Immigrant Exclusion Acts: On Early Chinese Labor and Domestic Matriarchal Agency in Lin Yutang’s Chinatown Family

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Review of “Immigrant Exclusion Acts: On Early Chinese Labor and Domestic Matriarchal Agency in Chinatown Family” 

Author (NN)

This is an excellent article that uses literary historic sources (Yutang 1948) to re-orient common views of early Chinese and Chinese-American women in the USA. The article is rich, even dense, and as a reader, you feel well informed and in the hands of a well-prepared author.  One quote “For Asian immigrants, the dialectic of being simultaneous needed and excluded” resonated particularly strong, and is perhaps a more general characteristics of the precariat, where migrants and descendants are propelled into.

The article is warmly and strongly recommended for publication by Genealogy. 

I would like to encourage author to reflect on the choice of the disputed category, “prostitute”.  In different parts of the world the choice of “prostitute” is contested and replaced by the less loaded term “sex-worker.” This should be checked and tested. 

Author claims Marco Polo as a symbol of “Western colonial history.” This is a stretch and contestable. Polo was a merchant travelling the Silk Road late 1300s which is not regarded as part of colonial history, right? 

Several ironies (it seems) sneak up towards the end:

660 naturally existed

677 Of course this provision

713 ironically name Marco Polo  

In addition to the above, there are some general comments, which NN may wish to address. At times, I missed more concern for information about where exclusion and inclusion of the Chinese/Chinese-Americans take place. Congress, public, popular perception. When congress (dominated by well-off males) passes anti-Chinese laws, I wonder if these laws are instrumental tools for improving non-Chinese workers opportunities for jobs and gold, or whether it rests on actual analysis of the Chinese present and seeing a nationalist-racist ground to make policies. I suspect the first. The text seems to suggest the later.   

Elsewhere, 651, “the discourse of exclusion simply disappears” – is surely right. However, we know from discourse theory, that discourses are bound to coexist, sometimes dormant, only to resume dominance later (Ruth Wodak), hence not disappears as in being dissolved.  It may disappear from public sources, while dominating popular perception. 

A last example. “Chinese women falsified sexual deviance destabilized the heterosexual normativity that the Victorian family required.” 365, and 554. Easy to agree, yet, I wonder. “Heterosexual normativity” as a public norm, may be destabilized, but the male consumption of prostitutes has always sought to fly under the public norm radar anyway, right?

Another observation. It is a strength that the author identifies clearly key moments of shifts and perspective. At times, I feel these could be taken a little further. It is commonly claimed that when women transgress from overly traditional roles in the household into wage-labor, it entails a shift in gender roles. In some sense, obviously, yes. Yet, one of most comprehensive shifts of women into the labor is mainland China 1960s and 70s. This did not – in the other sense – change gender roles, but doubled the burden on women, being both held to traditional chores and “obligations” AND bringing in capital to the household. 

A final observation. Policies and popular perception will change in times of war – both as sympathies and as suppression. But does it hold in the longer run? Is it a surface change? How deep does it really go – particularly in popular perception 

Author Response

1. The use of the word prostitute was removed and rewritten with a new context. 
2. As a symbol of “Western colonial history," Marco Polo is changed to white history. 
3. The use of ironies as transitions was removed; the sentence was restructured and reworded.
4. I provided more historical context for where the exclusion and inclusion of Chinese/Chinese Americans took place. 
5. Gave an in-depth analysis of the role of popular perception and the sociology of gender and structure and the impact of the policies.
6. I addressed the male consumption of prostitutes, as yes, under the public norm and radar. I corrected it and agreed.
7. Most importantly, and lastly, I added a section on the role these laws enacted on women and their traditional social roles in the household and within the political economy. 

I also performed a comprehensive proofread and grammatical check. I also cleaned up the References section and in-text citation format. 

Reviewer 2 Report

T

This article offers an interesting reading of Lin Yutang’s novel Chinatown Family, considering how the narrative offers a critique of legislative discrimination against the Chinese immigrant community. It is certainly a valid contribution to this special issue. However, there are a variety of weaknesses at the moment, which if addressed will lead to a much stronger article.

The main issues are a confusing structure, at times weak analysis, and a widespread need for proofreading (I discuss the last point in the section for feedback on English language).

First: structure.

