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Built For Food: The Resistance Of Chinese Immigrants From Service To Ownership, 1880-1960, Hongyan Yang

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the resistant voices of Chinese immigrants embedded in their food and food spatial practices in California from 1880 to 1960. While restrictive immigration laws in the United States generally prohibited Chinese laborers from entering the country, a sizable number of Chinese laborers navigated a culinary path to America through cooking, farming, and operating Chinese restaurants; some gradually achieved upward mobility. Although these activities have been noted broadly in Chinese food and immigration histories, few scholars have explored their spatial and material impacts. There is, however, a rich transnational history behind the everyday spaces that Chinese immigrants occupied …