Yellow Peril
From Free net encyclopedia
Yellow Peril (sometimes Yellow Terror) was a phrase that originated in the late 19th century with greater immigration of Chinese and Japanese laborers to various Western countries, notably the United States. The term, a color metaphor for race refers to the skin color of east Asians, and the fear that the mass immigration of Asians threatened white wages, standards of living and indeed, civilization itself. The phrase "yellow peril" was common in the newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst.
Many sources credit Kaiser Wilhelm II with coining the phrase "Yellow Peril" (in German, "gelbe Gefahr") in September 1895 and popularizing it by circulating a lurid illustration of a menacing, airborne Buddha riding a dragon across Asia towards Europe, carving a path of destruction and trailing thunder clouds. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] While immigration of Asians was not a major issue in Europe, the rise of Japan as a major world power was a cause of anxiety for some Europeans.
In 1898 M. P. Shiel published a short story serial The Yellow Danger. Shiel took the murder of two German missionaries in Kiau-Tschou 1897 to spread his anti-Chinese feelings. In later editions the serial was named The Yellow Peril.
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United States
The "yellow peril" manifested itself in government policy with the U.S. Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which reduced Chinese immigration from 30,000 per year to just 105. The labor leader Samuel Gompers argued, "The superior whites had to exclude the inferior Asiatics, by law, or, if necessary, by force of arms."
In 1920, the author Lothrop Stoddard wrote The Rising Tide of Color arguing against Asian immigration, claiming immigrants threatened American society, with their presence a "peril."
Lynchings of Asian immigrants by vigilante groups were common in the early 1900s, paralleling the activities of the Ku Klux Klan and related groups in the South against African-Americans. California academics like David Starr Jordan and politicians like James D. Phelan (who ran for mayor of San Francisco and United States Senate on the platform of "Keeping California White") were firm believers in the "yellow peril", and the politics of Washington were highlighting the "yellow peril". The Yellow Peril as the primary form of West Coast racism and as a factor in politics seemed to die out in the mid-20th century, perhaps due to guilt over the Japanese-American internment during World War II.
In the 1980s the Yellow Peril was revived as the US was in intense competition with Japan over industrial supremacy. Many believed that the beating to death of Vincent Chin was a part of that US sentiment.
Since the 1990s there has been increased concern in the United States over what has been perceived as an attempt by the PRC to challenge the United States militarily and economically. [7]
The Yellow Peril is a major topic of study in Asian American studies.
New Zealand
The "yellow peril" was a significant part of the policy platform promoted by Richard Seddon, a populist New Zealand prime minister, in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Measures designed to curb Chinese immigration included a substantial poll tax, which was abolished in 1944 following Imperial Japan's invasion and occupation of China, and for which the New Zealand government has since issued a formal apology.
Fictional Use
Sax Rohmer in writing about Dr. Fu Manchu in his series of novels (starting in 1929) referred to him as representative of the Yellow Peril.
The "Yellow Peril" was a frequent theme of pulp fiction in the early 20th century. The Swedish author Sven Lindqvist has pointed out that several science fiction novels from the time depicting cataclysmic clashes of civilizations take particular relish in describing the ultimate defeat of the Chinese, as compared to Africans or communists.
H.P. Lovecraft was in constant fear of Asiatic culture engulfing the world, and a few of his stories reflect this.
In the late 1950's, Atlas Comics debuted the Yellow Claw, a Fu Manchu pastiche.
Yellow Peril is a book by Wang Lixiong, written under the pseudonym Bao Mi, about a civil war in the People's Republic of China that becomes a nuclear exchange and soon engulfs the world, causing World War III. It's notable for Wang Lixiong's politics, a Chinese dissident and outspoken activist, its publication following Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, and its popularity due to bootleg distribution across China even when the book was banned by the Chinese Communist Party.
Other uses
Yellow Peril is also a humorous British term for a traffic warden.
Yellow Peril is also a derogative name for a controversial public sculpture in Melbourne, Australia: Vault.
Yellow Peril was also the primary nickname for the Naval Aircraft Factory N3N Canary training aircraft.
Yellow Peril ("le péril jaune") is occasionally used in Quebec (Canada) to refer whimsically to an uncomfortable, classically yellow colored school bus.
In the 1980s a form of the Yellow Peril was revived as the US was in intense competition with Japan over industrial supremacy. It was widely believed that the beating to death of Vincent Chin was a result of this US sentiment.
The term "Yellow Peril" also refers to a political activist group that promoted equality for Asian Americans in the 1970s. Since 2005, New Zealand-based journalist Tze Ming Mok has used the name for her blog.
See also
- Anti-communism
- Asian American
- Attila the Hun
- British Chinese
- Chinese American
- Chinese Massacre of 1871
- Japanese American
- Model minority
- Mongol Empire
- Ottoman Empire
- Sinophobia
- Turban Tide and Hindoo Invasion (sic)
External links
- Yellow peril in pulp fiction
- The Dated term The Yellow Race A website dedicated to how the term yellow should be not used to refer to Asians.de:Gelbe Gefahr