John Doe Chinaman

[A] penetrating account…Lew-Williams structures her findings in a compulsively readable format, organizing the stories she uncovers into chapters interrogating stereotypes and common myths of the ‘wily Chinamen’ and the threats they posed…Lew-Williams cogently argues that the ‘racial etiquette’ enforced by these laws has a lingering effect today, as Asian Americans continue to feel pressure to ‘discreetly regulate themselves.’ It’s a vital and painstakingly constructed window into an intentionally obscured part of American history. * Publishers Weekly *
With incisive, groundbreaking research, Beth Lew-Williams has unearthed thousands of state and local laws regulating the lives of Chinese people in America. Her captivating stories vastly expand what is known about people so devalued that US officialdom couldn’t be bothered to record their real names—and offer disturbing parallels to new laws targeting immigrants and Asians in the current political climate. – Helen Zia, author of Last Boat Out of Shanghai
In this powerful, poignant, and disturbing book, Beth Lew-Williams not only illuminates the forgotten struggles of Chinese people in American society but also challenges our understanding of how America’s racial regimes were constructed. Deeply researched and profoundly compelling, John Doe Chinaman is a significant contribution to the legal, social, and cultural history of the modern United States. – Steven Hahn, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian and author of Illiberal America
Lew-Williams persistently unearths traces of Chinese struggles against segregationist laws in the American West, excavating court records preserved in dozens of regional archives. Recovering the names and narratives of long overlooked individuals, she illuminates the emerging legal systems that suppressed racial minorities domestically amid the rise of exclusion at the border. – Madeline Y. Hsu, author of The Good Immigrants
John Doe Chinaman is a brilliant history of Chinese immigrants and the law of race in the American West. As Lew-Williams deftly shows, anti-Chinese racism did not simply replicate earlier forms of anti-Blackness in the law, nor was the legal regime in Western states simply an extension of federal immigration control. Through meticulous and creative research, she has uncovered a treasure trove of stories of Chinese people who challenged their second-class status and forced legal authorities to reckon with them. This book will change the way we understand race in US history. – Ariela J. Gross, author of What Blood Won’t Tell

Beth Lew-Williams is Professor of History and Director of the Program in Asian American Studies at Princeton University. She is the author of The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America.

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