Chinese American Experience, Part 1: Exclusion and The Driving Out

This week I'll be posting a series of 6 video clips, each one running somewhere around 9 minutes, from the Bill Moyers documentary series "Becoming American: The Chinese Experience". I've trimmed and uploaded these clips from the middle segment of the historical narrative — the Exclusion era — because I think it's the least-known period. Most people in the US know something about the early days of mining and railroads, and most are somewhat familiar with the more recent wave of educated professionals from mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong; but the middle 60 years of vigorous persecution and ethnic cleansing remains largely forgotten, glossed over, and denied in historical memory. So that's the period I'll be looking at this week, not because I perversely enjoy revelling in victimhood but because this is the hard truth, this is what happened, and we need to look at it and ourselves squarely if we're going to make things right in this country, not only for Chinese Americans but also with regard to the current wave of Latin@ migration which faces similar backlash from nativist reactionaries.

Bill Moyers is of course a great journalist and he does a terrific job covering a lot of ground in this series. This doesn't mean that I like every turn of phrase or every perspective that gets aired; I don't think anyone is supposed to; but on the whole I think it's a balanced, informative collage of facts, anecdotes, images, and angles. Feel free to comment on what stands out for you, I'll be glad to discuss and reflect. The six clips I'm going to post over the coming week include: (1) Exclusion and The Driving Out; (2) Wong Chin Foo; (3) Donaldina Cameron; (4) Paper Sons; (5) Anna May Wong; and (6) World War II and the End of Exclusion. And here's part one...

Comments

[nezua]

i never commented, i dont think, but i watched this over at your youtube account. i'm really liking the series so far. i watched one out of order, whoops. but then went back to #1. tonight will hit the next installment. it can be a family affair and such.

[kyledeb]

I'm really looking forward to following this series, Kai. I hope you put some of this up at the Sanctuary, too.

[Kai]

Nez, Kyle, good to have you on board this little historical journey! Yes, it's a family affair, because looking at this history today it's impossible to miss the parallels between what has happened before and what is happening right now.