Irwin Tang: Texas Asians

Monday, April 28, 2008

Cool interview and article with Irwin Tang who is the editor of the book Asian Texans: Our Histories and Our Lives:

Austin American-Statesman: What did you learn that surprised you the most during the research of this book?

Irwin A. Tang: One of the most surprising phenomena that I discovered was that after the U.S. Civil War, Southern plantation owners were interested in making Chinese workers "labor as of old," as some had put it, meaning they were interested in making Chinese men into slaves. And if not slaves, then the slavelike workers known as "coolies."
Nice to know that after the war everyone was just looking for another non-white slave...oh wait - isn't that still happening now?