A Chinaman's Chance
A Chinaman's Chance: The Chinese on the Rocky Mountain Mining Frontier Liping Zhu,
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 087081575X
DDC: 973
Edition: Paperback; 2000-01
Summary:
Writers and historians have traditionally portrayed Chinese
immigrants in the nineteenth-century American West as victims. By
investigating the early history of Idaho’s Boise Basin, Liping Zhu
challenges this image and offers an alternative discourse to the
study of this ethnic minority. Between 1863 and 1910, a large number
of Chinese immigrants resided in the Boise Basin to search for gold.
As in many Rocky Mountain mining camps, they comprised a majority of
the population. Unlike settlers in many other boom-and-bust western
mining towns, the Chinese in the Boise Basin managed to stay there
for more than half a century. Thus, the Chinese portrayed all the
stereotypical frontier roles-victors, victims, and villains. Their
basic material needs were guaranteed, and many individuals were able
to climb up the economic ladder. Frontier justice was used to settle
disputes; Chinese-Americans frequently challenged white opponents in
the various courts as well as in gun battles. Interesting and
provocative, A Chinaman’s Chance not only offers general readers a
narrative account of the Rocky Mountain mining frontier, but also
introduces a fresh interpretation of the Chinese experience in
nineteenth-century America to scholars interested in Asian American
studies, immigration history, and ethnicity in the American West.
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