“The first recorded history of a Chinese woman in the United States tells the story of a ‘beautiful Chinese Lady’ transported into New York Harbor,” Leslie Bow Ph.D., professor in the Department of English and Program in Asian American Studies at the University of Wisconsin Madison, tells Bustle. This was Afong Moy, a 19-year-old Chinese woman who was coerced into traveling to the U.S. In the 1830s and ‘40s, Moy would tour the U.S. as an act, displayed for up to eight hours a day in private homes, and later in P.T. Barnum’s circus. “The spectacle of Afong Moy produced by Barnum and white traders unfortunately sutured American associations between race and exoticism that cling to Asian American women today,” Bow says.
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