Conversations from the Cullman Center, LIVE from NYPL: The Chinese Question: Mae Ngai with Eric Foner

The historian Mae Ngai explores the intertwined 19th-century stories of the Chinese diaspora, an emerging global economy, and the rise of enduring anti-Chinese racism.

In her new book, historian Mai Ngai chronicles the forces that brought Chinese people to the West and reshaped the 19th-century world. Ngai narrates the story of thousands who left their homeland in pursuit of gold, forming communities and organizations to help navigate their perilous new world. But friction between Chinese and white settlers on the goldfields of California, Australia, and South Africa catalyzed a global battle over “the Chinese Question”: would the United States and the British Empire outlaw Chinese immigration? The Chinese Question demonstrates that the Chinese exclusion that ultimately resulted was not extraneous to the emergent global economy, but an integral part of its growth.

Mae Ngai researched and wrote The Chinese Question during her 2012–2013 Fellowship at the Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. She discusses her book with award-winning historian Eric Foner.

Produced in partnership with The Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers.

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• The Lucky Ones, by Mae Ngai — NYPL Catalog ; Bookshare
• Minor Feelings, by Cathy Park Hong — NYPL Catalog ; NYPL Talking Books ; Bookshare
• Interior Chinatown, by Charles Yu — NYPL Catalog ; NYPL Talking Books ; Bookshare
• The Woman Warrior, by Maxine Hong Kingston — NYPL Catalog ; Bookshare
• The Second Founding, by Eric Foner — NYPL Catalog ; Bookshare

Mae Ngai is Lung Family Professor of Asian American Studies and a professor of history at Columbia University. She is also the author of The Lucky Ones and the multiple-award-winning Impossible Subjects. She lives in New York City and Accokeek, Maryland.

Eric Foner is the DeWitt Clinton Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University. One of this country’s most prominent historians, he is the author of many acclaimed books, including The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, which was awarded the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in History, the Bancroft Prize, and the Lincoln Prize.

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The Cullman Center is made possible by a generous endowment from Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman in honor of Brooke Russell Astor, with major support provided by Mrs. John L. Weinberg, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Estate of Charles J. Liebman, The von der Heyden Family Foundation, John and Constance Birkelund, and The Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation, and with additional gifts from Helen and Roger Alcaly, The Rona Jaffe Foundation, The Arts and Letters Foundation Inc., William W. Karatz, Merilee and Roy Bostock, and Cullman Center Fellows.

LIVE from NYPL is made possible by the support of Library patrons and friends, as well as by the continuing generosity of Celeste Bartos, Mahnaz Ispahani Bartos and Adam Bartos, and the Margaret and Herman Sokol Public Education Endowment Fund.