Hanging Out: A Research Methodology

According to the New York Times, in 1834 Nathaniel and Frederick Carne docked their boat, The Washington, in the New York harbor. When Chinese American women, from the Gold Rush to the turn of the century, slipped out of envelopes, contracts, telegrams, scrap books, photo albums, and court records, their documents created a distinct history and made it clear that during their first fifty years in the United States, Chinese women fought back against violence and violation. The widespread publication of the Antioch purge in Bay Area newspapers and the belief that ninety percent of the Chinese prostitutes in San Francisco were infected with venereal diseases encouraged other towns to expel Chinese women (Pfaelzer 89-92)/ Rather than the risk to enslaved prostitutes, however, it was the infection of white males and the threat of contagion to white wives (information complicated by the era's ideology of female purity) that prompted vigilante and civic actions. [...]in this archival quest, I listened to the archives of memory.