In my research on Chinese Americans in the American Old West for a book series I’m writing, I came across a wonderful resource at Stanford University — digital collection of popular dime novels available online. [Editors Note: The book is also available to download for free as a Google eBook and for sale on Amazon.]
Dime novels were basically the cheap pulp fiction popular mini-novels that were widespread in the Old West; they ranged from action adventure to romance to mystery to anything else you can think of that would sell. And they sold for a dime each, hence the name (although others were sold for different prices, such as Penny Dreadfuls etc.).
When I saw the titles, I was immediately drawn to read the worse sounding ones, so I started with this gem of a novel “The Brady’s and the Dumb Chinaman“. So here’s my, uh, review. Spoiler warning! (‘Cause I know you care.)
Okay, so this story was not as bad as I thought it was going to be but at the same time it was. I think when I read the title, all sorts of wild racially charged fantasies abounded in my head, so fantastic in fact that I couldn’t really describe them to you (dancing monkey-like buck-toothed kung-fu master engineers yelling “Ching Chong Ting Tong Ling Long you long time”?), so when I read the story, I was met with some more grounded yet still pretty wrong racial realities.
Here’s the basic gist of the story. The Brady’s are a detective agency, and they take on the case of one young Arthur Anderson. Arthur’s mother goes missing, and during a business delivery in Chinatown, he sees his mother screaming while under attack by a Chinese man with a knife. When he runs to save her, she’s gone and so is the Chinese man who attacked her. We find out that Arthur’s mother has a mysterious past and secret, an outlaw husband who held up a bank in cahoots with a Chinaman, and in the end we find out that she actually has a twin sister who was married to a Chinaman, and the sister and her husband were trying to get at the stolen bank money through Arthur’s mother.
Let’s start with the title. It turned out that the reference to the “Dumb Chinaman” is not quite what I thought. “Dumb” in this case meant “Deaf and Dumb”, the less-sensitive terminology used to describe deaf and blind back in the day. Kind of reminded me of those old-school classic psychology papers where they referred to the mentally challenged as “idiots” and “morons”. Still, the title’s clearly insensitive and highly offensive to both Chinese Americans and people with special needs.
Also, although there is clearly a disgust with the Chinese and Chinatown, it’s not so completely one-sided at the same time. The Chinese are described as one of the “queer people (p.1)”, and when Arthur tells his neighbor he’s going to Chinatown, she tells him, “Chinatown is a bad place they say. You want to look out for yourself Arthur (p. 2).” However, the main detective character and star of the series King Brady counters by telling Arthur, “Chinamen are not quite so black as they are painted. Not all of them, at least. Now, take that man Wing Lee, whom you must have seen at the office. I don’t know that I ever met a kinder hearted or more reliable person (p. 4).” Wow, thanks King Brady.
With the controversy still existing TODAY about interracial marriage, especially between Asian men and White women, I was surprised to find that there were actually two interracial marriages in this story, both between a Chinese American man and a white woman, one of the women being of Irish descent. One of the couples was decent enough, not all embroiled in the crime syndicate, but descriptions of them were nonetheless marginalizing.
For example, the wife was pointed out as being an “Irish woman”, as in not totally American white, and the baby, although clearly a hapa, was described as “Chinese baby”, as if a Chinese man and an Irish woman could only have a Chinese baby. One-drop rule anyone?
Sadly, the other interracial couple was apparently wildly wicked, and not in that positive British English way either. Arthur’s aunt, his mother’s twin sister, met her husband in San Francisco.
“We were pleasure living girls, your mother and I, and we went much into San Francisco society, which was rather a mixed proposition in those days. Almost anything went. Even an educated Chinaman was received. My husband, whom you saw in that underground room, was such a person. He is California born and was educated in a Catholic college out there. I met him at the house of a dear friend of min, and I fell in love with him at first sight. Six months later I ran away and married him. I never saw my parents after that, nor would they have seen me if I had tried to make peace with them…My husband proved to be no better than hers, for he also was at that time a professional crook, although he has since reformed and it is now many years since he pulled off a job. You are asking yourself if I have no shame in telling you all this, Arthur. I answer non whatever. I love my husband. He has been good to me. The world despises me because he happens to be a Chinaman. I in turn despise the world. I care nothing for its lawas. If my King were to ask me to help him commit a burglary to-morrow I’d do it (p.18-19).”
I think Authur’s evil twin aunt is probably the most complicated character in the whole story. She has a total love and devotion to her husband, so much so that she would commit crimes, even murder her own sister and nephew for him. She could be seem as loyal to a fault, but everyone’s reactions around her sort of push her into the category of crazy white woman who would love a Chinaman. Arthur’s reaction to his aunt’s profession of love and devotion to her husband was to be “disgusted with this wild talk”. Of course, it’s disgusting that a white woman should love a Chinaman so much, she’d have to crazy right? And of course, the California born Chinaman is a criminal, as Asian men always make great villains, but I guess it’s fair since Arthur’s white American father was also a crook, so hey, at least everyone’s equally wicked.
Overall, eh, it’s got a coherent plot with decent enough writing, but I did find it very historically instructive. The Chinese Americans were there but continually treated as foreign even if they were born here and have U.S. citizenship, and interracial marriage was for the queer and crazy. Nothing new, but still, good to re-validate these conclusions.
Anyways, I’m looking forward to reading “Ching Foo, the Yellow Dwarf; or the Bradys and the Opium Smokers” next…
