{"id":26128,"date":"2012-10-21T19:10:23","date_gmt":"2012-10-21T19:10:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=26128"},"modified":"2017-05-04T03:09:08","modified_gmt":"2017-05-04T03:09:08","slug":"%e2%80%9ca-problem-for-which-there-is-no-solution%e2%80%9d-eurasians-and-the-specter-of-degeneration-in-new-york%e2%80%99s-chinatown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=26128","title":{"rendered":"\u201cA Problem for Which There Is No Solution\u201d: Eurasians and the Specter of Degeneration in New York\u2019s Chinatown"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cA Problem for Which There Is No Solution\u201d: Eurasians and the Specter of Degeneration in New York\u2019s Chinatown<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Journal of Asian American Studies<\/a>
\nVolume 15, Number 3<\/a>, October 2012
\npages 271-298
\nDOI: 10.1353\/jaas.2012.0022<\/a><\/p>\n

Emma J. Teng<\/a><\/strong>, T.T. and Wei Fong Chao Professor of Asian Civilizations; Associate Professor of Chinese Studies
\nMassachusetts Institute of Technology<\/em><\/p>\n

In 1898, journalist Louis J. Beck offered the reading public what he saw as a valuable case study in \u201cheredity and racial traits and tendencies.\u201d This case study was none other than the infamous \u201chalf-breed\u201d criminal George Washington Appo<\/a> (1856\u20131930), whose name was virtually a household word for New Yorkers of the time. Born to an Irish mother and the \u201cChinese devil man\u201d Quimbo Appo, a notorious criminal in his own right, George Appo was a preeminent celebrity criminal of the 1890s. A notorious pickpocket and \u201cgreen-goods man,\u201d George was catapulted to national fame after appearing as a star witness in the dramatic Lexow Committee investigation<\/a> that brought down New York\u2019s Tammany Hall<\/a>. Taking sensationalism to a new level, the \u201cking of confidence men,\u201d as the Boston Globe<\/em> called him, had even appeared on the stage, playing himself in George Lederer\u2019s<\/a> theatrical melodrama In the Tenderloin<\/em> to national acclaim. To cap it all off, the World<\/em> voted Appo among \u201cThe People Who Made the History of 1894.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Beck was not much interested in the details of New York police corruption, nor in the new low point to which American theater had sunk: his true concern was the Chinese Question. Beck was the author of New York\u2019s Chinatown: An Historical Presentation of Its People and Places<\/em>, published by the Bohemia Publishing Company in 1898. Part tourist guidebook, part amateur ethnography, part muckraking expos\u00e9, this amply illustrated volume was the first full-length book on New York\u2019s Chinese Quarter, and would in time become a frequently quoted source for Chinatown<\/a> history. Beck promised his audience that his book would shed light on the vexed Chinese Question by presenting the city\u2019s Chinese residents through the unbiased lens of the reporter. At the heart of the Chinese Question was this\u2014could the Chinese in time become assimilated, and patriotic, American citizens, or did their \u201cracial traits\u201d render this impossible, warranting their exclusion from the nation? Beck offered George Appo\u2019s biography as food for thought:<\/p>\n

George Appo was born in New York City, July 4, 1858 [sic], and is therefore an American citizen, and should be a patriotic one, but he is not. His father was a full-blooded Chinaman and his mother an Irishwoman. He was an exceedingly bright child, beautiful to look upon, sharp-witted and quick of comprehension. For ten years he was the pet of the neighborhood where his parents dwelt. . . . At the age of ten he became a pickpocket.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Beck\u2019s decision to dedicate an entire chapter to the celebrity criminal stemmed from his conviction that this \u201cnoted Chinese character\u201d was \u201cwell worth investigating,\u201d not only for the light his story shed on the operation of the green-goods business, but, more important, \u201cbecause he is the first one of the new hybrid brood\u201d to gain public attention. As such, Beck argued, \u201cThe question which naturally presents itself to the thinker is: \u2018What part will the rest of his tribe take in our national development?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a question that was on the minds of many journalists, social reformers, travelers, and others as they toured America\u2019s Chinatowns and saw growing numbers of \u201chalf-castes<\/a>\u201d on the streets and in doorways. Indeed, by the late nineteenth century, such \u201cmixed\u201d children could be found virtually wherever Chinese immigrants had settled across the country.<\/strong> When pioneering Chinese American journalist Wong Chin Foo<\/a> reported on the New York Chinese for the Cosmopolitan<\/em> in 1888, he asserted that there were over a hundred \u201chalf-breed\u201d Chinese children in that city alone. Although their absolute numbers were small, their anomalous looks drew attention and aroused curiosity. Observers attached a special significance to these children that went beyond their numbers. For many, they represented the future shape of the Chinese American population, for better or worse. Some regarded these \u201chybrids\u201d as living specimens that offered a chance to see firsthand the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1898, journalist Louis J. Beck offered the reading public what he saw as a valuable case study in \u201cheredity and racial traits and tendencies.\u201d This case study was none other than the infamous \u201chalf-breed\u201d criminal George Washington Appo (1856\u20131930), whose name was virtually a household word for New Yorkers of the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,16,459,8,20],"tags":[4776,12965,4777,12557,12559,12558,2682,596],"class_list":["post-26128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-asia","category-history","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-emma-j-teng","tag-emma-jinhua-teng","tag-emma-teng","tag-george-appo","tag-george-w-appo","tag-george-washington-appo","tag-journal-of-asian-american-studies","tag-new-york-city"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26128"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53792,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26128\/revisions\/53792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}