ABSTRACT

To this point, we have examined the positive activity of missionaries in defending Asian immigrants from American prejudices, particularly in the form of scientific racism. However, the activities of individual missionaries did not make up the totality of missionary discourse on Asian people, religions and cultures. For decades, missionaries had produced pamphlets, magazines, and books whose main rhetorical purpose was not to convince Americans of the worthiness of Asians as potential fellow-citizens, but to convince Americans of the heathen need for missionary aid. These works, as noted in Chapter One, were driven by a double structure of necessity and possibility, producing extremely unflattering depictions of “the heathen” and their cultures along with gestures toward their redeemability through conversion.