Alien Capital: Asian Racialization and the Logic of Settler Colonial Capitalism
Sex, Time, and the Transcontinental Railroad: Abstract Labor and the Queer Temporalities of History 2
-
Published:March 2016
2016. "Sex, Time, and the Transcontinental Railroad: Abstract Labor and the Queer Temporalities of History 2", Alien Capital: Asian Racialization and the Logic of Settler Colonial Capitalism, Iyko Day
Download citation file:
Chapter 1 establishes the book’s foundational claim that the economism of Asian racialization arises from a temporal alignment of Chinese bodies with abstract labor, which has implications for what constitutes socially necessary labor time. Analyzing Richard Fung’s Dirty Laundry: A History of Heroes alongside Maxine Hong Kingston’s China Men, two works about Chinese labor on the transcontinental railroad, the chapter explores the interchangeability of Chinese labor, time, and money. Focusing on the range of gender and sexual substitutions represented in these texts, the chapter argues that these works demonstrate how the abstract racialization of Asian alien labor is established...
Advertisement