About Global China Humanities Series 全球中國人文講座
The Center launches its inaugural Global China Humanities Lecture Series in February 2021. We invite internationally renowned scholars and young, first-book authors to discuss their latest works on topics ranging from Cold War history, diaspora studies, global medicine to literature.
香港科技大學全球中國中心舉辦全新的人文講座系列。我們邀請國際知名的學者、剛推出首本著作的年青學人來探討冷戰史、離散研究、全球醫療史、文學史等等課題。
每次講座先由講者演講50-60分鐘，隨後有30分鐘的問答時間。講座免費，公眾人士均可報名參與，惟必須先報名。講座將以中文或英文進行。
GLOBAL CHINA HUMANITIES SERIES: The Good Immigrants: How the Yellow Peril Became the Model Minority
The Good Immigrants: How the Yellow Peril Became the Model Minority
Prof. Madeline Hsu 徐元音教授 (University of Texas at Austin)
17th April 2021 (Sat) 09:00 (HK), 16th April 2021 (Fri) 20:00 (Austin)
Language: English
Please REGISTER HERE to secure your place
Abstract
Conventionally, US immigration history has been understood through the lens of restriction and those who have been barred from getting in. In contrast, The Good Immigrants considers immigration from the perspective of Chinese elites—intellectuals, businessmen, and students—who gained entrance because of immigration exemptions. Exploring a century of Chinese migrations, Madeline Hsu looks at how the model minority characteristics of many Asian Americans resulted from US policies that screened for those with the highest credentials in the most employable fields, enhancing American economic competitiveness.
The earliest US immigration restrictions targeted Chinese people but exempted students as well as individuals who might extend America’s influence in China. Western-educated Chinese such as Madame Chiang Kai-shek became symbols of the US impact on China, even as they patriotically advocated for China’s modernization. World War II and the rise of communism transformed Chinese students abroad into refugees, and the Cold War magnified the importance of their talent and training. As a result, Congress legislated piecemeal legal measures to enable Chinese of good standing with professional skills to become citizens. Pressures mounted to reform American discriminatory immigration laws, culminating with the 1965 Immigration Act.
The Good Immigrants examines the shifts in immigration laws and perceptions of cultural traits that enabled Asians to remain in the United States as exemplary, productive Americans.
About the Speaker
Madeline Y. Hsu is professor of history and Asian American Studies at UT Austin. Her books include Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home: Transnationalism and Migration between the United States and South China, 1882-1943 (Stanford University Press, 2000); The Good Immigrants: How the Yellow Peril Became the Model Minority (Princeton University Press, 2015); and Asian American History: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2016). She co-edited the anthology with Maddalena Marinari and Maria Cristina Garcia, A Nation of Immigrants Reconsidered: U.S. Society in an Age of Restriction, 1924-1965 (UIP 2019). She is currently one of five co-editors for the Cambridge History of Global Migrations. Please visit her most recent project, “Teach Immigration History,” at immigrationhistory.org.