Exposing Negative Chinese Terminology and Stereotypes

2020 ◽  
pp. 83-108
Author(s):  
Priscilla Wegars
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Chinese American ◽  
The United States ◽  
Oral Histories

By evaluating unacceptable terminology, as well as by exposing several negative Chinese stereotypes, this essay seeks to prevent the perpetuation of legends, myths, rumors, and stereotypes about the Chinese in the United States, and to provide readers with a deeper, more empathetic, understanding of Chinese American culture. Some of the derogatory terms discussed include “Chinaman,” “coolie,” and “joss house.” Anti-Chinese stereotypes in common use today include “Chinese ovens” for Italian bread-baking ovens and “Chinese tunnels” for sidewalk vaults. A lengthy case study of the latter term examines related architectural evidence, documentary research, oral histories, and archaeological investigations to confirm that “Chinese tunnels” are a myth.

scholarly journals Notes from the Editors

2012 ◽  
Vol 106 (2) ◽  
pp. iii-ix
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
American Culture ◽  
The United States ◽  
Islamic World ◽  
Muslim Countries ◽  
Elite Strategy ◽  
Islamic Countries ◽  
Political Factions ◽  
Case Study Methods

We have readily assumed that, within Muslim countries, fundamentalists will most oppose American influence and policies, but Lisa Blaydes and Drew A. Linzer find a striking and perhaps surprising regularity: Anti-Americanism is most pronounced in the least observant Islamic countries. Moreover, opposition to the United States does not seem to be related to any particular American policies or to American culture generally. Anti-Americanism arises instead, they argue in “Elite Competition, Religiosity, and Anti-Americanism in the Islamic World,” from elite strategy, in which fundamentalist political factions fan anti-American sentiments to compete with more secular groups. That competition is most intense, and hence the anti-American strategy most frequently employed, in Islamic countries in which divisions between secular and religious forces are most pronounced. Employing a mix of statistical and case study methods, Blaydes and Linzer find that, within countries, observant Muslims are likelier to express anti-American sentiments; between countries, competition between secular and religious forces, and not fundamentalism, inspires anti-U.S. sentiment.

Gendered differences in emigration and mobility perspectives among European researchers working abroad

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Scheibelhofer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Research Strategy ◽  
The Future ◽  
Highly Skilled

This paper focuses on gendered mobilities of highly skilled researchers working abroad. It is based on an empirical qualitative study that explored the mobility aspirations of Austrian scientists who were working in the United States at the time they were interviewed. Supported by a case study, the paper demonstrates how a qualitative research strategy including graphic drawings sketched by the interviewed persons can help us gain a better understanding of the gendered importance of social relations for the future mobility aspirations of scientists working abroad.

‘A Routh O’ Auld Nick-Nackets’ – the antiquarian collection of John Rae

2015 ◽  
Vol 36-37 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-183
Author(s):  
Paul Taylor
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Moral Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Representative Case ◽  
National Museums ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The University

John Rae, a Scottish antiquarian collector and spirit merchant, played a highly prominent role in the local natural history societies and exhibitions of nineteenth-century Aberdeen. While he modestly described his collection of archaeological lithics and other artefacts, principally drawn from Aberdeenshire but including some items from as far afield as the United States, as a mere ‘routh o’ auld nick-nackets' (abundance of old knick-knacks), a contemporary singled it out as ‘the best known in private hands' (Daily Free Press 4/5/91). After Rae's death, Glasgow Museums, National Museums Scotland, the University of Aberdeen Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, as well as numerous individual private collectors, purchased items from the collection. Making use of historical and archive materials to explore the individual biography of Rae and his collection, this article examines how Rae's collecting and other antiquarian activities represent and mirror wider developments in both the ‘amateur’ antiquarianism carried out by Rae and his fellow collectors for reasons of self-improvement and moral education, and the ‘professional’ antiquarianism of the museums which purchased his artefacts. Considered in its wider nineteenth-century context, this is a representative case study of the early development of archaeology in the wider intellectual, scientific and social context of the era.

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