Event

Please join us for the Food for Thought Talks Series Fall 2024 with the Asian American Studies Undergraduate Research Fellows 2024-2025. 

ASAM Fellow Alana Yang presents: Beyond a Black-White Binary: Chinese American School Segregation in Twentieth-Century Mississippi

Lunch will be provided for all registrants! Please RSVP  and join us in person or  join us by Zoom here!

Bio: Alana (she/her) is a rising senior from Westchester, New York studying political history with minors in law & society and legal studies & history. She is interested in exploring the intersection between race and the law and how racialized perceptions of immigrants impact their ability to engage in education and civic life. On campus, she is involved in Penn's Model UN team (Intercol), the Penn Historical Review, MUSE, and the History Undergraduate Advisory Board 

Abstract: 
The history of school segregation in America has traditionally been focused on a Black-White binary, particularly in the South. However, this discourse has neglected a key group: Asian Americans. Starting from the late nineteenth century, Chinese Americans have settled and attempted to establish themselves in the Mississippi Delta, only to find themselves segregated through schools. This project will examine the impact of the "separate but equal" doctrine and other legal perspectives on schooling access for these Chinese Americans. In doing so, the project seeks to understand how and why Chinese children, many of whom were American citizens, were excluded from equal educational opportunities, and to identify factors that make the Asian school segregation experience unique from that of other school children, especially in the Jim Crow south.