as a political system, as well as religious, opposed to civil and religious liberty, and consequently to our form of government.” </p>
<p>National security and ethnicity? Under the terms of the Naturalization Act of 1870 and the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, <a href="http://www.wherevertheresafight.com/excerpts/in_a_strange_land_the_rights_of_immigrants">restrictive measures were introduced</a> that limited naturalization to “white persons and persons of African descent.”</p>
<p>But Solicitor General Holmes Conrad caught the tenor of the times in his plea before the Supreme Court, when he insisted that the US-born Chinese “are just as obnoxious as their forebears.” When asked about the idea of a Chinese eligible for the presidency, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ZcpEYQ-pG2YC&pg=PA192&lpg=PA192&dq=US+born+Chinese+were+%E2%80%9Care+just+as+obnoxious+as+their+forebears%E2%80%9D.&source=bl&ots=nhMPfXXgOz&sig=g0-AhvTfSmj6bUkVBrSYoZwUOrw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAGoVChMIurnEnrG2yAIVgUg-Ch0ohwP0#v=onepage&q=US%20born%20Chinese%20were%20%E2%80%9Care%20just%20as%20obnoxious%20as%20their%20forebears%E2%80%9D.&f=false">he responded</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>if so, then verily there has been a most degenerate departure from the patriotic ideas of our forefathers, and surely in that case America citizenship is not worth saving. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Remarkably, people of Chinese descent were not eligible for naturalization until 1943.</p>
<h2>An endless cycle</h2>
<p>The list of refugees or landed foreigners supposedly threatening American national security is endless – even in the 20th century. </p>
<p>Franklin D Roosevelt is hailed as a great American president. But by the 1930s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/richard-cohen-fdrs-moral-failure-on-the-holocaust/2013/03/11/6bb9ef56-8a76-11e2-8d72-dc76641cb8d4_story.html">he purposely limited </a>the entry of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi-occupied Europe. Many of those arrived in the UK instead, and were then interned in camps in Australia and Canada on the grounds that they might be spies.</p>
<p>It is commonly known that Americans of Japanese descent were interned in World War II. What is less commonly known is that any foreign-born Japanese remained ineligible for naturalization until the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952.</p>
<p>I could go on at length. But the point is clear: when faced with conflict, America has a history of denial of entry and incarceration – on the grounds someone might remotely be a threat. </p>
<p>The Syrians are no different on that score. Their need is just particularly urgent.</p>
<h2>Breaking the cycle</h2>
<p>I accept that there may be a Jihadist, a criminal, or a terrorist in the bunch if America does show the moral courage to assume responsibility for a greater proportion of Syrian refugees. Every time I travel through Manhattan, I acutely aware of such risks. But one could argue that it is a remote risk. It is one we have to accept when we live in an open society.</p>
<p>Sadly, you can’t live in Arizona, Oregon or <a href="https://theconversation.com/university-of-texas-faculty-are-uneasy-about-campus-carry-48549">Texas</a> and teach on a college campus without accepting <a href="https://theconversation.com/will-guns-on-campus-lead-to-grade-inflation-40748">a risk</a>, because America’s gun laws protect the rights of many despite the evil few. </p>
<p>Likewise, America, we are told, was founded on a legal system that is designed to let guilty people go free for fear that one innocent person might be falsely imprisoned – implying a profound sense of risk in protecting the innocent despite the fact that guilty might go unpunished. </p>
<p>It is a shame that we don’t apply the same principle when it comes to accepting refugees.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/47452/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Afghan, Syrian and Eritrean refugees keep arriving on Europe’s shores, reputedly at an increasing rate. They attempt to traverse the Mediterranean by land and sea, presumably hastened by Putin’s bombing…Simon Reich, Professor in The Division of Global Affairs and The Department of Political Science, Rutgers University - NewarkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.