Mae Ngai

At this in-person Nellie Y. McKay Lecture in the Humanities event, Mae Ngai draws from her recent book, The Chinese Question, winner of the 2022 Bancroft Prize. She discusses the history of Chinese during the gold rushes of the nineteenth century and the rise of the “coolie” myth and the false view that Chinese were unfree workers, like slaves, and therefore incapable of democratic citizenship.