History paper

The Negroization of the Chinese Stereotype in California

Author(s): DAN CALDWELL

Source: Southern California Quarterly , JUNE 1971, Vol. 53, No. 2 (JUNE 1971), pp. 123- 131

Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Historical Society of Southern California

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/41170344

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The Negroization of the Chinese Stereotype in California

by DAN CALDWELL

In 1852 the San Francisco Daily Alta California, the principle newspaper of early California, expressed a welcome, and more import- antly, an indication of future equality for newly-arriving Chinese immigrants: "Quite a large number of the Celestials have arrived among us of late. . . . Scarcely a ship arrives that does not bring an increase to this worthy integer of our population. The China boys will yet vote at the polls, study at the same schools and bow at the same altar of our own countrymen."1

One year later, in 1853, after a change in editors, the Daily Alta adopted a strongly anti-Chinese editorial stand directly opposite to that taken the previous year: "We have a class here, however, who have most of the vices and few of the virtues of the African and they are numerous in both town and country. We allude to the Chinese. Every reason that exists against the toleration of free blacks in Illinois may be argued against that of the Chinese here."2

The two opposed positions of the Daily Alta are indicative of the ambivalent feeling concerning the Chinese during the early years of California's settlement. Although anti-Chinese feeling developed in this early era, the Civil War diverted the attention of most Californians away from the "Chinese question" to the larger national issue of the day. With the end of the war and an ever increasing influx of white immigrants

coming into California, the initial welcome of the Daily Alta was forgotten by the late 1860s and Californians called for the exclusion of the Chinese from the state. In a matter of years, the majority of the state,

originally indifferent or mildly hostile to the Chinese, had adopted a prejudiced, strongly antagonistic view of the Chinese.

During the gold rush period, people were deeply influenced with the great nationalistic pride that swept across the nation: the Pacific was won; Mexico had been defeated; and gold had been discovered. Among the new settlers in California were many persons who were hostile to

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The Historical Society of Southern California

any people of color. Veterans of the Mexican War were apt to classify any person with colored skin as a "greaser." Pioneers had experienced or at least heard stories about the atrocities that the Indian "red men"

had committed. Added to the large contingent of white Americans from the South was a substantial number of members of the "Know Nothing" Party. Superimposed on this psychological framework, were the facts that the customs of the Chinese were greatly different, that the vast majority of Chinese in California were male, and that the Chinese and white segments of the population began to compete for the same jobs. Before any anti-Chinese society or movement had been founded, pre- judice against the Chinese and other people of color existed in the minds of many Californians.

The latent prejudice of early Californians was nurtured by the use of popular stereotypes. Defining stereotypes as "pictures in our heads,"3 Walter Lippman first introduced the concept of the stereotype to social science in 1922. He went on to point out that the stereotype is an undifferentiated caricature of the group or individual it presumably represents and that prejudiced people "see mainly what they expect to see rather than what is really there."4 In regard to the Chinese, early Californians were no exception to this rule.

Often stereotypes disregard fact and concern only image. The most common stereotypes refer to physical characteristics or to out of the ordinary life styles. The most common physical characteristics include skin color and features of the head: hair, eyes, nose, mouth and shape of the head.5 Stereotypes referring to life styles often attribute decadent

and immoral behavior to the group that does not conform to the majority.

In his analysis of the effect of color upon racial relations in the United States, C. Eric Lincoln has concluded that "skin color is probably the most important single index for uncritical human evaluation."6 Pre- judiced thought derived from a reaction to skin color finds expression in behavior. In California the stereotyped articles and illustrations of popular magazines and newspapers often had an anti-color bias which generalized that all people of color - Indians, Negroes and Chinese - were in one degraded and inferior category. With increased anti-color feelings, the conception of the Chinese changed greatly and with this change in attitude came discriminatory behavior.

