Dear Matthew Frye Jacobson,

Your research in whiteness studies serves some function; it allows us to examine how whiteness has changed and been created over time. Through your analysis we are able to see how whiteness is everything that is not the Other, yet still firmly determined by the color of one's skin.

However, I fear that in looking at whiteness studies instead of examining how the catergory of the Other has developed and changed, we are losing the focus on the plight of the "Other." We are equating the plight of European immigrants with those of African or Chinese or Mexican immigrants. But, taking the example of Chinese immigrants, I do not think these two narratives are comparable. The ways in which the "Chinese male disruption" of the heterosexual household of the Cult of Domesticity in the mid-19th century was addressed is inexcusable. Even the writing of Ambrose Bierce pointed at the injustice in the way in which Chinese "race" was used as a way to imprint ideas of sexuality and sexual desire. Justice Holmes ruling that Chinese men were truly not meant to work in laundry services because this was a "women's job" (particularly a white woman's job) is further proof of the way that Chinese identity was formed at this time.

I urge you to reconsider the role that Whiteness studies serves in our field.

Sincerely,

Robert G. Lee

Questions

1) Is there a difference in the plight of the "colored" immigrant and the "white immigrant"? Is it based on the color of one's skin, for the most part, or is there something deeper or more inherent?

2) What is unique about the racism that Chinese immigrants faced? For instance, was this "third sex" phenomenon seen in other races that immigrated to the United States?