Harry Morgan’s Identity Crisis: Orientalism and Slumming during the Great Depression in Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not

This essay places To Have and Have Not in relation to the flow of illegal Chinese immigrants through Cuba and Key West to U.S. Chinatowns during the Great Depression. It also explores the representations of Asians in the novel. The essay argues that Morgan’s interaction with the “Anglomaniac” Chinese human trafficker, Sing, and his outrage against rich American tourists “slumming” in Key West reveal that his identity crisis is the result of his liminal position within the prevailing racial hierarchy.