If They Don't Bring Their Women Here: Chinese Female Immigration before Exclusion (Asian American Experience)

Seven years before the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 comprehensively disqualified all members of China's laboring class from immigration status, the Page Law sought to stem the tide of Chinese prostitutes entering the United States. Yet during these seven years it was not just prostitutes but all Chinese females who encountered at best hostility and at worst expulsion when they reached the 'Golden Door'.In this first detailed account of Chinese American women's lives in the preexclusion era, George Anthony Peffer investigates how administrative agencies and federal courts enforced immigration laws. Peffer documents the habeas corpus trials in which the wives and daughters of Chinese laborers were required to prove their status as legal immigrants or be returned to China.He also surveys the virulently anti- Chinese coverage these trials and the issue of Chinese immigration received in California newspapers, confirming that Chinatown's prostitution industry so dominated the popular imagination as to render other classes of female immigrants all but invisible. In the words of one immigration judge, the United States remained favorable to Chinese immigration in the preexclusion period 'if they don't bring their women here'. This important study amplifies the voices of immigrant women who did not fit into the preconceived categories American officials created and establishes a place for them within the historiographic framework of Chinese American studies.

History

Peffer, George

Americas

University of Illinois Press

<p>Investigates how administrative agencies and federal courts actually enforced immigration laws.</p>

Orphan Trees (Poetry Ser.))

Pig Iron Pr

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Books by Peffer, George

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Peffer, George. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

If They Don't Bring Their Women Here: Chinese Female Immigration before Exclusion (Asian American Experience)

If They Don't Bring Their Women Here: Chinese Female Immigration before Exclusion (Asian American Experience)

Orphan Trees (Poetry Ser.))