Teaching Chae Chan Ping

I taught Chae Chan Ping this morning. I continue to find the case compelling reading. The arguments regarding “vast hordes of … people crowding in upon us” who “will not assimilate” resonate as strongly with today’s political rhetoric as they did in the 1880s.

But this post is about teaching The Chinese Exclusion Case.

Specifically, I want to point our dear readers to images, freely available on the interwebs, that you might share with students while teaching this case.

• Chae Chan Ping’s registration certificate.
• Are you going to talk about how CCP made it to the Supreme Court? If so, you’re talking about the Chinese Six Companies. Here’s a portrait of some officers from 1890.
• Justice Field’s portrait. The author of CCP. Great to show as you talk about his role in developing the plank of the Democratic national convention urging congress to suppress Chinese labor migration.
• If you talk about the Burlingame Treaty, check out this portrait of Anson Burlingame and the attaches of the Chinese embassy to the President Andrew Johnson at the Executive Mansion. Also, here’s a cartoon relevant to Congress’ abrogation of that treaty.
• This handbill praising the Chinese Exclusion Act is a fascinating snippet of history.
• If you describe CCP as a labor story, this is a helpful cartoon.
• If you discuss CCP in terms of race (or reference Najia Aarim-Heriot’s book Chinese Immigrants, African Americans, and Racial Anxiety in the United States, 1848-82) consider this cartoon.

If you have other images that you use, please share!

-KitJ