Foreign objects with domestic meanings: The feast of lanterns and the point Alones village

Abstract

During the nineteenth century in Europe and North America Chinese-looking objects such as silks, ceramics, and curios were often considered desirable items that connoted luxury and proper domesticity. In the Monterey Bay area of California the ability of Chinese-made and Chinese-looking objects to stand for exotic luxury was called into question by racial violence and tension between the Chinese and Chinese American residents of the Point Alones village and their non-Chinese neighbors in the cities of Pacific Grove and Monterey. This chapter specifically focuses on how these tensions influenced the meanings that non-Chinese Californians gave to foreign-looking aesthetics and the ways in which they were displayed, celebrated, avoided, and condemned. © 2010 Springer-Verlag New York.