The guidelines for this journal suggest a fairly strict structure (including "Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusions"), a structure clearly oriented towards empirical research. This is not an empirical article, and I don’t think that it necessarily needs to follow that structure, however the structure at the moment is not particularly strong. It feels a little like it is taken from a book or thesis, moving from one theme to the next without signposting. It ends far too abruptly, without any further discussion or conclusion (indeed, I wondered if pages were missing from the submission). The first section is taking on the role of introduction and a review of the literature pertaining both to the book, the wider context, and to the conceptual approach, indeed at 10 pages it is almost 1/3 of the word count. The following analysis sections are fairly strong, but there is insufficient signposting, and as mentioned before there is no concluding discussion or summation of any kind. Some of this can be made stronger simply by introducing clearer headings. Begin with an Introduction, offering an overview of the article's argument and structure. Section break into discussion of the context, and other scholars' work, and how this informs and justifies your analytic approach. You could even have subsections here where you then introduce the work, and its narrative (I would suggest a short synopsis of the narrative somewhere at the beginning of the article to make it more accessible to a variety of readers). Then, move into the sections clearly indicated as your analyses, and finish with a concluding section where you bring forwards the core of your argument and its implications. Much of this is there implicitly, but it is not signposted or marked structurally, making it difficult to navigate this piece as an article.

Secondly: there are parts of the analysis which need to be more convincing.

There are numerous events and aspects of this novel which are never discussed, largely because the analysis focuses a bit too narrowly on just a few characters/scenes. This somewhat weakens the argument that this is a take on the wider novel.

In the abstract, and at the beginning of the article, it is argued that “The novel showcases how Chinese immigrants maneuvered, and manipulated, the legal system in their favor during the assimilation process.” (Lines 174). Having read the analysis, the manoeuvring is clear, but not so much the manipulation: what are the cases where members of the family actively manipulate the legal context?

The first analysis section, “Gold Rush and the Anti-Chinese Fervor”, does not offer that much engagement with the narrative itself, much of this is focused on the context. This is an important context, but some of this background has already been covered, and not all of it (e.g. the detailing of the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill) is that relevant to the analysis of the novel. Indeed, pages 13-15 discuss discrimination and legislation, without mention of the novel beyond the fact that the narrative presents a character facing this context who nevertheless survives, even to a certain degree, ultimately economically thrives. But given the limited information on how this character actually/practically does this, we do not see here “how Chinese immigrants maneuvered and manipulated” this system.

The section on “The Page Law and Matriarchal Power in the Capitalist Market” was analytically the strongest, exploring how the narrative depicts Mother Fong, and her agency. However, there are also confusing parts here.

It is stated that “female figures such as Mother Fong are not confined by the bounds of the Page Law that exclude them from the category of “wives.”” (399). But how exactly is this the case? A key point in the narrative is that Fong Sr has, despite the backdrop of the likes of the Page Law, managed to bring his wife and children to the US, and thus can establish a Chinese family. Again, how this was managed warrants more discussion.  

The analysis counterpoises Mother Fong with the stereotype of the hypersexualized ‘Chinese prostitute’, but this argument basically replicates the ‘good mother’ vs ‘bad whore’ binary by choosing a character who is an older, married, woman with a number of children. She is thus already stereotypically de-sexualised. But what about her daughter? How does a young, unmarried, Chinese woman agentially navigate this context?

I was also not entirely convinced that Mother Fong’s business acumen was as transgressive as implied. Yes, it is an excellent illustration of her agency and ability to manoeuvre (in any context. Note this would have been applicable to their running a business in China too, but her ability to do this as an immigrant is of course of heightened significance). It is stated that “She appears to be a capitalist female agent in the making, whose identity is highly continent upon her defying the formulaic characterization of a filial-pious, patriarchy-supporting Chinese housewife that we often encounter.” (478-480). But in her support and leadership of her family she is (!) fulfilling the trope of the “filially-pious, patriarchy-supporting Chinese housewife that we often encounter”. I’m thinking here of other, at times quite problematic stereotypes, such as that of the ‘Tiger Mother’. Such stereotypes of the ‘canny’, ‘business-minded’, Chinese ‘matriarch’, who maintains ‘total control’ over her family, are also part of a pattern around the emasculation of Chinese/Asian men (mentioned in the next section).

My sense here is that while Mother Fong is an excellent illustration of female agency, she also reinforces numerous stereotypes of women, perhaps particularly Chinese women, and thus is not as transgressive a figure as stated. Thus, there is more to unpack here.

The final section “Sexual Naturalization: Sino-Anglo Interracial Intimacy” makes the point that the depiction of a mixed couple (Loy and Flora) challenges the likes of the Page and Cable Acts. Yes, but again there are weaknesses in this analysis.

