Senior History Honors student Yi Xie is currently working on her thesis as an undergraduate fellow at the Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry. Xie’s thesis is titled “Becoming American in a Multiracial Context: Chinese ‘Sojourners’ and African Americans’ Battle for Inclusion in a White Republic, 1868-1904.” She recently wrote a reflection, “Becoming American: A Historical Parallel between Chinese Immigrants and African Americans, 1868-1904,” about her research and experiences at the Fox Center. Read the full post here along with an excerpt from the abstract of her project below.

“This research aims to develop a clear understanding of the racial dynamics of the second half of the nineteenth century by studying the ‘Chinese Question,’ the ‘Negro Problem,’ and the relations between the two from the perspectives of abolitionists, Caucasian immigrants, African Americans, and the Chinese. She investigates why and how the ‘Chinese Question’ and the ‘Negro Problem’ were conflated and differentiated, and how dynamic and complex were the relations between the two. She also conducts a comparative study of anti-black and anti-Chinese violence on the West Coast. She has visited archives in Northampton, MA and will conduct more archival research in Seattle, WA.”