Oriental Bodies: Discourse and Discipline in U.S. Immigration Policy, 1875-1942

Oriental Bodies charts the discursive transformations of U.S. immigration policy between 1875 and 1942. Author James Tyner concentrates on the confluence of eugenics, geopolitics, and Orientalism as these intersect in the debates surrounding the exclusion of immigrants from China, Japan, and the Philippines. This unique work argues that United States immigration policy was founded on a particular discourse of eugenics and geopolitics and that this concentration was informed by a greater Orientalist discourse. Drawing from American foreign policy, identity politics, post-structuralism, post-colonialism, and feminist theory, this fascinating study seeks to examine the construction of Oriental bodies within the emergence of U.S. immigration policy and explores how these constructions served political, social, and economic interests.