'' The Mississippi Chinese: Between Black and White'' is a non-fiction book by
James W. Loewen
James William Loewen (February 6, 1942August 19, 2021) was an American sociologist, historian, and author. He was best known for his 1995 book, '' Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong''.
Early life
Loewen ...
, published by
Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retirem ...
in 1971. It is about
Chinese Americans in the Mississippi Delta.
Background
Loewen had asked survey subjects to fill out questionnaires and provide interviews.
Contents
Loewen explained how the Chinese in the Mississippi Delta upgraded their standing in the racial hierarchy over time.
More than half of the content of the book concerns the era from the 1940s to 1971.
[Daniels, p. 433.]
Reception
Robert Blauner of the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
described the book as "excellent on many counts." Blauner also praised the "excellent analysis of
he ethnic Chinese'seconomic survival and
prosperity".
[Blauner, p. 487.]
Roger Daniels of the
State University of New York, Fredonia wrote that the work is a "useful monograph" that describes things "intelligently" though he argued that the information on where the Mississippi Chinese came from is presented in a "less than satisfactory way".
[
George K. Hesslink of ]Pomona College
Pomona College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Claremont, California. It was established in 1887 by a group of Congregationalists who wanted to recreate a "college of the New England type" in Southern California. In 1925, it became ...
described the book as "intriguing" with "unique data" and "more than occasional bursts of insight and fascinating analysis."[Hesslink, p. 641.] Hesslink criticized how the work does not sufficiently use "theoretical context" in the structure of racial hierarchies, a "quite sketchy and, frankly, occasionally opaque" discourse on methodology, "inconsistent presentation of basic data", and often choosing to disregard "intellectual traditions from which the work stems."[
Lucie Cheng Hirata of ]University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
wrote that "the book is worth reading" and that Loewen did "an important service" due to opposing the idea that racism is a phenomenon of lower socioeconomic classes rather than higher socioeconomic classes.[Hirata, p. 453.] Hirata criticized some of the perceived "stereotypic notions and images about the Chinese."[
]
See also
* '' Lotus Among the Magnolias''
References
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Profile page
Notes
Further reading
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Offline:
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Chinese-American history
Books about Mississippi
Harvard University Press books
1971 non-fiction books
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