BOOK: John R. WUNDER, Gold Mountain Turned to Dust : Essays on the Legal History of the Chinese in the Nineteenth-Century American West (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2018), ISBN 978-0-8263-5938-4, $29.95

(Source: University of New Mexico Press)

The University of New Mexico Press has published a new book on the legal history of 19^th century Chinese settlers in the American West.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Some half million Chinese immigrants settled in the American West in the nineteenth century. In spite of their vital contributions to the economy in gold mining, railroad construction, the founding of small businesses, and land reclamation, the Chinese were targets of systematic political discrimination and widespread violence. This legal history of the Chinese experience in the American West, based on the author’s lifetime of research in legal sources all over the West—from California to Montana to New Mexico—serves as a basic account of the legal treatment of Chinese immigrants in the West.

The first two essays deal with anti-Chinese racial violence and judicial discrimination. The remainder of the book examines legal precedents and judicial doctrines derived from Chinese cases in specific western states. The Chinese, Wunder shows, used the American legal system to protect their rights and test a variety of legal doctrines, making vital contributions to the legal history of the American West.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John R. Wunder is a professor emeritus of history at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. A widely published author and editor, his recent works include Reconfigurations of Native North America: An Anthology of New Perspectives and Americans View Their Dust Bowl Experience. He lives in Lincoln, Nebraska.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword. No Equal Justice for Chinese

Liping Zhu

Preface. A Personal Commentary

Acknowledgments

Reception

Chapter One. Anti-Chinese Violence in the American West, 1850–1910

Chapter Two. Chinese in Trouble: Criminal Law and Race on the Trans-Mississippi West Frontier

California

Chapter Three. People v. Hall (Cal, 1854) Revisited

Chapter Four. The Chinese and California: A Torturous Legal Relationship

Chapter Five. Chinese Laundries and the Fourteenth Amendment

Pacific Northwest

Chapter Six. The Chinese and the Courts in the Pacific Northwest: Justice Denied?

Chapter Seven. The Courts and the Chinese in Frontier Idaho

Chapter Eight. Law and Chinese in Frontier Montana

Southwest

Chapter Nine. Law and the Chinese on the Southwest Frontier, 1850s–1902

Chapter Ten. Territory of New Mexico v. Yee Shun: A Turning Point in Chinese Legal Relationships in the Trans-Mississippi West

Index

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