Societys president and ceo. Im over the moon to see some of you in our beautiful auditorium. Many of you, for the first time in a long time. So welcome back. Tonights program, the chinese question, gold rushes and global politics, it is part of our irene schwarts distinguished speaker series, the heart of our public programs. Enabled us to bring so many fine speakers to this stage. I would also like to thank for his great support. Joe pickett, thank you so much for all you do on behalf of this institution. I would also like to thank all of the Council Members joining us this evening. We have really appreciated your support and encouragement along this very difficult period. This program will last about an hour and it will include a you should have received a no card and pencil on your way in. If not, my colleagues will be up and down the aisle with cards and pencils for you to write your questions on that note cards. E. However signed copies will be available for sale in our ny history store signed copies of the book will be available at the end y history store on the 77th stride of the building. Tonight we are delighted to welcome the family professor of american Asian Studies and professor of history at columbia university. Professor writes on immigration history for the new york times, the Washington Post and cnn ed was featured in the film, the chinese exclusion act, directed by our own trusty, rick burns and lee xin you. Shes the author of the awardwinning book, impossible subjects and the making of modern america. Her newest book is the chinese, question the gold global politics. The moderator this evening is who serves as the circuit judge as the court of appeals for the second circuit. In april 2010, distinguished status this past june. United states district for the Southern District of new york, where he presided over criminal and civil cases. Born in hong kong, he was the first Asian American appointed a United States district judge outside the ninth circuit. Before we begin, i asked that you turn off your cellphones. And please make sure that your mask is covering both your nose and your mouth, per new york state law. And now please join me in welcoming tonights special guest, thank you. [applause] good evening, everyone. Its great to be here. In court, by the way, we are still wearing our masks. But tonight weve been given permission to take our masks off. It is annoying in court when the lawyers and judges are all wearing masks. But we do the best we can. It is my honor, again, to have a conversation with professor ngai. We were together here in april of 2019. It seems like a lifetime ago. She is one of the worlds foremost authorities on immigration history and migration. And back then we had a conversation about her book, impossible subjects. And professor ngai has now published another book. The pandemic gave her a chance to finish it up. The chinese question the gold rushes and global politics. The chinese question has received rave reviews from the likes of the new york times, the wall street journal. There was a lengthy right up in the new yorker. And it took professor ngai 10 years to write this book. There is a nice line, at the beginning, my research was not unlike panning for gold. Part hard work and part love. It slowly revealed insight incomprehension. I spent a last week reading the book. They are certainly many nuggets in there, including intimate stories about the individuals. You illustrate your broader observations and conclusions with tales about the participants. The gold miners, others. And my grandfather came to this country in 1916, illegally, because of the chinese exclusion laws that you write about. He was not a gold miner, he was a labor. He eventually became a waiter in chinese restaurants. And gold was important for him, even though he was a waiter. He had small wages but bought a gold rolex watch. [laughs] which i still have and im afraid to wear. Tell us, by way of introduction, about the process of writing the book. How you conducted your research. Sure. Well, first i want to thank the New York Historical society. And thank you, judge chin. Its a real delight to be up here with you again. This book started with an annoyance, i would say. A student of mine at columbia was writing a paper about california politics in the 19th century. And he was writing about the working mens party, who coined the phrase the chinese must go. And in his paper he said that the Chinese Workers were , they were indentured servants and therefore not free men, not free laborers. And therefore the working mens party maybe they were a little racist, but they had a point there was this competition from people who were like slaves. And i said to him, that is not true. Thats like a big lie that has been repeated over and over again. But look, its in all these books, he said. And indeed, this is the reigning story in American History books, written by eminent historians. I realized that i had to, in my words, sleigh the and that was the impetus for the book. And i believe that that would be an empirical question. What were the chinese actually doing on the ground . What was the work relationship . How did they work . But it would also be a political question, an intellectual question on how this big lie came to be. And your search took you to five different continents . Yeah. So it was also just kind of by chance that i was attending a conference in australia on the chinese and australia in the victorian midlands. And i said, wow, this looks just Like Northern california. It really did. And so i learned a little bit about the gold miners there. And i said, maybe i can compare the two places. I didnt know what i would find. And then a year later, i went to another conference in south africa and learned that chinese had gone there, at that time under contract to work in the deep gold mines. So i had this idea i would follow them around the world. And see what i could dig up. And you also had to do research with respect to what is happening in britain. And of course, in china as well. Right, right. So the short answer is that the politics of the antichinese sentiment that first germinated in california that traveled throughout the anglophone world. It