New York Before Chinatown: Orientalism & the Shaping of American Culture, 1776-1882

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Our Price: $30.00

Year: 1999
Pages: 385
Binding Hardcover
ISBN 801860067

Product Code: 756771463

Description

John Kuo Wei Tchen (au). Offers a provocative look at the role Chinese people, things, & ideas played in the fashioning of Amer. culture & politics. Piecing together various historical fragments & anecdotes from the years before Chinatown emerged in the late 1870s, Tchen redraws Manhattan’s historical landscape & broadens our understanding of the role of port cultures in the making of Amer. identities. Explores Amer. fascination with Asia as a source of luxury items, cultural taste, & lucrative trade. Explains how Chinese, European-Amer. in Yellowface, & various caricatures became objects of curiosity. Shows how Americans’ attitude toward the Chinese changed from fascination to demonization, leading to the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Acts beginning in 1882. Ill.

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