Silly White Folk

So in some of our reading for Takaki, we have read a lot about how the whites in America would discriminate against the Chinese (as well as other Asian) immigrants.  Then more recently we read about how the "American's" view of the Chinese changed after the attack on Pearl Harbor and China became our allies in WWII.  Then, even later, when the Chinese Civil War ended, and China came under the rule of communism, the "American's" were once again against the Chinese who were in America at the time.

I thought that this was pretty funny, how easily people's viewpoints would change, and then change again, and then change again!  It seems like some of the drama stories that I'm sure all of heard in high school (or at least I did, that's for sure). You would hear about a couple, or a pair of friends, who would just constantly go back and forth between hating each other, and loving each other.  I don't know about the rest of you, but I always thought that it was kind of silly.  Now if you were one of those people, that's fine with me, high school can be an emotionally difficult place, but that's a discussion for a different blog.  Anyways, I just thought it was pretty funny how these whites, who claimed to be the smartest (and in some cases, the best overall) race in America, would so easily have their views changed due to do to what they heard about on TV, or on the radio. It's like the white population didn't really know what to think of the Chinese, so they would just believe what ever the government was saying or doing.  When excluding Chinese was cool (Chinese Exclusion Act), whites excluded them.  When being friends with the Chinese was cool (after Pearl Harbor), everyone wanted to be friends with the "our friends the Chinese" and wanted throw out the Japanese.  This list goes on, and I'm sure we will get to read more on how ridiculous the white of America truly were, and I'm looking forward to it!