Big White Lie: Chinese Australians in White Australia

Front Cover
UNSW Press, 2007 - History - 289 pages
Much has been written about the White Australia Policy, but very little has been written about it from a Chinese perspective. Big White Lie shifts our understanding of the White Australia Policy - and indeed White Australia -by exploring what Chinese Australians were saying and doing at a time when they were officially excluded. Big White Lie pays close attention to Chinese migration patterns, debates, social organisations, and their business and religious lives and shows that they had every right to be counted as Australians, even in White Australia. The book's focus on Chinese Australians provides a refreshing new perspective on the important role the Chinese have played in Australia's past at a time when China's likely role in Australia's future is more compelling than ever.
 

Contents

Belonging and exclusion
1
Mateship and modernity
25
Immigrant labour and goldfield fraternities
57
Revolution respectability and Chinese Masonry
81
Chinese Australia at federation
100
The Australasian Kuo Min Tang
126
The Pacific shadow of White Australia
153
Entrepreneurs clubs and Christian values
177
Being Australian
210
Notes
236
Bibliography
256
Acknowledgments
273
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