China Men: Lecture II

 

I. Review

A. Reading as discovery: alternate perspectives; alter expectations; unfix/appropriate stereotypes

B. Law creating exclusion/citizenship.

1. U. S. v. Wong Kim Ark (1898).

2. Legal/Illegal Father

C.Today. For Kingston "American" is not a fixed term.  Instead,

its meaning is open to re-definition and change as

the country undergoes a perpetual process of remaking.

 

II. Language and otherness

            A. “Eccentric people” (15)

B. Otherness (276, 12, 273)

C. English (45)

            D. Self-alienation

                        1. "Sojourners" (44-45)

                        2. "Americans" (53)

            E. Double-consciousness

III. Silencing

            A. Untold history (145)

            B. "The rule of silence" (90, 100

                        110, 115, 117-118)

IV. Appropriation v. Assimilation

V. Appropriation of Language

            A. "The power of naming" (242)

                        1. Edison/ Eh-Da-Son (71)

                        2. Lo Bun Sun:

                                    Robinson Crusoe

                        3. "chinamen" (111, 88): China Men

            B. Positive double consciousness

A.     Title page

VI. Who makes America?

            A. Transcontinental railroad (145)

            B. New founding fathers:

                        "Binding and building ancestors" (146)

C. Vs. Taney

            D. Vs. Vatel:

"The true bond which connects the

            child with the body politic is not

            the matter of an inanimate piece of

            land, but the moral relations of his

            parentage. . ."

E. Kau Goong: (184)