Life under shadow: Chinese immigrant women in nineteenth- century America

Racism and sexism pervaded American society during the nineteenth century, creating unusual disadvantaged conditions for Chinese immigrant women. As a weak minority in an alien and often hostile environment and as a subordinate sex in a sexist society, Chinese women suffered from double oppression of racism and sexism. In addition, the Chinese cultural values of women's passivity and submission existed within Chinese communities in America, and affected the lives of these immigrant women. This work uses government document, historical statistics, accounts from newspapers and literature to examine the life experiences of Chinese immigrant women and American attitudes towards them, and to analyze the roots of the oppression of racism and sexism.