"I Would Give Her Even My Bones": Mixed-Heritage Relationships in Twentieth Century Toronto

Aidan T.

This factsheet condenses Elise Chenier’s piece which unpacks and disrupts myths about Chinese male celibacy through an examination of mixed-heritage relationships between Chinese men and white women in Toronto in the twentieth century. Chenier’s piece uses oral testimonies of the children of Chinese men to tell their stories. The assumption that these relationships did not occur is based in the legislative exclusion of women of Chinese heritage.

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References

Chenier, Elise. "Sex, Intimacy, and Desire among Men of Chinese Heritage and Women of Non-Asian Heritage in Toronto, 1910-1950." Urban History Review 42, no. 2 (Spring, 2014): 29-59. http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/scholarly-journals/sex- intimacy-desire-among-men-chinese-heritage/docview/1543038911/se-2.

Source Authors

Elise Chenier

Keywords

1923 Chinese Exclusion Act, Celibacy, Celibacy myths, Chinese Head Tax, Chinese Immigrants, Chinese Lovelessness Myth, Chinese male celibacy, Chinese Men, Christianity, Consent girls, Desire, discrimination, domestic life, Emotional life, Financial Benefit, Gifts, heterosexual culture, Heterosexualization, heterosocial world, interracial marriage, interracial relationships, Intimacy, Legislation, Marriage, Mixed-heritage Relationships, mixed-race relationships, Moral Reform Movements, Myths, Ostracization, Policing, Protection, Racial policing, Racial Purity, Racialization, segregation, Sex, Sex workers, Testimonies, The "Bachelor" Myth, Toronto, White Canadian society

Locations

Toronto