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Considering US history through the lens of Chinese experiences emphasizes the national development of ideas and practices concerning immigration controls, rights to citizenship, multiracial societies, forms of multicultural integration and assimilation, and the relationship of the Constitution to varying conceptions of equality. Chinese as a race were the first targets of enforced immigration restrictions. As such, they have played key roles as the United States determined its powers and priorities in enacting immigration controls and its visions for democracy, along with the underlying racial ideologies and conceptions of national belonging.

This course offers an overview of the history of Chinese in America with an emphasis on Chinese American identity and community formations under the shadow of the Yellow Peril. Using primary documents and secondary literature, we will examine structures of work, family, immigration law, racism, class, and gender in order to understand the changing roles and perceptions of Chinese Americans in the United States from 1847 to the present.

COURSE CONTENT
• Twelve lectures
• Primary source readings to complement the lectures
• A certificate of completion for 15 hours of professional development credit

Readings: The suggested readings for each seminar session will be listed on the “Resources” link on the course site. Please note that you are not required to read or purchase any print materials. The quizzes are based on the lectures.

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LEAD SCHOLAR
Madeline Y. Hsu

Madeline Y. Hsu is a professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin and served as director of the Center for Asian American Studies for eight years (2006–2014). She was president of the Immigration and Ethnic History Society and is presently representative-at-large for the International Society for the Study of Chinese Overseas.

She was born in Columbia, Missouri, but grew up in Taiwan and Hong Kong between visits with her grandparents at their store in Altheimer, Arkansas. She received her undergraduate degree in history from Pomona College and her Ph.D. from Yale University. Her monograph The Good Immigrants: How the Yellow Peril Became the Model Minority (Princeton University Press, 2015) received awards from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, the Immigration and Ethnic History Society, the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association, and the Association for Asian American Studies.