Presentation for Chinese Feminist Collective Summer Camp 2019

1. CHINESE FEMINIST
COLLECTIVE 2019
Anti-Chinese
Racism
Maternalism: Charitable Whorephobia &
Paternalism: Xenophobic Police-State
PRESENTED BY KATE ZEN, AUGUST 25, 2019

2. WHAT WE'LL DISCUSS
1. Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
2. White missionary "mothers" in Chinatown.
3. Sexual purity & racist carceral feminism.
4. Polaris: modern day "humanitarian" lynch-mob.
5. Thailand & Cambodia: colonial charity/prisons.
6. American "Anti-trafficking": Hero Cops & Robbers.
7. Florida Robbery: Robert Kraft & Chinese Scapegoats.
8. U.S.- China Relations & Chinese Colonialism:
What is the role of Chinese feminism?
(WO)MANUFACTURING
WHITE SUPREMACY

3. 红莺歌
Red Canary Song is a grassroots
collective of Asian and migrant sex
workers, centering the labor rights of
Chinese massage parlor workers in NYC..
Red Canary Song

4. "Those who cannot
remember the past
are condemned to repeat it."
George Santayana

5. BODILY LABOR
After American Civil War, U.S.
needed another source of cheap
labor for building the
Transcontinental Railroad.
GENDERED LABOR
U.S. was heavily biased
against admitting Chinese
women. Bachelor societies
started taking over and
professionazing "women's
work".

6. AFRICAN & ASIAN LABOR
Parallels with black American experience:
Racial justifications for slavery, 2. Anti-miscegenation laws, 3. Hypersexualization1.
Source: "Journey to the West Podcast"

7. CHINESE
LYNCHINGS
Chinese massacre of 1871, Los
Angeles - angry mob hanged
17-20 Chinese migrants, the
biggest mass lynching in
American history.
ANTI-CHINESE
RIOTS
Denver's anti-Chinsese riot in
1880, angry with Chinese low
wages. Wood engraving after
sketch by N.B. Wilkins.

8. "ANGELS" OF
CHINATOWN
White Saviors: Missionary "Mothers"
Sexual Barbarism of Heathen Chinese
In NYC and San Francisco, Progressive
Era white suffragettes found a mission
for themselves in rescuing Chinese "sex
slaves" and "civilizing" them.
Controlling reproduction: Chinese
women had to be controlled as "perpetual
prostitutes" & carriers of disease.

9. GLORIFYING WHITE MATRIARCHY:
"Municial Housekeeping" - (white) women gained public power through:
Settlement Houses - reforming immigrants, 2. Prohibition - fighting vice / crime.1.
Source: "Journey to the West Podcast"

10. Newspaper article in 1919 asserted
that the Chinese sex slave problem
was being solved by missionaries
like Donaldina Cameron.
Front page of the
San Francisco Call
on May 3, 1900

11. "BRAVEST WOMEN"
Glorification of white "saviors".
San Francisco newspaper
featuring Donaldina Cameron's
missionary home.
VOTING OUT
PROSTITUTION
Suffragette Rose Livingston lied about
rescuing prostitutes in Chinatown,
while campaigning across the country
for women's right to vote, which
would "clean the city of prostitution".

12. Carceral
Feminism
IMMIGRATION
First U.S. immigration law to bar
entry into country by race,
gender, class, and national origin:
Page Act of 1875
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
POLICING
First interstate criminal law, leading
to creation of Federal police.
Mann Act of 1910
Expanded powers of FBI and
Immigration Bureau
PUBLIC HEALTH
American Medical Association:
"Chinese germs" (1880-1924)
leading to National Origins Act.