received attention in australia, although in the beginning the australians had a different view of the chinese. They didnt say they were coolies, they had different anxieties about being so close to china. There is an outpost of the british empire. Close to china steaming millions. And so i follow the politics. At one level it was local. They read other writings. So lets come back to that in a little bit. Lets give a bit of an overview. But what was the chinese question . The chinese question was simply, our chinese and menace to western society . And should they be excluded. That was the position the position of chinese exclusion was actually a very radical idea in the late 19th century. Because it was a time of free trade in free migration. So aside from the insult to equality, it was a very novel idea of how to regulate global trade in persons and goods. For immigration, except for the chinese. So i have a few slides here. You talked about the gold rush in california, the gold rush in australia and in south africa. In south africa things were a little different. I have a few slides. Most of these are from your book. And so the first several are from california. And they were white workers working with the Chinese Workers. One of the things you do in the book is talk about all the different techniques for mining gold. And what the chinese did and then how it became industrial over time. And the Big Companies came in. You also talked about these chinese camps, chinese communities, chinese towns sprouting up. And that happened not just in california but also in austria. Could you talk a little bit about that . And for example, you talked about the businesses that sprouted, how some gold miners became merchants. The food they ate, the conditions. Can you talk a little bit about those kinds of things . Sure. What i found was that sure. What i found was that in the first days of the gold rush, chinese were like other gold seekers. They pitched tents. He came in organize them selves into small groups and those groups were usually ethnic. It was not just the chinese but also the irish stuck together, the germans stuck together. And things progressed they would build little houses, very primitive but many of them still tents in tents or encampments near the goldfields. And some of them, as you said, became merchants because thats a different kind of gold mining. You make money selling to the minors. And so, the thing that fascinated me was that the chinese were both living in their own communities, but also, they were always nested and different communities. And they were not really isolated from non chinese. They went to the same markets, the same merchants, the chinese merchants also sold to white gold miners. They patronized the same establishments in the town. And the chinese developed the specialties, like laundries you know, there was actually more mixing going on than i think we commonly think about. There were differences. Mostly men, in all the countries, but there were also differences and antimassage nation laws and you talk about some of the differences between california and australia. Right. California was particularly racist because they had laws against chinese, that they could not marry whites. They just extended the loss they had against black people in native americans. So, chinese could not testify in court against a white person. They could not marry a white person. Those so, in australia, you had some instances of chinese marrying white women usually irish, but also english. Having children. And that was a kind of i dont want to say, exactly, assimilation then, they raised families, they paid taxes. So, you have a different kind of Chinese Australian Community that grows up because you have somewhat more inclusion. Some of the chinese than married white women and australia. You mention that the chinese not being permitted to testify against whites. There are actually a couple of cases that went up to the california supreme court. And one, the white defendant assaulted a chinese victim and the chinese victim was not permitted to testify about the crime committed. So, the white defendant got off. And that was upheld by the california supreme court. Some years later, a black defendant came along and said its a violation of equal protection if a chinese witness can testify against me, but not against a white person. And the court agreed and said the chinese victim could not testify against a black assailant. But where does that leave the chinese victims . And eventually, the law was thrown out by the government. But that was pretty typical of the attitude at the time. So, this is in australia. Outside of a mining camp. This is from the book. And this is also from your book. So, tell us a little bit about this. This is one of the businesses that sprouted up. Right. So, its in black and white. Its a drawing of the chinese restaurant, john hollow. Its a drawing by a white person, so, john alluded and draw it himself. And you can see that theyre not really chinese characters. There somebodys ideas of what might be chinese characters. But i think the point here is that it shows a polyglot community of people. Who are on the street. Theyre not fighting with each other, theyre just kind of coexisting. Some of the customers, diners, appear to be white. Yes, absolutely. And then i have one slide from south africa. South africa was a little bit different. Do you want to tell us about that . In california and australia, the chinese were part of a Large Population of independent gold seekers. They came from all over the world. And chinese were about a quarter of the mining population in both california and australia during the gold rush era. 1850 to maybe 1870. But in south africa, you had a different situation where independent mining was really over by the 18 80s and you had a highly industrialized, highly capitalized, deep mining enterprise. Run by very wealthy, they called the people like cecil roads. Made his fortune, not just in diamonds, but also in gold mining. And after the south african war, there was a shortage of labor. Labor had previously been supplied by native african workers. And, to get the minds back up and running, they recruited Chinese Workers. Some 