The Mississippi Chinese: Between Black and White by James W. Loewen
256 pages, $32.95 list
0-88133-312-3
978-0-88133-312-1
eBook availability
The Mississippi Chinese
Between Black and White
Second Edition
This scholarly, carefully researched book studies one of the most overlooked minority groups in America—the Chinese of the Mississippi Delta. During Reconstruction, white plantation owners imported Chinese sharecroppers in the hope of replacing their black laborers. In the beginning they were classed with blacks. But the Chinese soon moved into the towns and became almost without exception, owners of small groceries. Loewen details their astounding transition from “black” to essentially white status with an insight seldom found in studies of race relationships in the Deep South.
Table of Contents
Preface: “A Shade Darker, a Shade Lighter” (Robert Coles)
Introduction
1. Entry of the Chinese
2. Economic Success
3. Social Status Before 1940
4. Transition
5. Opposition
6. Interracial Families
7. Present Conflict and Future Prospects
Afterword: Between Black and White Twenty Years Later
Appendix A: Historical Record of the Chinese Entry
Appendix B: Methods