In the times of the great gold rush 1848-1855 a large number of Chinese people  

  migrated to the melting pot and land of unlimited opportunity California  for

  economic reasons 1 This essay does not only give an overview of the facts  and

  figures of Chinese-American history moreover it has a look at two very different  

  literary works and their divergent ways of dealing with the controversial issue:  Mark

  Twain s autobiographic adventure narrative Roughing It (1872) and Frank Chin s  

  spirited novel of education Donald Duk (1991)  

  The Chinese always working and living close together preserved their  

  cultural identity like no other folk of immigrants: As soon as some Chinamen 2  had

  settled down somewhere many more followed so that small Chinese communities  

  arose 3 The Americans sensed this to be a disgraceful nonconformist behaviour  

  which even increased their resentment Thus many considered the Chinese to  be

  unwanted interlopers into their Western world The Asians cultural difference  was

  not only marked by their exotic physical appearance and traditional dresses  but

  also by their rather submissive behaviour their patience silence and absolute  

  working diligence Since the Chinese were so very persistent and hardworking  

  American men soon got increasingly envious and hostile In his big illustrated  

  history of the American West William C Davis adds that in the gold-digger camps  

  people hated and discriminated the Chinese for their complexion their reservation  

  and their incomprehensible language 4 On top of everything the Western  men

  were afraid that the Oriental intruders could steal away their women as Chinese  

  women were not allowed to enter the country Consequently Chinamen  were

  forced to look for (or at least at) American women if they did not totally suppress  

  their natural desires  5

  A consequence of the Americans antipathy for the Chinese immigrants  was

  their racist anti-Chinese propaganda in order to reduce the foreigners influence  on

  the American culture Hence countless bad rumours spread about disgusting  and

  inhuman Chinese habits Besides Chinamen were on no account allowed  to

  marry non-Chinese women: Anti-miscegenation-laws were established which  

  should stop the Chinese spread in America and make them leave the country after  

  having done their dirty hard and perilous work for a cheap price (because without  

  the chance to live together with a family and the right to life in America surely  

  would not be very attractive for the foreigners) The anti-miscegenation-law  was

  accompanied by segregation laws in the cities as well as another principle ensuring  

  that the Chinese would not become rife in America: the law that only American  

1  In the 1840s thousands of Chinese who had fled the famine in their own country came for instance to search for gold  in

  Auburn Ravine Chinese (cf Davis: 63)  

2  The expression Chinaman nowadays often is defined as offensive term However it is also and still used as a self-referential  

  archetype by Chinese authors In order to mark and remind of the ambivalence of the term in this essay the controversial  

  expression is consequently put in inverted commas  

3  Cf Davis:  129.

4  Cf Davis  129.

5  And of course Chinese were not allowed to interact with European women  

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citizens were allowed to buy American land – and, certainly, you could only become naturalized when you were white; 6 plus, a white woman who married a ‘Chinaman’ despite the anti-miscegenation-law would immediately lose her American citizenship, so that also this ‘mixed’ couple would not be able to settle down on private American property. On top of everything, Chinese people had to pay enormous taxes to the American government.

Notwithstanding all prejudices and hostilities, ‘Chinamen’ were, at the same time, also useful for the Americans. They were recruited out of their country 7 in order to come to America and accomplish the very hard and dangerous work for the Pacific railroad company, 8 which the so-called ‘brave American cowboys’ were not going to do. 9 ‘Chinamen’, moreover, supplied the country with other services none of the ‘real’ American men would offer – for instance laundry services and restaurants –, 10 because (‘female’) works like washing clothes or cooking clearly do not fit the American cowboy image of masculinity at all. Besides, a world like the heroic ‘Wild West’ needed some kind of weaker opponent in order to maintain and accentuate their superiority. 11 For book authors, writing about the Chinese in the American West was an interesting subject: Firstly, the apparent cultural difference could point out national as well as foreign weaknesses and strengths. This is to say, by presenting deviance, one could (try to) define an American cultural identity and also criticise the Western world and its embedded systems. Furthermore, introducing alternative ways of living can help to improve one’s personal lifestyle. For example, the Chinese (just as natural people like the Indians) might know more about traditional alternative medicine. Of course, authors could also stick to the popular prejudices and describe the stereotypical image of Chinatown with its countless negative connotations: dirt and poverty, mysticism and crowdedness, smell of food, a ‘busy anthill out of order’, sin and crime and prostitution, drugs and miscegenation, cheating and heathendom.