13. CHINESE EXCLUSION ACT OF 1882:
Immigration exclusion as extension of anti-miscegenation & temporary labor:
Justifying exclusion on grounds of sexual depravity (Page Act); 2. Controlling
reproduction / sexuality to keep Chinese as permanent outsiders / aliens.
1.
Source: "Journey to the West Podcast"

14. CARCERAL FEMINISM
Page Act
1875
Chinese women
excluded on
basis of being
"likely
prostitutes"
Chinese
Exclusion Act
1882
All Chinese
laborers banned
due to cultural
incompatibility /
depravity
Mann Act
1910
Moral panic about
"white slavery":
laws to safeguard
white purity from
predatory black &
Asian men.
Justice for
Victims of
Trafficking Act
2015
Increase funding
and powers of police
and immigration
surveillance.

15. PART TWO:
Stopping the modern-day lynch mobs.
"Modern
Day Slavery"

16. PATRIARCHY +
MATRIARCHY
Religious
Missionaries
Charity-Carceral
Feminists
WHITE
SUPREMACY
Hero Cops
=

17. ANTI-TERRORISM
Patriot Act of 2001 increased
government surveillance
power.
ANTI-TRAFFICKING
Anti-trafficking rhetoric
coincided with growth in
anti-terrorism rhetoric,
achieving same effect.

18. Justice for
Victims of
Trafficking
Act of 2015
Hero Corps
Job creation for U.S. military vets in policing.
Expanding Law Enforcement
Paying salaries & training, creating new units
of judicial prosecutors.
Wiretapping Initiatives
Funding ICE Cybercrimes Center to
specialize in internet surveillance.
Data Collection
Increasing inter-departmental data sharing.

19. PATRIARCHY +
MATRIARCHY
Religious
Missionaries
Charity-Carceral
Feminists
WHITE
SUPREMACY
Hero Cops
=

20. RELIGIOUS
GOVERNANCE
Christian Fundamentalism
and Executive Power
PEPFAR,
A.K.A. "GAG RULE"
"Abstinence only" foreign aid
and anti-prostitution clauses
started under Bush continue
now under Trump.

21. KILLING SEX WORKERS IN
THAILAND, 2004
Thai sex workers commit suicide afte
rbeing locked up by American religious
anti-trafficking organizations that tried
to "rescue" them into sweat shop labor.
INTERNATIONAL
JUSTICE MISSION

22. WHAT YOU'LL BE DOING
Presentations are tools that can be used
as lectures, speeches, reports, and more.
INTERNATIONAL
JUSTICE MISSION

23. THAILAND
Empower Foundation
CAMBODIA
Women's Network for Unity
INDIA
Sangram, Vamp, DMSC

24. PATRIARCHY +
MATRIARCHY
Religious
Missionaries
Charity-Carceral
Feminists
WHITE
SUPREMACY
Hero Cops
=

25. BLAMING CHINESE
CULTURE:
This major "trainer" of law enforcement
reports that Chinese "culture" is to blame
for why they (wrongfully) believe
Chinese migrants working in massage
parlors are mostly being trafficked.
(Lies. Harmful, deadly lies.).
POLARIS
PROJECT:
MODERN DAY LYNCH MOB

26. NEIGHBORLY RACISM.
"Signs of trafficking" in airports and
hotels encourage citizens to
participate in racial profiling.
CORPORATE
WHITE-WASHING

27. Climate of Fear
& Xenophobia
Everyday citizens
recruited to be
"heroes" in spotting
trafficking.
Data Sharing
Inter-departmental
data integration,
ICE, Homeland
Security, and cross-
border trainings
with Canadian
RCMP.
A.I. "Trafficking
Network" &
Detection Projects
Funding surveillance
with unquestioned data
sources.
Data + Surveillance Culture

28. What we'll be doing in class
SCAPEGOATING
CHINESE WOMEN.
FLORIDA ROBBERY:

29. ROBERT KRAFT
Billionaire Robert Kraft likely
to go free after fighting
expensive case to keep video
evidence supressed.
MIGRANT WOMEN
Chinese women involved in
case lose all their property
and assets, and face up to 15
years in prison.

