19th century
20th century
A01=Nayan Shah
asian immigrants
Author_Nayan Shah
Category=GTM
Category=JBSL
Category=MBN
Category=MBP
Category=NHTB
chinese immigrants
civic
construction
cultural
cultural history
cultural studies
disease
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
health and wellness
immigrant
immigrant experience
immigrant stories
immigration
lawsuit
myths
political
politics
protest
public health
race
race issues
racism
rumors
san francisco
sanitation
social change
social history
social studies
transformation
vaccinations
xenophobia
Product details
- ISBN 9780520226296
- Weight: 635g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 29 Oct 2001
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Contagious Divides charts the dynamic transformation of representations of Chinese immigrants from medical menace in the nineteenth century to model citizen in the mid-twentieth century. Examining the cultural politics of public health and Chinese immigration in San Francisco, this book looks at the history of racial formation in the U.S. by focusing on the development of public health bureaucracies. Nayan Shah notes how the production of Chinese difference and white, heterosexual norms in public health policy affected social lives, politics, and cultural expression. Public health authorities depicted Chinese immigrants as filthy and diseased, as the carriers of such incurable afflictions as smallpox, syphilis, and bubonic plague. This resulted in the vociferous enforcement of sanitary regulations on the Chinese community. But the authorities did more than demon-ize the Chinese; they also marshaled civic resources that promoted sewer construction, vaccination programs, and public health management. Shah shows how Chinese Americans responded to health regulations and allegations with persuasive political speeches, lawsuits, boycotts, violent protests, and poems.
Chinese American activists drew upon public health strategies in their advocacy for health services and public housing. Adroitly employing discourses of race and health, these activists argued that Chinese Americans were worthy and deserving of sharing in the resources of American society.
Nayan Shah is Professor and Chair of the Department of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California and the author of Contagious Divides (UC Press).