60, 000, who came all the way from north china, mostly, to work in the deep mines. And they came on identified contracts of three years. And were confined, pretty much, to compounds on the minds. And under very strict discipline. And yet, they too, though, did not really submit to all the they whipped them if they didnt drill a certain number of inches a day. And it didnt work. They couldnt whip them into drilling more than they wanted to. So, there is a lot of conflict that takes place on the mines. At one point, if they didnt reach 36 inches of drilling, they didnt get paid at all. So there were a lot of studies done. There was research on the average distance drilled by different racial groups. And the chinese did really, really well. They trailed the most, but it still wasnt enough. And so, they resisted the lash. They resisted the withholding of food. And when you say the lash, so, if someone didnt drill enough, what would happen . They would likely be whipped. By an overseer. Or by the manager. And there were other really interesting things about the culture. For example, there were no women, no chinese women. So, some of the chinese men took up with african women. There were some homosexuality and all of that was really fascinating, as well. Okay, so youve got the chinese question. And then you have the gold rushes. In california and australia and you have the gold mining in south africa. How was the chinese question answered in these questions . Were chinese a racial threat to white anglosaxon countries and should chinese be barred from the countries . I dont think a reasonable person could say that they were a threat, in the sense that they didnt take jobs from other national groups. They didnt threaten other people with violence. They were like everybody else. They came to make their pile. And like everybody on the gold fields, people fought with each other that was kind of normal, in the heat of a gold rush. The thing the reason i focus on the gold rushes, is because it was the first occasion for chinese and whites to meet in large numbers on relatively equal terms. Before, there were chinese who went as indentures on caribbean plantations, where there were very few whites. Or europeans worked in the treaty, like hong kong, where there were very few europeans. But here, on the gold fields, you had large numbers of both chinese and whites, coming together in a very competitive and feverish environment. And, out of that competition, the theories where promulgated as to explain why this group should be excluded. And well get to that in a minute. But were they excluded in all three countries . Yes. Ultimately, the United States first, in 1882, passes the first exclusion law. And to the british colonies it takes longer, in part because, as part of the british empire, they cannot just decide on their own what they want to do. So, Great Britain did not support categorical exclusion. They were willing to tolerate piecemeal measures so, it actually took the australian colonies to federate as australia 1901 and they did it under the banner of what they called white australia. And the white australian policy lasted until the 1970s. Immigration laws had kept out not only chinese but southeasterns and other people of color. And what about south africa . And south africa, south africa is a little different because south africans, south african White South Africans say that south africa was a white mans country. Which is preposterous because native africans out well outnumber whites 5 to 1. But what they meant was it should be run by the whites. And the chinese actually made south african politics very messy and complicated because it was introducing another racial group. There was already conflict with south asian workers who had been brought to work on sugar plantations. And there were exclusion measures against them. So, in all these places, and it is also with the federation of south africa 1910 that they are able to pass a full on chinese exclusion. Lets go back a little bit to the gold rushes. And talk a little bit about the impact that the gold rushes had on, not only the frontiers, the local economies, but on the global economy. I had, for example, no idea about the impact on San Francisco and then the businesses and trading with china. Talk a little bit about that. Right. There is more gold taken out of the earth between 1849 and 1900 then had been excavated in the previous 3000 years. So, this is a huge increase in the world production of gold, which is made possible by the expansion of capitalist industrial countries. To get that much cold out of the ground, you have to have technology, you have to have capital investment, you have to have migration of large numbers of people, etc, etc. So, the gold rushes of the late 19th centurys, really transform the gold economy. It enables britain, which was the largest economic power at the time, to push the rest of the industrialized world to the gold standard, the monetary standard. And so, this becomes consequential to the United States. Because so much gold produced here it finances the building of railroads it finances industry. Individuals become rich from mining gold. So, its really huge stimulus to the american economy. In the decades after the civil war. So, if you think about the civil war as creating a national market, the gold then, enable that market to really, really take off. And there was a lot of trade. For example, tea was part of it. The back and forth. The west was trading with china for a long time, even before the gold rushes but the balance of economic with the gold rush. Because china is on a silver system and so, therefore, when everybody goes to gold, or the big countries go to cold, than the price of silver, relative to gold, drops. So, china is in a disadvantaged position because of that, in the world trade. N entire chapter on what you ca ism all right, lets shift a little bit. Governor big lure. Theres an entire chapter on what you call biglerism. So, governor bigler. Who was he . What did he do . Hes the second governor of california. He came from the east. He came from kent pennsylvania. He was a democrat. And so, during the lead up of the civil war, he was what we refer to as a union