In his psychological study of The Nature of Prejudice, Dr. Gordon Allport contends "that stereotypes wax and wane with the intensity and direction of prejudice."7 If this is indeed the case, then the Chinese

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Figure i. Hutching's California Magazine, I (March 1857), 385. "Now permit us to introduce to your acquaintance Celestial John and his

lady, types and shadows of the empire of China. A people that numbers in California, at this moment, over forty thousand, half enough to form a respectable sized state - a large majority of whom are doubtless from the lower orders, or castes ; exhibiting a cringing, abject sense of servility, to that degree that it appears a fixed trait of character in all but a few of the more intelligent and wealthy. "

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Figure 2. Thistletorfs Jolly Giant, II (February 21, 1874), 1. "The Jolly Giant's artist, George F. Keller, is a believer in Darwinism;

he has made a careful study of this subject and in proof of the theory of which Darwin is the originator, he has produced the first of a series of that class in the Jolly Giant of this week showing conclusively that John Chinaman has had his origin in a Monkey; from thence to a Chinaman, and eventually into a pig; any further comment would be useless."

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Negroization of the Chinese Stereotype

stereotype is a good example. The stereotype becomes more and more severe in the latter half of the nineteenth century as prejudice against Orientals increases. The historical evolution of prejudice in California must be examined in relation to the stereotype of the Chinese in order to determine the effect each had on the other.

On February 2, 1848, California was ceded to the United States by Mexico in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. One month earlier gold had been discovered at Sutter's Mill. With these two events, the gates were opened for people wanting and hoping to find their fortunes and futures in the land of gold. Facing internal dissention and disaster at home due to the Taiping Rebellion (1 850-1 854), Chinese sought their futures in the gold diggings of the Sierra Nevada. Among the new arrivals of 1848 were three Chinese, two men and one woman.8 These three were soon joined by others ; the population of Chinese in California was estimated to be about 25,000 by 1852.9 Understandably, the miners did not want to face additional competition from any source, including the colored-skinned foreigners. After facing failure in the mining areas, largely due to discrimination and intimidation by the miners, the Chinese were domestically employed as agriculturalists, mechanics, fishers and servants.

Generally, the Chinese were well thought of as workers. One writer pointed out, "He [the Chinese] is an industrious every day worker, and content with small wages."10 Another maintained that the free Chinese would displace white European immigrants and slaves. It is significant that this particular writer thought of the Chinese as superior to both the black and the European immigrant. "We believe the day is coming when millions of them, as free hired servants, will have superseded, throughout our country, the use of both Europeans and negroes."11 Although the status of the Chinese is defined as "free hired servants," the author evidently did not recognize color as a basis of classification. This deviates from many writers who argued that the In- dians, Chinese and Negroes should be considered as one category. If physical comparison of Chinese with other colored-skinned people was not made, often comparison was made with different criteria. Comment-

ing on the character of the Chinese, William Speer pointed out in 1853 :

For patience, docility, willingness to receive instruction, and economy, we have not seen the equals of the Chinese. As yet without Christian principles, they are not always reliable for honesty; but they have still a native sense of honor which makes them trusty in many things.12

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The Historical Society of Southern California

Several of the characteristics mentioned in the above evoke an image curiously similar to that of the stereotype of the southern plantation slave. In his book, Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Lifey Professor Stanley Elkins paints a verbal picture of ' 'Sambo/' who was presumably "the typical plantation slave . . . docile but irresponsible, loyal but lazy, humble but chronically given to lying and stealing. . . ."13 Clearly, the stereotypes of blacks and Chinese were similar.

Many popular periodicals of the 1850s contained articles that were generally favorable toward the Chinese. One such magazine was Hutching" s California Magazine which contained two consecutive issues with articles on "The World and California." Giving a brief resumé of many groups from the "Irish Hybrid" to the "Hindoo," the articles were, with several qualifications, complimentary of the Chinese. The illustraton accompanying the article (Figure 1) seemed to be a factual representation rather than a stereotyped picture. Paradoxically, the illustration pictures a Chinese of the higher order even though the upper class Chinese was exempted from the author's analysis.