Often it is very difficult to decide whether one or the other text dealing with Chinese in the American West is filled with racism or if it rather tries to criticise the Whites’ behaviour in a sarcastic way. In Mark Twain’s autobiographic novel Roughing it, 12 published in 1872, for instance, the first-person-narrator states that the Chinese are “a harmless race when white man either let them alone or treat

6 By the way, the question who was white and who was not was not always easy to be answered, since it was dependent on the ‘subjective opinion’ of any judge. (Thus, sometimes a court would claim one person was white and the next one would say he was not.) 7 Davis points out that in 1870 around 70000 Chinese were working in the goldmines; and the railroad’s demand for Chinese workers was so extreme that they even recruited Chinamen in China (cf. p. 130).

8 In the second half of the 19th century, the sedulous, fearless Chinese made an immeasurable contribution to the construction of the railroad. Indeed, Chinese coolies only were responsible for the most dangerous works at the Central Pacific and hundreds of them paid for this with their lives (cf. Davis: 41 and 131).

9 They simply did not want to run the risk to die.

10 In the 1850s and 1860s, hence, many Chinese restaurants and laundry services were opened (cf. Davis: 128f.). 11 Although, on the other hand, suppressing calm and peaceful people like the Chinese can at the same time be interpreted as a very weak act: You do not have to be brave to fight down someone who does not defend himself.

12 Cf. bibliographical list of primary sources.

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them no worse than dogs.” (391) This statement can be understood either as a racial offence, comparing the Chinese to dogs, or – which is much more likeable – it aims at mocking the American people who discriminate and maltreat the completely harmless ‘Chinamen’: The only thing that the American society can do in order to feel strong is to oppress the weak. And how ‘brave’ must a real American cowboy be to hit a man submissive like a dog?! In order not to lay open itself to attack for racist Americans, the text cleverly hides this criticism in a sarcastic disguise. Besides, the sentence itself can even be read as a warning, meaning that the Chinese will be dangerous if they are treated worse than dogs. 13 After all, at least two things become clear – and both of them do rather not plead for the American cowboys: Firstly, the American society seems to urgently need underdogs in order to demonstrate their (putative) supremacy (which, indeed, is an evidence of incapacity!); and, second: Whereas the Americans only feel comfortable and ‘safe’ 14 in their own culture, to which they almost frantically stick, the Chinese have created themselves an additional home away from their origins – and, hence, one could conclude that this fact makes them even superior to the Americans.

A more recent text dealing with Asian-American cultural divergences, with

assimilation and adaptations, with perspectives and traditions, as well as with the problematic of all these factors is Frank Chin’s narrative Donald Duk (1991), 15 which one might quickly get frustrated with. The story is not only highly confusing because it mixes the narrated ‘real’ time of the 1960s and the illogical 16 visions of

19 th -century-history the protagonist has, it might also arouse much pity for the

miserable main character, Donald Duk. Moreover, the naïve style the narrator applies could frustrate the reader. The first chapter of the story recalls the style of a children’s book, as it is written in such a plain way. 17 One could also find parallels to the so-called ‘iceberg-writing style’ of Ernest Hemmingway: Only about one third of the text’s message is visible at first sight, most of its meaning lies deeply hidden beneath the surface. Sentence sequences like “Donald Duk does not like his name. Donald Duk never liked his name. He hates his name. He is not a duck. […]” (1) reflect the comic-like language and style of the whole first chapter.

Anyway, the choice of the name for the main character and its significance for the protagonist’s life is a highly interesting matter, since it can be interpreted in many divergent ways. First of all, the fact that Donald Duk does not like his name, is not surprising, because it induces the other kids need to ridicule the – anyway shy and labile – twelve-year-old: Doubtlessly, everybody laughs about Donald because his name sounds like the one of a ridiculous American comic figure. At

13 However, this ‘reading against the grain’ seems rather not to be the intention of the author.

14 This is not even for sure, since intruders like the Chinese must be seen as danger for the ‘unadulterated’ American society.

15 Cf. bibliographical list of primary sources.

16 They are illogical, since Donald, the protagonist, dreams of historic happenings and facts that he really cannot know about.

17 At some points one could almost call the style ridiculously repetitive.

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