Treatment of half-Chinese child/teenager in 1890s "Western" setting?

[cheetahstripes]

I've been trying to focus on one of my characters' backstory lately and am having a hard time figuring out the finer details. He grows up during the American Wild West era; his father was Chinese and his mother was a white woman. I need to work out the finer details of how his parents even met but I've been puzzled with how he would be treated

Comments

[ariss_tenoh]

While I can't comment on the specific time period, taking into consideration the variables you mentioned the boy will be treated very badly by everyone. Especially his grandfather since his daughter got herself pregnant by a Chinese man. The amount of slurs and insults the boy's mother would have gotten would be something.

Taking into account the conservative attitudes at the times, the boy will grow up abused and ostracized. I can't imagine him publicly going to a school or mingling in "respectable society". No offense but I feel sorry for this character and what his hypothetical future would entail.

[tabaqui]

Well, because of such wonderful things like the Chinese Exclusion Act and general American xenophobia and bigotry, he would have been treated quite poorly by anyone who cared to do so. I'm not sure what thing you dug up saying any Asian-American was given 'honorary' white status - no one who was Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or India-Indian (or Native American or Black) could testify in court, nor could any Asian-American person claim citizenship or even become a naturalized citizen. Any immigrant hand to have a pass they carried, and they only got it if 'vouched for' by a 'reliable' white person

[marycatelli]

As far as treatment like whites -- blacks were eligible for naturalization from the Reconstruction. Chinese were not until 1943, and the Act to Repeal the Chinese Exclusion Acts.

Indeed, prior to the Reconstruction, Chinese could not testify against whites in California courts. After it, they could not testify against blacks, either.

[litalex]

Would Lee from the East of Eden be of any use?

[beesandbrews]

You really need to nail down a location, beyond the Wild West, to interpolate what the culture around the characters was.

Given that most Chinese were laborers brought in to do things like work on the railroads or support miner's camps (see Deadwood for a fairly recent television example) the mother would likely be shunned by all respectable people for associating with someone from a lower class.

On the other hand if she is from a family of chancers who made good, they may or may not treat the kid poorly, depending on to what degree Granddad is a social climber. If he is, he might pack the kid off somewhere out of sight (back to China perhaps, for the father's family to deal with. If he's not, he might give the kid a fair shake, and depending on how much power he wields, demand others do the same.

In short, you need to work out more details because while it's true society as a whole was relatively intolerant, individuals are a case by case basis.

[calzephyr77]

I agree on nailing down a specific location. The OP can then take advantage of historical resources in that area. Local history is pretty fascinating!

For example, the play Cafe Daughter is a look at a First Nations-Chinese woman's life--https://www.gwaandaktheatre.ca/cafe-daughter-1/

Saskatchewan’s 1912 Female Employment Act made it illegal for Chinese business owners to hire white women (because, racism). Chinese businesses hired women from reservations for their businesses. Sometimes the men married First Nations women or their employees and started families.