Jim Crow and the Delta Lotus: Racial Strategies of the Mississippi Chinese, 1870-1950

Examines how Mississippi's Chinese immigrants dealt with race and racism from 1870 to 1950. The Chinese in Mississippi navigated a complex social environment in which they were initially considered neither white nor black. Instead, the Chinese proved that "whiteness" was negotiable; for example, when Chinese immigrants first arrived in Mississippi, they worked alongside black sharecroppers, but by distancing themselves from black Mississippians and adopting white cultural norms, they transformed themselves into "white" Southerners. This shift in their "whiteness" allowed Chinese Mississippians to access better schools, medical care, and neighborhoods while still operating under a white supremacist social structure.