Mae M. Ngai | The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes and Global Politics

3803 Locust Walk,Philadelphia PA 19104

26 January, 2022

Description

Prize-winning historian Mae Ngai (Columbia University) traces the origins and consequences of the "Chinese Question.” Wolf Humanities Center • University of Pennsylvania 2021–2022 FORUM ON MIGRATIONThe Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes and Global PoliticsMae M. Ngai, Lung Family Professor of Asian American Studies and Professor of History; Co-director, Center for the Study of Ethnicity & Race; Columbia University Drawing on ten years of research across five continents, prize-winning historian Mae Ngai traces the origins and consequences of the "Chinese Question” as a global racial discourse that justified laws excluding Chinese from immigration and citizenship in the anglophone world. Ngai argues that Chinese exclusion was not extraneous to the emergent global economy in the late nineteenth century but an integral part of it. She traces the origins of the Chinese Question to the gold rushes of the nineteenth century and links them to the globalization of trade, credit, labor, and the rise of Anglo-American power. More information: https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/ngai Cosponsored by Penn's Department of History, Asian American Studies Program, and Perry World House.––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– This event is free and open to the public. Registration is required. In accordance with Penn’s COVID-19 Guidelines, all in-person attendees are required to wear a mask; display their PennOpen Pass or PennOpen Campus green pass before entry; attest to having been vaccinated; and register their contact information with the organizers in the case that follow-up from contact tracers is needed.The Wolf Humanities Center values inclusivity and we aim to create a welcoming environment for people of all backgrounds. Please feel free to note any accessibility needs or concerns in your registration, or connect with us by email or phone (215.573.8280).Mae M. Ngai, Lung Family Professor of Asian American Studies and Professor of History, is a U.S. legal and political historian interested in questions of immigration, citizenship, and nationalism. She is author of the award winning Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (2004) and The Lucky Ones: One Family and the Extraordinary Invention of Chinese America (2010). Ngai has written on immigration history and policy for the Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, the Nation, and the Boston Review. Before becoming a historian she was a labor-union organizer and educator in New York City, working for District 65-UAW and the Consortium for Worker Education. She is now writing The Chinese Question (under contract with WW Norton), a study of Chinese gold miners and racial politics in nineteenth-century California, Australia, and South Africa; and Nation of Immigrants: A Short History of an Idea (under contract with Princeton University Press). The Wolf Humanities Center is the University of Pennsylvania's main hub for interdisciplinary humanities research and public programming. Please join us in considering our common stake in the "thinking arts!"