A COMMON THREAD: AMERICAN IMAGES OF THE CHINESE AND JAPANESE, 1930-1960

This study concerns American images of the Chinese and Japanese during a thirty-year period in which both stereotypes underwent significant polarizations and reversals. The impact of external events largely determined the changing contours of the images during an era in which Americans alternately perceived the Chinese and Japanese as either valuable allies or implacable enemies. The parallel shifts in American perceptions of the two Asian peoples during these years is explainable in terms of the common origin of both images in a general Oriental image which developed in the nineteenth century.; Prior to 1930, Americans developed complex images of the Chinese and Japanese, but these pictures were often marked by ambiguity, containing both positive and negative elements; external events were often not sufficiently strong to affect a polarization of either image.; The processes of polarization and relatively abrupt reversal of these images are evident between 1930 and 1960. The Sino-Japanese conflict of the 1930s and the outbreak of war in the Pacific in 1941 assured that Americans would view both the Chinese and the Japanese unequivocally. The defeat of Japan and the subsequent American occupation signaled the beginning of a polar shift in the Japanese image as Japan became increasingly valuable as an ally. The onset of the Cold War, the communist victory in China and Sino-American confrontation in Korea created circumstances in which the stereotype of the evil Oriental, once affixed to the Japanese, would be transferred to the Chinese.; These events suggest that American images of both peoples were fundamentally ambiguous; both stereotypes contain similar negative and positive elements which were periodically activated by external events, with often dramatic results. Throughout the fabric of each stereotype was woven the common thread basic to the American image of the Oriental.