The Yellow Peril Chinese Americans in American Fiction, 1850-1940

From Jack London to the creators of Fu Manchu and Charlie Chan, many American authors (including such notables as Bret Harte and Ambrose Bierce) wrote about Chinese American characters as the spearhead of the "Yellow Peril" threat. As a literary theme, the fear of this threat focuses on specific issues, including possible military invasion, perceived competition to the white labor force from Asian workers, the alleged moral degeneracy of Asian people, and potential genetic mixing of Anglo-Saxons with Asians, who were considered biologically inferior. In this book William F. Wu analyzes the growth and development of these literary attitudes and shows through plot dissection and colorful excerpts how writers perpetuated the Yellow Peril idea through the images they projected of Chinese Americans.