Did the Chinese migration to the world’s goldfields upend global power and economics and forge modern conceptions of race?

Join the Chinese American Museum and the 1882 Foundation as we “meet the author” Mae Ngai author of The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes and Global Politics.

This is a free online event. Registration required.
Thursday, February 17, 2022, 6-7 pm ET (3-4 pm PT)

Ngai’s research is a narrative 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 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 is Lung Family Professor of Asian American Studies and a professor of history at Columbia University. She is author of the award-winning work Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America and The Lucky Ones: One Family and the Extraordinary Invention of Chinese America.

Joining the conversation are Ted Gong, Executive Director of the 1882 Foundation, and Prakash Khatri, Attorney at Law, immigration expert, and practitioner.

This event is made possible by the generous sponsorship of Panda Express as part of the Timeless Echoes series.