“GENTLEMEN, IS THIS REAL AMERIKEY?”: MARGINALIZATION AND RACISM IN YUNG WING, SUI SIN FAR AND YONE NOGUCHI

İngilizce (OpenAlex)

Asian immigrants came to the United States in great numbers from mid-to latenineteenth century due to the California Gold Rush, and they faced an immediate backlash by white Americans.The Asian immigrants' experiences of exclusion and racism appear in fictional and non-fictional works of the period.This paper focuses on Yung Wing's My Life in China and America (1909), Sui Sin Far's (Edith Maud Eaton) "Leaves from the Mental Portfolio of an Euroasian" and published journal articles (1910), and Yone Noguchi's The American Diary of a Japanese Girl (1901).These three works are important as they represent the Americanization of an Asian subject at a time of prejudice against people of Asian ancestry in America.This article discusses that the experiences of the Chinese American and Japanese American characters suggest whiteness to be unattainable by the characters in these works.Moreover, in the article it is argued that these experiences operate on a conundrum of inclusion to the society vs. marginalization.By examining the language of inclusion/exclusion adopted by some of the fictional and non-fictional characters studied here, this paper claims that racism, citizenship and whiteness are integral parts of their Americanization journey.It is also discussed that these three narratives offer a glimpse into the lives of Chinese and Japanese immigrants in America when they were treated as marginalized others incapable of assimilating into the white society.