Their relations are not ‘forbidden’ (line 698), they are legally married, though in a context where this is both uncommon and worthy of comment. If it was illegal they would hardly be receiving congratulations from the Mayor, reported in the newspaper, on the birth of their child.

The argument that their child “captures a sexual capital” (697) seems to misunderstand the concept of ‘sexual capital’ (indeed, the concept of ‘sexual capital’ would more accurately be applied to the hypersexualising of Asian women, discussed in the previous section).

I was also unconvinced by the argument that Loy is emasculated at the birth of his son: “…it was a white man who delivered the child and by not Loy himself. Sergeant O’Toole symbolically castrates Loy by robbing him of his familial lineage. Disappeared from the birthing moment, the Chinese male figure, once again, becomes emasculated by his Anglo counterpart.” (717). Fathering a son is itself an attribution of masculinity (in both Chinese and Anglo cultures). Fathers would often not be present, let alone deliver, their children in either cultural context: this would regularly be done by other women, or by doctors (who were men). Flora’s giving birth in the taxi is of course an unusual event, but given that the usual pattern would not have traditionally placed him as the one to deliver the child, and even would have regularly placed another man in that role, makes it a tenuous example of emasculation or of him being ‘robed of his familial lineage’.

Final line: “Indeed, the Sino-Anglo pair’s love bond thrives in the text, and perhaps it is only in the literary mode that such subversive potential for interracial coupling would be possible.” (735). More discussion of research on the prevalence of such couples in this context is needed here. So much of the analysis has examined statistics and social prevalences, but here this is needed since it appears to be presumed, rather than explored, that such interracial couples could only “be possible” “in the literary mode”. There were interracial couples by the late 1940s, this implies that the text is more transgressive than it is.

This section, as with the previous one, could do with more work. The couple’s relationship, and the incorporation of Flora in to the Fong family, leaves a great deal to be discussed. There is a lot that is interesting in the figure of Flora in this novel: their marriage is on one hand a key signifier of assimilation, but also of the Fong family’s discovery of points of commonality between Chinese and ‘Western’ cultures (namely, Flora is also capable of being a hardworking and obedient wife, as she herself somewhat famously notes that in Italy ‘a padre is a padre’). But these commonalities, treated positively in the text, are also problematic: stereotypes of  shared ‘traditions of patriarchal obedience’ uniting Italian and Chinese women (vs the Anglo woman who supposedly is less obedient or tied to her family) is something that should be unpacked, and are hardly feminist/progressive.

These are a variety of points that should be incorporated into making the analysis of the novel stronger.

The issue with a widespread need for proofreading is discussed below.

Overall, the English was clear and coherent. However, there were minor problems on almost every page, indeed at times almost every paragraph.

Often, there were 'spelling' errors, or rather what looks like numerous words which were autocorrected, because the word is a word, but the context is incorrect for that word. For example: “her alleged extraterrestrial sexual license” … is ‘extraterrestrial’ the right word here? Is this being used as a synonym for ‘alien’ as in ‘foreign’? These errors were extremely widespread, so the article will need careful proofing before publication. I noted the following on the first few pages while reviewing, but because there are errors on at times every page I suggest careful checking throughout the document. 

Line 56: "the state that which capital profited from", grammatically incorrect.

64: “...the Asian immigrant, legally, economically, and economically" Check quote.

65:  "being simultaneous needed and ..." simultaneously.

67: ..."discovery of gold, massive exodus of human subjects,"  should be "a massive exodus"

70: "regions of the United States and aboard to California" ... abroad

71 "non-Native American population" and later 76: "non-American Indian population", check correct term and be consistent..

82: " economic boon" should be 'boom'

89: in this line and also later in the paragraph ... "the coolie labor" ... should this be laborer?

100: "The irrational fear of the Oriental from the Far East..." Should 'Oriental from the Far East' be in quote marks?

129: "Sui Sin Far (pseudonym for Edith Maud Eaton)",  'of' rather than 'for', also consider 'pen name'?

138-139: check where this quote ends, there are no quote marks.

... I will stop here, but just flag the need for careful proof reading and consideration of word choice (and double-checking that words are the correct ones, 'boom' not 'boon', 'abroad' not 'aboard' etc). As noted, there appear to be mistakes on every page.

Author Response

1. I added section titles for all the small sections according to the style recommended (i.e., introduction, materials and method, discussion, conclusion, etc).
2. I've added more in-depth analysis to each discussion section. 
3. I also added a new paragraph as the conclusion.
4. I've reviewed the entire paper for English language issues and comprehensively proofread the entire manuscript.