‘Coolies’ then, still ‘coolies’ now: professor seeking to rehabilitate 19th century migrants from China notes how little some white views of Chinese have changed
- Mae Ngai, author of The Chinese Question about Chinese migrants’ battle for acceptance, believes we all have to have responsibility for our nation’s history
- At times the book conveys a sense of personal umbrage, such as when the Chinese are described as ‘locusts’ that white settlers fear will overrun them
The Chinese Question – The Gold Rushes and Global Politics by Mae Ngai, pub. W.W. Norton
Columbia University history professor Mae Ngai is on a mission to free the Chinese from slavery.
In particular she wants to liberate most 19th century Chinese emigrants from the label “coolies”.
While 300,000 or so may have set out as indentured labourers, such as those recruited or kidnapped for plantation work on assorted Caribbean islands, even more who went to the settler colonies of the United States and of British Australia and South Africa were largely free agents, frequently lured by rumours of gold, but often staying on to work or set up businesses.
In the 19th century, the “Chinese Question” – the title of Ngai’s book – was: “Were Chinese a racial danger to the West, and should the countries of the West, meaning the United States and the British Dominions, exclude Chinese from immigration and from citizenship?”
