From George Washington's desire (in the heat of the Revolutionary War) for a proper set of Chinese porcelains for afternoon tea, to the lives of Chinese-Irish couples in the 1830s, to the commercial success of Chang and Eng (the "Siamese Twins"), to rising fears of "heathen Chinee," New York before Chinatown offers a provocative look at the role Chinese people, things, and ideas played in the fashioning of American culture and politics. Piecing together various historical fragments and anecdotes from the years before Chinatown emerged in the late 1870s, historian John Kuo Wei Tchen redraws Manhattan's historical landscape and broadens our understanding of the role of port cultures in the making of American identities. Tchen tells his story in three parts. In the first, he explores America's fascination with Asia as a source of luxury items, cultural taste, and lucrative trade. In the second, he explains how Chinese, European-Americans in Yellowface, and various caricatures became objects of curiosity in the expansive commercial marketplace. In the third part, Tchen focuses on how Americans' attitude toward the Chinese changed from fascination to demonization, leading to the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Acts beginning in 1882.

This fascinating book by Professor Tchen is required reading for anyone interested in the history of New York City. -- Dolores Hayden, Yale University, author of The Power of Place New York before Chinatown is a large, ambitious, and impressive work-one of the very best and certainly one of the most original studies of its kind. -- Lawrence Levine, George Mason University, author of The Opening of the American Mind

About the Author
John Kuo Wei Tchen is director of Asian/Pacific/American Studies and an associate professor of history at New York University. Tchen received an American Book Award for Genthe's Photographs of San Francisco's Old Chinatown, 1895-1906 and he edited Paul C. P. Siu's The Chinese Laundryman. In 1980, Tchen cofounded the Museum of Chinese in the Americas.

Reviews
This study sets a new standard for Asian American scholarship... Exhaustively researched, deftly argued, beautifully written, and sumptuously illustrated, New York before Chinatown is one of the best books on Asian immigration and its impact on American culture ever written. -- Andrew Gyory Journal of American Ethnic History An outstanding book. It simply leaves you wanting more! -- K. Scott Wong International Migration Review


Awards
Winner of History/Social Science Book Award 2000 (United States) and John Hope Franklin Prize 2000 (United States) and Brendan Gill Award 2000 (United States).



Book Information
ISBN 9780801867941
Author John Kuo Wei Tchen
Format Paperback
Page Count 416
Imprint Johns Hopkins University Press
Publisher Johns Hopkins University Press
Weight(grams) 612g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 25mm