Appearing in the article and significant in the evolution of the Chinese stereotype, was the name given to the Chinese, "Celestial John." Soon all Chinese were referred to as Celestial Johns without any sort of differentiation and the classification of any Chinese became a very simple matter. More importantly, the article stated that the Chinese exhibited a common characteristic, "... a cringing, abject sense of servility. ... It appears as a fixed trait in all but a few of the more intelligent and wealthy."14 The article concludes that "John (for they are all Johns) is probably the best abused foreigner we have among us."15 What is meant by "best abused" is unclear, but suggests friendliness toward the Chinese by the author and hostility by the public. The author's favorable view of the Chinese is seen again when he calls for the political and legal protection of the Oriental minority: "... we unhesitatingly lift our voice, believing that if our laws permit them to come among us, our laws should certainly give to them protection, which now, unfortunately they do not."16 From this statement, it appears that social discrimination of the Chinese was the rule rather than the excep- tion in 1857. While this author clearly presents stereotypes of the Chinese, he also calls for the legal protection of the Chinese minority.

In the same article series, "The World in California," one month before, the writer considered the black as a part of the California

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Negroization of the Chinese Stereotype

population and concluded that "he is one in a community that would not be perfect without him. . . ."17 Despite this complimentary statement the author limits the Negro's freedom in choosing his occupation. He is to engage only in low status labor - white-washing, building, cooking, or acting as a waiter. Describing the black as "having passed into stereotype," the image evoked of the California Negro is that of the docile, lazy plantation slave.

There was not a large population of Negroes in California. In 1850 the Negro population was estimated to be 1000 and in 1852 it was about 2200. Given these small numbers, it was not likely that a different or original stereotype of the Negro would develop in California. Rather, it seems that stereotypes of blacks were brought from the South by the large number of southerners who had immigrated to California during the gold rush period, a proportion estimated to be about one-third of the total population of California in 1850.18

One of the emigrated southerners was Hinton Helper. Born and raised in North Carolina and a vehement racist, Helper stereotyped the Chinese in his book The Land of Gold, published in 1855, in much the same way he had presented blacks in earlier works. Physically, the Chinese were pictured as appearing as sensible as "a tadpole walking upon stilts."19 Chinese clothes were "uncouth habiliments" while the Chinese in regard to religion were said to "pay their adorations to Boodah, or to some other imaginary deity whenever they experience a religious emotion."20 The inhabitants of a small town about sixty miles north of San Francisco were described as follows:

Bodega contains not more than four hundred inhabitants, including "Digger" Indians, "niggers," and dogs, the last by far the most useful and decent of the concern.21

In the book, the Chinese are described in various negative ways: as a "legion of fiends" and as "vermin." Comparing the blacks and Chinese of California, Helper pointed out that both lived side by side in "charac- teristic filth and degradation." Helper's stereotypes of the Chinese provide further evidence of the ' 'negroization' ' of the Chinese, a departure from any sort of reality. In stressing the evils of all colored peoples, Helper constructed a strict dichotomy between Caucasians and people of color. If one was white, then it followed in Helper's mind that he was a moral, decent human being; however, if a person was any shade of color, then he was inferior, impure, immoral and probably sub-human. Color meant one thing - inferiority.

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The Historical Society of Southern California

Commenting on the psychological importance of color, psychologist Kenneth Gergen concludes that given no other information about a person other than skin color, a people tend to evaluate another person of different color in a negative way.22 Californians seemed to conform to this principle considering their treatment of the Indian, black and Chinese segments of the population. On April 16, 1850, the state legislature passed a bill prohibiting testimony of Negroes, mulattoes and Indians in court cases involving 'vhites.23 This is an extremely important indication of the anti-color prejudice and the tendency to group all peoples of color into one category that existed in California from its earlier days.

In a case tried before the State Supreme Court almost four years later, The People versus Hall, the court decided that a Chinese witness, upon whose testimony the entire case rested, should not be allowed to testify.

No Black or Mulatto person or Indian should be allowed to give evidence in favor or against a white man. Held, that the word Indian, Negro, Black, and white are generic terms designating races. That therefore Chinese and all other people not white are included in the prohibition from being witnesses.24

While some writers called for the equality and acceptance of the Chinese, this measure put the Chinese in the same category as Indians and blacks, a category that had pejorative connotations to the white public. For all legal purposes, the Chinese had become a Negro.

