Chinese Female Students in the United States, 1880s–1990s

Abstract

In 1881, the first recorded Chinese female students arrived in the United States. Since then, the trickle of Chinese female students into the United States has continued. Although their increasing visibility over the years has attracted some scholars’ attention, a number of fundamental issues concerning their socioeconomic backgrounds in China, their experiences in the United States, and their contributions to the Chinese American history still remain unexplored. A comprehensive and systematic study of Chinese female students is therefore needed. This chapter is a step toward providing such a comprehensive work on Chinese female students in the United States. It examines the impact of the U.S. immigration policies on Chinese female students in the United States from the late nineteenth century to the 1990s by studying both Chinese official policies on study abroad and the evolution of American immigration regulations. It also examines the various aspects of Chinese female students, including their cultural, socioeconomic background in China, and their academic, political, and social lives in the United States. The sources of the work are drawn primarily from archival documents, immigration records, government records, census statistics, contemporary newspapers in both English and Chinese, oral history interviews, surveys, and secondary works.