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Date of Award

Spring 2025

Document Type

Masters Thesis

Department or Program Affiliation

History

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

History

First Advisor

Cerretti, Josh

Second Advisor

Pihos, Peter Constantine

Third Advisor

Seltz, Jennifer, 1970-

Abstract

In the Pacific Northwest, Chinese American history has long been dominated by migratory male laborers. “North of Gold Mountain” is the first historical research project that centers Chinese women’s experiences in the Pacific Northwest. Although Chinese women were a significantly smaller cohort than their male counterparts, Pacific Northwest newspapers discussed Chinese women through an assortment of Orientalist tropes which made them hypervisible in the public sphere. Due to federal legislation beginning in 1875, Chinese sex workers were not allowed to enter the United States at all. Even though the Page Act 1875 was enacted to screen out sex workers, its real consequences were that Chinese women could not ask authorities for help, or they would face deportation. Finally, Chinese women who migrated as wives often moved across oceans via arranged marriages to a man they had never met before. Each step of the immigration process was connected in some way to their kinship ties, whether that was the husbands submitting their petition for immigration, traveling with children, or proving that they were the only wife of their new husband. Compared to Chinese men, Chinese wives were not free agents in the immigration process, but neither were they coerced or enslaved. By centering Chinese women, “North of Gold Mountain” argues that Chinese women should be seen as crucial to Chinese American historiography, because omission of their experiences fails to capture the complete experience of Chinese Americans in the Pacific Northwest.

Type

Text

Keywords

Chinese American History, Chinese Women, Pacific Northwest History

Publisher

Western Washington University

OCLC Number

1521955000

Subject – LCSH

Chinese Americans--Northwest, Pacific--History; Chinese American women--Northwest, Pacific; Northwest, Pacific--History

Geographic Coverage

Northwest, Pacific

Format

application/pdf

Genre/Form

masters theses

Language

English

Rights

Copying of this document in whole or in part is allowable only for scholarly purposes. It is understood, however, that any copying or publication of this document for commercial purposes, or for financial gain, shall not be allowed without the author’s written permission.

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