In Governor John Bigler 's address to the state legislature in 1855, all sorts of indictments were brought against the Chinese; they were "cheap, morally corrupt, filthy and vicious contract coolies" who bought nothing and sent all of their money back to China.25 The Daily Alta California of 1853 contended that the Chinese were more clannish and morally inferior to the Negroes of the state. With the increasingly closer association between the Negro and the Chinese in the eyes of the law, writers and cartoonists ascribed definite negroid characteristics to the Chinese stereotype. Despite the contradictory image of the "Negroid Chinese," one writer commented: "Unlike thé Oriental nations, the Chinese have sent hither swarms of their females, a large part of whom are a depraved class; and though with complexions in some instances approaching fair, their whole physionomy indicates but a slight removal from the African race."26 "Negroization" continued.

With California's rapid growth came people who had no intention of working in the gold mines. They turned to agriculture and manufactur-

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Figure 3. ThistletorCs Jolly Giant, I (January 1, 1874), 4.

"The Different Nations Represented in this Cosmopolitan City of San Francisco."

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Figure 4. "The World in California- Tne Negro," Hutching' s California Magazine, I (February, 1857), 344.

"Extraordinary fellow to unite two such opposite crafts as white- washing California houses and firms, and blacking their understandings. He deems the cleansing of the one as important as the polishing of the other. His humor is sui generis, and has passed into stereotype, and his melodies never die. A right hand-y help is he, from the driving of a nail to the driving of a bargain. There is no weightier article in demand at the dinner table, than himself as a table waiter. He knows all your wants sooner than you know them yourself. Whether in bearing a hand at a stew-hard, that is, a cook, he is one in a community that would not be perfect without him."

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Negroization of the Chinese Stereotype

ing and found a substantial number of Chinese engaged in both busin- esses. Subsequent competition nurtured further stereotyping and pre- judice. In "The Chinese Labor Problem/' Charles Wolcott Brooks contended that the labor shortage of the South made the accession of a large number of Chinese to the South inevitable.27 Furthermore, he wrote that the Chinese used their hands and fingers very well and that the Chinese " would make dextrous cotton-pickers; never bungling ones." In this man's mind, the Chinese were analogous, although superior, to the "bungling" black "cotton pickers" of the South.

Largely as a result of the economic competition that grew between the white and Chinese labor forces, discriminatory legislation was passed by the state legislature. On April 28, 1855, a head tax of fifty dollars on each Chinese immigrant was levied against the owner, consignee, or master of any vessel bringing Chinese to California. Soon after its passage, this bill was declared unconstitutional. It nevertheless reveals the anti-Chinese feeling of the times. In 1858 another law was passed that forbade Chinese from entering California unless driven ashore by bad weather. This was also declared unconstitutional. It is important to note that both of the latter measures were declared unconstitutional; an

indication that the Chinese were at least accorded some rights in the Cali-

fornia courts. Yet discrimination continued in the legislative chambers.

An i860 anti-Chinese measure was passed taxing all Chinese fishermen.

A "police tax" imposed on the Chinese was passed in 1863. And although the Democrats had taken an anti-Negro and anti-Chinese stance since

the early 1850s, it was not until 1867 that both parties pledged them- selves to enact legislation that would protect white Californians from the threat of Chinese competition.

Marking a high point in discriminatory legislation, the period between

1870 and 1890 was an era of growing anti-Chinese feeling which reached its culmination with the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Illustrations in some periodicals bordered on the absurd and did not contain the reality of earlier editions. One extremist publication, Thistletorisjolly Giant, pictured the evolution of the Chinese, "accord- ing to Darwin's theory," from ape to man, from Chinese man to pig (Figure 2). Presenting its view of the "Different Nations Represented in the Cosmopolitan City of San Francisco," (Figure 3) the Giant clearly distorts and exaggerates fact in order to foment further prejudice and concludes:

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The Historical Society of Southern California

The stand of the Giant will ever be America against all other people who dare encroach upon her rights. We are for independence and freedom for the white man, and against all corporated shoddy societies who go about teaching filthy and abominable heathens Christianity instead of first looking after the white children.28

America, as defined by the Giant, meant Caucasian freedom, not freedom for all. Equal meant equality only among the white population. Outside of this white realm, existed the evil, decadent category of color. Belong- ing to that category were all people of colored skin - Chinese, Italians, Jews, Indians and Negroes - and membership in this group meant discrimination.

