Fw: H-ASIA: Idiosyncratic comments on "yellowness" (further comment)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Frank Conlon" <conlon@U.WASHINGTON.EDU>
To: <H-ASIA@H-NET.MSU.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, April 24, 2011 5:43 AM
Subject: H-ASIA: Idiosyncratic comments on "yellowness" (further comment)

> H-ASIA
> April 23, 2011
>
> Further response re: Idiosyncratic comments on 'yellowness'
> ************************************************************************
> From: Ted Bestor <ted_bestor@harvard.edu>
>
>
> I also have not yet read Michael Keevak's book, but in response to Shawn
> McHale's historical notes, I want to point out a fascinating
> anthropological study of "The Mississippi Chinese"
>
> <http://www.amazon.com/Mississippi-Chinese-Between-Black-Second/
> dp/0881333123/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1303602432&sr=8-1>
>
> _The Mississippi Chinese: Between Black and White_, Second Edition by
> James W. Loewen
> <http://www.amazon.com/James-W.-Loewen/e/B000APVWNE/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1303602432&sr=8-1>
> (Paperback - Jan 1988)
>
> The basic argument is that in this context at least, the racial
> classification system was so rigidly binary that one could be considered
> only either white or black, and that the first generations of Chinese
> migrants to Mississippi, because they worked as fieldhands, were easily
> relegated to the black category. Over time, in the early 20th century, as
> Chinese migrants accumulated bits of capital and began to open shops, they
> gradually became a modestly successful merchant class in at least some
> parts of rural Mississippi, and that set them apart from black fieldhands
> and sharecroppers. Thus the racial binary eventually reclassified them as
> white. That is of course an over simplification of Loewen's rich
> historical and ethnographic account, but it seems worthwhile adding this
> comment into the mix.
>
> Best wishes
>
> Ted Bestor
>
> Theodore C. Bestor
> Reischauer Institute Professor of Social Anthropology
> Professor/Chair, Department of Anthropology
> Harvard University
> (on leave Spring 2011)
> Vice President of the Association for Asian Studies (2011-12)
>
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