| In this dissertation, I examine the formation, migrations, and life experiences of the first numerically significant cohort of highly-educated Chinese immigrants to the United States, as well as the imagery that developed around their arrival and adjustment to U.S. society. Drawing upon untapped archival collections, I explore the origins of both the statistical reality and the ambivalent image of Chinese Americans in American science during the two decades after World War II. Both the image and the reality, I argue, were forged in the crucible of the Cold War: by American advocates for Chinese immigrants who were particularly concerned about U.S. shortages of scientists and engineers, who were advantageously positioned to choose the best and brightest to come to the U.S. and who found it necessary to construct and disseminate convincing arguments for re-opening America's doors to Chinese immigration---still, during the 1950s, a highly unpopular cause. Both image and reality were also forged by the immigrants themselves, as they struggled to reestablish their lives, as they worked to repay the debts they felt they owed to the United States, and as they tried to come to terms with the ideology that had delivered them from a homeland they no longer felt at home in. Finally, I show how the image took on a life of its own. I explore its impact on the shape of the intellectuals' lives: on the trajectories of their careers, on their views of their adoptive society and of themselves, on the legacies they passed on to their children, and ultimately, on the dominant society's view of all Chinese Americans. |
