Chinese Americans in the Heartland: Migration, Work, and Community by Huping Ling (review)

Reviewed by: Chinese Americans in the Heartland: Migration, Work, and Community by Huping Ling Donna Doan Anderson Chinese Americans in the Heartland: Migration, Work, and Community By Huping Ling (New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers University Press, 2022. Pp. ix, 246. Notes, bibliography, index. Clothbound, $120.00; paperbound, $39.95.) Huping Ling’s Chinese Americans in the Heartland: Migration, Work, and Community presents a detailed history of Chinese communities in Chicago and St. Louis dating from the late nineteenth to the twentieth century. Expanding on the materials and frameworks from her first two books, Chinese St. Louis (2004) and Chinese Chicago (2012), Chinese Americans in the Heartland illustrates Ling’s truly impressive research capacity. Spanning three decades of both English and Chinese language sources that range from newspapers, census data, and city directories to oral histories of local residents conducted by her and her students, Ling presents a comprehensive engagement with “immigration and work, family and community, and the structural construction and reconstruction of” midwestern Chinese American communities (p. 7). Driving the analysis is the question: why would Chinese migrants end up in the heartland when well-established enclaves already existed on the West Coast? Broadly, Ling argues that the answer lies in a lack of development in the heartland. She does not view this adversely, noting that Chinese Americans saw plenty of opportunity in the affordable cost of living and lower crime rate. They also found attractive the social flexibility of places that did not have the legal restrictions often found on the coasts. Nonetheless, Ling demonstrates how, despite perceived geographic isolation from larger ethnic enclaves or developmental deficiencies, Chinese Americans in the heartland remained connected through their social and economic networks—regionally, nationally, and globally. She argues that convergences in ethnic business organization and cultural practices demonstrate the linkages to coastal communities, while divergences were intentionally undertaken to fit the region’s attributes and the demands of midwestern Chinese American communities. These points are proven in the book’s three parts. The first, titled “Transnational Migration and Work,” examines the closely linked transnational networks and their responsibility in building and supporting midwestern Chinese American communities from the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. The second, titled “Marriage, Family, and Community Organizations,” examines the impacts of these developments on families, marriage, and gendered entanglements. Here she makes her most notable contribution by arguing against common myths associated with Chinese American ethnic enclaves or social practices, stating that these attitudes are actually products of and responses to restrictive American [End Page 294] immigration policies. The third section, titled “New Community Structures,” traces the Chinese American community in Chicago and St. Louis since 1965, demonstrating how challenges of geographic dispersion and greater socioeconomic integration create a cultural community, which Ling describes as a new community structure based on preserving ethnic identity and promoting solidarities for future well-being. Scholars will find Ling’s thorough research valuable not only for understanding the contributions of Chinese Americans in Chicago and St. Louis, but also as an exemplary way to interrogate the contributions of Asian American communities in other locations in the U.S. heartland such as Indiana. As Ling rightfully notes, Asian Americans’ rapidly growing population in the U.S. interior presents the possibility for dynamic examinations. For instance, census data from 2020 lists 166,657 Asian-only identified individuals residing in Indiana—an impressive development since the reporting of twenty-eight Asian-identified individuals in the 1890 census, and a nearly seventy-five percent growth since 2000. Similar patterns in the rapid growth of Asian American communities throughout the Midwest since 1965 and the recent scholarly interrogations from midwestern studies scholars about its regional characteristics provide ample opportunities for expansion. In short, Chinese Americans in the Heartland provides depth and nuance to the often-overlooked contributions of Chinese Americans in the Midwest. Scholars of regional, Asian American, and urban history should take Ling’s invitation for “more intellectual dialogue on the topics” this volume has explored to develop the field of midwestern Asian American history (p. 11). Donna Doan Anderson University of California, Santa Barbara Copyright © 2023 Trustees of Indiana University