ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the voices of former Chinese American students who were among the first non-Whites to gain access to White schools and highlights the (in)flexibility of racial policies in the Jim Crow South. It illuminates both the racial positioning of Chinese Americans and the work of policy in the production of racial categories and positionings. The chapter explores how Chinese Americans used their interstitial status to challenge their exclusion from White schools. It briefly discusses the social, political, and cultural context of the Mississippi Delta during Jim Crow and the racial position of early Chinese immigrants. The chapter also includes a concise explanation of how Chinese immigrants settled in the Mississippi Delta. It also focuses on how Chinese immigrants used social capital to gain access to White schools and interrogates how school policies simultaneously shaped and were shaped by beliefs about the racial position of Chinese immigrants relative to Whites and Blacks.