The news media pictured the Chinese as having "built a filthy nest of iniquity;"29 they were certainly responsible for "disease and pes- tilence;"30 and "dead puppy dogs were publicly sold in the streets for food."31 A rash of books concerned the eventual takeover of California

by the Chinese.32 Most interesting, the stereotype of the Chinese as a filthy, decadent person most closely resembled that of the blackman. The extent of this "Negroization" of the Chinese is evident in a cartoon depicting the Chinese as bound and ready for deportation (Figure 5). This illustration from a magazine ironically called The Wasp depicts the Chinese as having very dark brown skin, thick lips, and black curly hair. For all purposes, the Chinese was "black" and had over the years acquired all of the negative characteristics of that classification. The negroid Chinese stereotype had gone beyond all truth and was merely a reflection of what people wanted and expected to see. "Negroization" was complete.

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NOTES

1 San Francisco Daily Alta California, May 12, 1852. 2 Ibid., June 4, 1853. 3 Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion (New York, 1922), cited by Gordon Allport,

The Nature of Prejudice (New York, 1954), p. 187. 4 John Harding, "Stereotypes," International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences,

edited by David L. Sills (New York, 1968), p. 259, quoting Lippmann, Public Opinion. 5 Erdman B. Falmore, "Ethnophaulisms and Ethnocentrism," American Journal of

Sociology, 67 (January 1962), 442-445. 6 C. Eric Lincoln, "Color and Group Identity in the United States," Color and Race,

edited by John Hope Franklin (Boston, 1968). 7 Allport, The Nature of Prejudice, p. 198. 8 When the Chinese first came to California is not definitely known. Bancroft places

them in Lower California as shipbuilders and laborers as early as 1751, and says they were in California, at Los Angeles, in 1781. Lionel U. Ridout, "The Church, the Chinese, and the Negroes in California," Historical Magazine of the Episcopal Church, 28 (June 1959).

9 Ibid., p. 116. 10 Hutching1 s California Magazine (San Francisco), I (March 1857), 387. 11 William Speer, "China and California, Their Past and Present" (San Francisco,

1853), p. 15. 12 Ibid.

13 Stanley M. Elkins, Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life (Chicago, 1959), p. 82.

14 Hutching* s California Magazine, p. 387. 15 Ibid.

16 Ibid.

17 Ibid., p. 334. 18 B. Schrieke, Alien Americans (New York, 1936), p. 344. 19 Hinton Helper, Land of Gold: Reality versus Fiction (Baltimore, 1855), p. 86. 20 Ibid., p. 115. 21 Ibid., p. 257. 22 Kenneth J. Gergen, "The Significance of Skin Color in Human Relations,"

Color and Race, edited by John Hope Franklin (Boston, 1968), p. 114. 23 Statutes of California, 1850, p. 275. For an article relating to the fight against this

law, see James A. Fisher, "The Struggle for Negro Testimony in California, 185 1-1863," Southern California Ouarterlv. LI (December iq6o). 111.

24 California Reports, No. 4, October 4, 1854, p. 399, cited by Delilah L. Beasley, The Negro Trail Blazers of California (Los Angeles, 1919), p. 59.

25 Mary Roberts Coolidge, Chinese Immigration (New York, 1909), p. 60. 26 Hutching* s California Magazine, p. 387. 27 Charles Wolcott Brooks, "The Chinese Labor Problem," The Overland Monthly,

(San Francisco, 1869), p. 415. 28 Thistletoris Jolly Giant (San Francisco), VIII (August 1873), 2. 29 San Francisco Chronicle, 1873 (no further date stated), cited in The Chinese

Invasion by H. J. West (San Francisco, 1873), p. 105. 30 Illustrated Press (San Francisco), 1873, P- 2. 31 Jacobus tenBroek, et al., Prejudice, War and the Constitution, p. 20. 32 See, for examples, The Chinese Invasion (1873), Last Days of the Republic (1880),

Short and True History of the Taking of California and Oregon by the Chinese in the Year A.D. 1899 (1892), or The Yellow Peril in Action (1907).

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