30. THEN
NOW

31. ANTI-TERRORIST
SURVEILLANCE
Six months of investigation by
multiple police departments, using
video surveillance authorized for
fighting terrorism (Patriot Act).
FRIDGE = EVIDENCE
OF TRAFFICKING
The only "evidence" of
trafficking reported by police is
seemingly excessive food in the
workplace fridge.

32. Police Interrogation
AP News: "Will she flip? Deputies urge woman to say she
was trafficked"

33. After SESTA-FOSTA passed in April
2017, intensified raids on Asian massage
parlors in Seattle, Florida, L.A. as police
fill quotas with "low-hanging fruit."

34. Colonized & Colonizer: where is our voice?
LOCATING
CHINESE FEMINISM
IN THE U.S.

35. U.S. - CHINA
RELATIONS
Tensely competitive yet
mutually dependent
economic relationship.
Cheap Labor
& Trade War
Accusations of Chinese
intellectual property theft
justify restricting Chinese
student work visas.
Intellectual
Property & Student
Discrimination Increasing number of
stories in American media
showing China and Chinese
people in a negative light,
including migrant massage
parlors as organized crime
rings.
Anti-Chinese Media

36. CANADA - CHINA
RELATIONS
Chinese immigration
banned between 1923
adn 1947.
Chinese Head Tax
(1885 - 1923)
Chinese elites buying
property in cities like
Vancouver and Toronto,
which blame Chinese for
gentrification.
"Crazy Rich"
Gentrification
Chinese increasingly
portrayed in negative
light, though for different
reasons than in the U.S.
Anti-Chinese Media

37. CHINA - AFRICA
RELATIONS
Chinese economic
imperialism in Central
Asia, South & Southeast
Asia, and Africa.
Belt & Road
Initiative
⼀带⼀路 Mixed relationship
between Chinese
settlers / Capitalists and
African workers,
between Han and
indigenous Chinese.
Development
& Extraction
Beyond rhetoric of
colonizer/colonized, Chinese
feminism needs analysis from
both frameworks.
Chinese as Colonizers

38. WHITE
FEMINISM
Carceral | "Lean-in" | Charity
BLACK
WOMANISM
Decarceral & Decolonial | Intersectional | Solidarity

39. MIXED IMPERIALISM?
CHINESE
FEMINISM
Feminism with Chinese
Characteristics
Locating Chinese Diaspora
How does Chinese feminism
differ essentially from Western
feminisms?
How does the diaspora locate itself
in Chinese feminist thought, and
vice versa?

40. CHINESE FEMINIST
VOICE:
How do we position ourselves?

41. Brysk, Alison, and Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick, editors. From Human
Trafficking to Human Rights: Reframing Contemporary Slavery.
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt3fj0z1
Journey to the West Podcast. "Yellow Slavery: Asian Women as
Perpetual Prostitutes, Part 1 of 3". May 3, 2019.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhVOgKWZAGk.
Lui, Mary Ting Yi. “Saving Young Girls from Chinatown: White
Slavery and Woman Suffrage, 1910-1920.” Journal of the History
of Sexuality, vol. 18, no. 3, 2009, pp. 393–417. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/20542730.
Markel H, Stern AM. "The foreignness of germs: the persistent
association of immigrants and disease in American society."
Milbank Q. 2002;80(4):757–v. doi:10.1111/1468-0009.00030
Reynolds, C. "Policing sexuality: the Mann Act and the making of
the FBI" Fem Rev (2018) 119: 170. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41305-
018-0114-y
Soderlund, Gretchen. “Running from the Rescuers: New U.S.
Crusades against Sex Trafficking and the Rhetoric of
Abolition.” NWSA Journal, vol. 17, no. 3, 2005, pp. 64–87. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/4317158.
CITATIONS

42. CONTACT
红莺歌
Red Canary Song is a grassroots
collective of Asian and migrant sex
workers, centering the labor rights of
Chinese massage parlor workers in NYC..
Red Canary Song
redcanarysong@protonmail.com