Foreign
Policy, National Identity, and Citizenship: The Roosevelt White House
and the Expediency of Repeal
KAREN J. LEONG
IN MID-JULY 1943, the Chinese Ambassador to the United States formally
communicated with the United States Secretary of State about a "Chinatown
Opium Den" in New Haven, Connecticut. New Haven did not have a Chinatown.
The town did boast, however, a self-proclaimed "World's Museum (Wax Figures)."
Within weeks, a special agent of the Department of State paid a visit
to this museum. Housed in a two-story frame building, the museum featured
wax likenesses of noteworthy individuals. A customer would peer through
an 18 by 10-inch window into a room about ten feet square. The special
agent described what he saw: There are two figures resembling white girls
in separate booths, and four other booths each containing a figure resembling
a Chinese man, all in reclining position with pipes resembling opium pipes
inserted in their mouths. Alongside of one booth containing one of the
girl figures, the figure of a Chinese man is kneeling, and in the center
of the room is the figure of a Chinese man supposedly mixing opium.
|
|
