UC Irvine

My dissertation explores the role of race, class, and gender in the political and cultural

interactions between the African Diaspora and China. I examine the official and unofficial racial

discourses produced and practiced during the Republican Period and in the People’s Republic of

China, drawing attention to continuities as well as shifts in racial thinking in China across the

1949 divide and its impact on the political and cultural relationships of Black and Chinese

peoples. Most of this research focuses on the impact of Chinese racial discourse on visits and

other interactions with people of the African Diaspora, particularly African Americans in China

as well as analyzing the Chinese cultural productions of blackness. From the mid-1920s to the

late 1960s a continuous flow of African Americans traveled to and lived in pre and post-

Communist China. This study finds that long-term anti-Blackness in China has led to uneven and

negative relations despite the Sino-Black Solidarity that was expressed in the wake of World War

II and African independence movements.