Mark Dodge, Independent Scholar
Link to Narrated PowerPoint: The Radicalizing Power of Everyday Life
Please leave comments, feedback, and research suggestions below.
Link to Narrated PowerPoint: The Radicalizing Power of Everyday Life
Please leave comments, feedback, and research suggestions below.
Hi Mark! I have never heard of George Leslie Mackay or Tiun Chhang-mia so thank you for the interesting introduction! Your discussion at the bottom of page 9 and top of page 10 suggests that Mackay presented Chinese and other Asian immigrants as “model minorities” when he was protesting discriminatory Canadian immigration policies. From my limited knowledge of the history of the Asian model minority stereotype (and Wikipedia!), it seems like this concept didn’t coalesce until the 20th-century, but your work appears to suggest it has nineteenth-century roots (at least in Canada). I was wondering if you have explored this idea in your other work?
I have not explored the “model minority” stereotype at all, but Mackay’s discussion of the contribution of Chinese to North American Society begins in the 1880s. Mackay’s memoire From Far Formosa, is filled with positive depictions of the comparative ability of Chinese to the British. Of course, Chinese immigrants to Canada were not his primary focus–he was living in Taiwan, and was very much committed to helping the Taiwanese build a strong independent community there. Nevertheless it is interesting that an entire construct of “model minority” emerges from similar observations to these.
The presentation of this paper, with the slides can be found here: https://www.buffaloschools.org/Page/12485