China Men: Lecture I

 

I. Introduction

A. US society is not black and white

1. Role of law in how different groups relate

2. Role of language and culture

B. Lecture I: How to read the book/role of law

C. Lecture II: Otherness/Language and Culture

D. Lecture III: Conclusion

E. Importance of reading for Kingston

II. "On Discovery"

         A. Genre:

                 Discovery narrative

         B. Gender:

                 Man or woman?

         C. Oppression of women in China

                     or

         Emasculation of Chinese men

                 in America?

         D. Stereotypes

III. Book's structure

A.   Myths and legends

B.   Four generations of male ancestors

IV. Laws

A. Citizenship by naturalization.

1. Naturalization Act of 1790

2. Naturalization Act of 1870

         B. Exclusion Acts (1882, 1892)

Why exclusion?

1.   Fear of unknown

a. “Yellow Peril” (1892)

                       b. “A Statue for Our Harbor” (1881)

                 2. Religious difference             

                       St. Paul: “For God hath made of one

blood all the nations of the earth and

hath determined the bounds of their

habitation.” 

3. Lack of assimilation

                          "sojourners" (155)

                 4. Economics

C. US v. Wong Kim Ark (1898)

         1. Birthright citizenship

                 2. Citizenship clause of the

                 14th Amendment:

                 "All persons born or naturalized in

                 the United States, and subject to

                 the jurisdiction thereof, are

                 citizens of the United States and

                 of the State wherein they reside."

                 3. How to define "jurisdiction

                          of the United States?"

                 4. Majority: jus soli:

                          by soil

                 5. Minority: jus sanguinis:

                          by blood

V. Citizenship

A. Citizenship judges (59)

B. Fire of 1906 (150)

C. Paper sons (46)

D.   The father

               1. Illegal: NYC (48-53)       

               2. Legal: Angel Island (53-60)

 

"Some people will condemn all restriction laws, because from the fatherhood-of-God and the brotherhood-of-man standpoint, all men being equal, all men should be permitted the same degree of freedom and liberty in the practice of their trades   . . . and all laws that interfere with the individual man, restricting his opportunities, or denying him the right to enjoy life and liberty, must be condemned by humanitarians and Christians. But this beautiful sentiment finds no application in the exercise of governmental powers, because the first duty of governments is to their own citizens, and in securing to them the protection and the enjoyment of their life and liberty the consideration of the effect on other people is not of consequence."

 

"The Chinese laborer brings here no wife and children, and his wants are limited to the immediate necessities of the individual, while the American is compelled to earn income sufficient to maintain his wife and babies.  There can be but one end to this.  If this immigration is permitted to continue American labor must surely be reduced to the level of the Chinese competitor, the American's wants measured by his wants, the American's comforts no greater than the comforts of the Chinaman, and the American laborer not having been educated to maintain himself according to this standard, must either go down into a darkness too gloomy to contemplate, or else take up his pack and leave his native land.  The protection of American labor is an essential duty of the American government."  (Congressmen Geary, 1892).

Chinese-American lives may

have been determined by

American laws, but Chinese-

Americans also determined

the shape of those laws.

China Men: Lecture II

 

I. Review

A. 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.

B. Nonetheless, "American" cannot

          mean anything.  What it means

         to be an American depends on:

1. The laws created to govern

and order society; the

political and civil rights

guaranteed by those laws.

2. How the various groups

making up "We, the people"

         interact and relate to

one another.

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

C.   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)


After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and

Roman, the Teuton and the Mongolian, the

Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a

veil, and gifted with second-sight in this

American world, -- a world which yields him

no self-consciousness, but only lets him see

himself through the revelation of the other

world.  It is a peculiar sensation, this

double-consciousness, this sense of always

looking at one's self through the eyes of

others, of measuring one's soul by the tape

of a world that looks on in amused contempt

and pity.  One ever feels his two-ness, --

an American, a Negro; two souls, two

thoughts, two unreconciled strivings;

two warring ideals in one dark body,

whose dogged strength alone keeps it from

being torn asunder.

 

China Men: Lecture III

 

I. Review

II. “The American Father”

A.   A sense of belonging

1.   To belong to someone or something

2.   To feel at home: “We belong here” (184)

3.   Makes “places belong to him” (238)

a.   Owns his house and business (255)

b.   Plants “trees that take years to fruit (255)

B.    “An American citizen” (237)

C.   Legal/Illegal?

1.   Efforts to amend the 14th Amendment

2.   California Senator James Phelan

a.   1920 re-election campaign

b.   Deny citizenship to anyone born to parents “ineligible to citizenship”

c.   “Keep California White”

III. “The Li Sao: An Elegy”

A.   Authenticity

B.   Exile

IV. “The Brother in Vietnam”

         A. Similarities to his father

                 1. Teacher of reading and

                 writing (37, 289)

                 2. Military draft (269)

         B. "Not be driven out" (283)

         C. "Super-American" (299)

         D. "He had not 'returned'" ( 294, 301)

V. "On Listening"

A.   Balances “On Discovery”

B. Listening requires speaking

C. Speaking requires unsilencing

D. How to unsilence

Whitman v. Kingston

 

Speak for someone

           v.

Speak for one self

 

E. Provoke into speech

         1. The Father (14-15)

         2. All of us

F. Talk story