The Legal Oxymoron of Whiteness in “The Laws” Chapter of China Men by Maxine Hong Kingston
The Legal Oxymoron of Whiteness in “The Laws” Chapter of China Men by Maxine Hong Kingston

Summary/Abstract: The article centers on the legal construction of whiteness captured by Maxine Hong Kingston in “The Laws” chapter of China Men (1980), exposing the oxymoron of whiteness, which consists in its simultaneous gesturing towards universality and particularity. On the one hand, the laws passed by white Americans enabled them to cast whiteness as the self-proclaimed standard-bearer, the self-declared legal norm. On the other hand, this self-proclaimed norm rests on the principle of exclusivity and exclusion. Wielding a weapon of exclusion, white people have constructed a legally manufactured white identity that bars non-whites, in this case Chinese and other Asian immigrants from citizenship, economic resources, space, the “mainstream” American society and mainstream American culture. Kingston not only exposes anti-Chinese and anti-Asian legislation, but also shows Chinese immigrants’ responses to this legislation, their failed and successful attempts at countervailing various forms of exclusion and “exclusive” treatment they received.

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