Chinese Students, Jim Crow Schools: Navigating Education in a Black-and-White Society (Poster 72)

• In Event: AERA Poster Session Eight
  In Poster Session: 2023 AERA Undergraduate Fellows Research Poster Fair

Abstract

"Neither white nor Black, the Chinese occupied an interstitial position in the Jim Crow South. Their status was especially discernible in the school. The law made it clear that Black and white students would learn in “separate but equal” institutions. Where, then, did the Chinese receive their education? What did the Chinese experience?

My analysis draws primarily on oral history interviews, which I conducted in Summer 2022, and on archival materials at the the Houston Asian American Archive and Delta State University Chinese Oral Histories Archive. In addition, I used legal documents, photographs, and newspapers, including The Delta Star and The Clarion-Ledger.

Education encapsulated larger struggles relating to race relations, power, identity formation, and social mobility in the South. The Chinese negotiated the unforgiving racial climate to gain access to more substantial opportunities. Confined by exclusionary policies and thrust into relative cultural isolation, Chinese families challenged the South’s racial hierarchy by resisting, acquiescing, and internalizing racial norms; relying on family and community bonds; embracing Christianity and Southern Baptist traditions; waging legal battles; and physically relocating to states with less restrictive laws.
Early Chinese Americans’ experiences in the segregated South offer insight into how people conceptualize Asian Americans as the “model minority” today. Decades before the term came to be, the Chinese in the Jim Crow South strained to appease the racial hierarchy in order to gain acceptance and greater educational opportunities.
In the future, I intend to conduct a broader regional study, investigating Chinese American education in cities like New Orleans and Memphis, to illustrate how race and white supremacy functioned in different spaces, affecting educational access and experiences. To better understand the educational context of the segregated South, I also plan to examine the conditions of Black and white schools, neighborhoods, and racial attitudes toward the Chinese.
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Author

• Amanda Young, Washington University in St. Louis
  Presenting Author