Seeking Modernity in the United States, 1900-1927 (review)

Since Yung Wing, the first Chinese male student to graduate from an American University (Yale, in 1854), the flow of Chinese students studying in the United States has never ceased. Following a brief interruption during the Cultural Revolution, the study-abroad movement reached a new high in 1979, after the normalization of relations between the People's Republic of China and the United States, which resulted in the largest wave of students coming to America from China. The increasing visibility of Chinese students in America has attracted the attention of scholars, many of whom are themselves Chinese who came here as students and who have since chosen the topic of Chinese students in the United States for their doctoral dissertations. Weili Ye's "Crossing the Cultures: The Experience of Chinese Students in the U.S.A. 1900-1925" (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1989) and Jesse Chain Chou's "A Survey of Chinese Students in the United States, 1979-1987" (Ed.D. diss., Columbia University Teachers College, 1989), for instance, are two good examples of a number of dissertations on Chinese students in the United States.

Ye's Seeking Modernity in the United States, 1900-1927, based on her earlier dissertation work, is an important addition to the scholarship on this topic, after, for instance, Rose Hum Lee's "The Stranded Chinese in the United States" (Phylon, Summer 1958), Y. C. Wang's Chinese Intellectuals and the West, 1872-1940 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1966), and Leo A. Orleans' Chinese Students in America: Politics, Issues, and Numbers (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1988).

Ye's book is divided into six topical chapters. Chapter ., "Student Associational Life and Chinese Nationalism," briefly discusses the establishment of Chinese student organizations—giving special attention to the Chinese Students' Alliance, the largest and most influential of all the Chinese student organizations in the United States at the time—and how they relate to the search by Chinese students for a modern identity. Initially, there was great enthusiasm among the members of these student organizations; however, this gradually faded as they became "disheartened spectators" at the failure of the constitutional movement in China to bring about constitutional government (p. 40).

Chapter 2, "The Professionals: Predicaments and Promises," examines the professional lives of students and the contributions they made to China's modernization. In line with China's eager pursuit of industrialization, most Chinese students looked to the promise of technology, majoring in subjects such as engineering, the result being the education of the first generation of modern Chinese professionals. Meanwhile, American-educated sociologists also established sociology as an academic discipline in China.

Chapter 3, "The Question of Race," deals with that issue in relation to Chinese students. It is noteworthy that the author here attempts to interweave the story of Chinese students into the complex fabric of Chinese immigration to the United States in general. There are unfortunate elitist overtones, however, in its treatment of Chinese laborers.

Chapter 4, "The Women's Story, 1880s-1920s," discusses Chinese female students, whom Ye divides into three distinct generational groups. The first group consisted of only a tiny band of women studying to become doctors; the second largely entered the field of teaching; and the third broadened their career outlook to include professional fields traditionally perceived as "masculine." Ye's inclusion of female students in this study indicates her sensitivity to the importance of gender and how it affected the lives of the students.

Chapter 5, "Between Morality and Romance," looks at the emotional world of the students. The issues of gender relationships, love, sexuality, and interracial marriage are examined in the context of the conflict between Chinese concepts of morality and Western attitudes toward romance.

Chapter 6, "The Seriousness of Recreation," examines two extracurricular activities of Chinese students: athletics and theater. Participation in sports, Ye believes, served to help Chinese students develop an appreciation for physical...