Chinaman

[Fixing up the wp again...]


Chinaman  is a term that refers to a Chinese man, person, or in some cases, a racial term for any person of east Asian descent. Although the term originated in usage that was not originally offensive in intent, and was listed in older dictionaries,[1][2] its use evolved into a term often used against the Chinese and other Asians as they encountered increased discrimination and injustice in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Nowadays, its occasional usage is strongly discouraged by Asian American organizations and others,[3][4][5][6] and considered offensive by modern dictionaries. It can be contrasted with the ethnic slur used for persons of African descent, which was also used as both a self-referential and pejorative description. The term has been used by Chinese and persons without stated offensive intent,[3][6] and has also been used as a self-referential archetype by authors and artists of Asian descent.[7]


[edit] Historic usage

A transliteration of the Chinese word for a Chinese person would be "China" and "man". The term "Chinaman" has been historically used in a variety of ways, including legal documents, literary works, geographic names, and in speech. Census records in 1800s North America recorded Chinese men by names such as "John Chinaman", "Jake Chinaman", or simply as "Chinaman".[8] Chinese-American historian Emma Woo Louie, comments about the usage of such names in census schedules that "Generic names....were evidently used when the census-taker was unable to obtain any information — these terms should not be considered to be racist in intent.....[members of] other groups are identified by generic terms as well, such as Spaniard and Kanaka, which refers to a Hawaiian. As one census taker in Eldorado County wrote, "I found about 80 Chinese men in Spanish Canion who refused to give me their names or other information. John Chinaman is another generic term used by the census taker to describe a Chinese person — like John Doe, it refers to a person whose name is not known. "[9]

In a notable 1852 letter to Governor of California John Bigler which challenges his proposed immigration policy toward the Chinese, restaurant owner Norman Asing, at the time a leader in San Francisco's Chinese community, referred to himself as a "Chinaman". Addressing the governor, he wrote, "Sir: I am a Chinaman, a republican, and a lover of free institutions."[10] "Chinaman" was also often used in complimentary contexts, such as ""after a very famous Chinaman in old Cassiar Rush days, (who was) known & loved by whites and natives."[11]

[edit] Derogatory

As the Chinese in the American West began to encounter discrimination and hostile criticism of their culture and mannerisms, the term would begin to take on negative connotations. The slogan of the Workingman's Party was "The Chinese Must Go!", coined in the 1870s before chinaman became a common derogatory term. The term "Chinaman's chance evolved as the Chinese began to take on dangerous jobs building the railroads or ventured to exploit mine claims abandoned by others, and later found themselves of victims of injustice as accused murders would be acquitted if the only testimony was from other Chinese. Legal documents such as the Geary Act of 1892, which barred the entry of Chinese people to the United States, referred to Chinese people both as "Chinese persons" or "Chinamen".[12] In addition to legal documents, the term "Chinaman" was also used in court. Roy Bean, appointed as a judge in the state of Texas in the late 19th century, used the term in one of his rulings. Commenting on the case of an Irishman killing a Chinese worker, after browsing through a law book, he said, "Gentlemen, I find the law very explicit on murdering your fellow man, but there's nothing here about killing a Chinaman. Case dismissed."[13]



The term has also been used to refer to Japanese men, despite the fact that they are not Chinese. Civil rights pioneer Takuji Yamashita took a case to the United States Supreme Court in 1922 on the issue of the possibility of allowing Japanese immigrants to own land in the state of Washington. Washington's attorney general, in his argument, stated that Japanese people could not fit into American society because assimilation was not possible for "the Negro, the Indian and the Chinaman".[14] The Japanese admiral Tōgō Heihachirō, during his training in England in the 1870s, was called "Johnny Chinaman" by his British comrades.[15]



Literary and musical works have used the term as well. In Disgraceful Persecution of a Boy, an 1870 essay written by Mark Twain, a sympathetic and often flattering account about the circumstances of Chinese people in 1800s United States society, the term is used throughout the body of the essay to refer to Chinese people.[16] Over a hundred years later, the term would again be used during the Civil Rights era in the context of racial injustice in literary works. The term was used in the title of Chinese American writer Frank Chin's first play The Chickencoop Chinaman, written in 1972,[7] and also the translated English title of Bo Yang's political and cultural criticism, The Ugly Chinaman and the Crisis of Chinese Culture.[17] In musical works, the term appears in Mort Shuman's 1967 translation of Jacques Brel's song, Jacky: "Locked up inside my opium den/Surrounded by some Chinamen".[18][19] In Brel's original, the French term vieux Chinois, meaning "old Chinese", was translated as "Chinamen" in English.[20] It was also used in the hit 1974 song, Kung Fu Fighting, by Carl Douglas; a line of lyrics from the song reads, "they were funky Chinamen from funky Chinatown."[21]