The Downstairs Girl
It’s fairly common knowledge that Chinese immigrants helped build the American railroads in the 19th century. But it’s not so widely known that Chinese laborers were shipped in by Southern plantation owners to replace emancipated slaves after the Civil War. As the number of Chinese on American soil increased, resentment against these immigrants grew proportionately, and in 1882 Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act under President Chester A. Arthur. It was the first American law to restrict immigration, and the only one ever to target a specific national group. It wasn’t repealed until 1943.
One direct result of this legislation was that it wasn’t possible for wives or other family members to join the Chinese already living in the United States. Most were men working as cheap labor, and they struggled to integrate with mainstream American society. Neither black nor white, they inhabited a murky middle ground that often excluded them from both sides of America’s racial divide.
Suffragism! Streetcar segregation! Interracial love! Women riding bicycles! Improper meetings between young folk! Illicit affairs! Elderly health! Millinery! Newspaper rivalries! A hotly anticipated horse race! Confederate monuments! Searching for one’s birth parents! Blackmail! A pseudonymous author! Women choosing not to marry! Intersectionality! Mansplaining! Entrepreneurship! Pants!
I am looking forward to reading this one! I do not know that much about this history and am excited to research about it! I am sure we will have wonderful discussions.
