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Book Talk: John Doe Chinaman with Beth Lew-Williams
In this eye-opening account, author Beth Lew-Williams describes a legal architecture redolent of Jim Crow but tailored specifically to people often referred to only as “John Doe Chinaman” or “Mary Chinaman” in official records. Enforced by police and tax collectors, but also by schoolteachers, missionaries, and neighbors, these laws granted the Chinese only limited access to American society, falling far short of equality or belonging. Cementing stereotypes of Chinese residents as criminals, invaders, and predators, they regulated everything from healthcare to education, property ownership, business formation, and kinship customs. Yet in the face of these limitations, Chinese communities reacted resourcefully. Many fought, evaded, and manipulated these laws, finding ways to maintain their prohibited traditions, resist unfair treatment in court, and insist on their political rights.
Lew-Williams' book John Doe Chinaman is a revelatory history of the laws that conditioned the everyday lives of Chinese people in the American West—and of those who negotiated, circumvented, and resisted discrimination.
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