The Department of History at the University of Colorado Boulder, in partnership with the the Center of the American West present the 35th Athearn Lecture in the History of the American West. This year’s lecture will be by Dr. Beth Lew-Williams, Professor of History at Princeton University, author of John Doe Chinaman: A Forgotten History of Chinese Life under American Racial Law (Harvard University Press, 2025).

“John Doe Chinaman: Chinese Life under American Racial Law"

Monday, March 9, 2026 / 5:00 PM / Eaton Humanities 250

RECEPTION TO FOLLOW / Eaton Humanities ‘Living Room’ 170

Dr. Beth Lew-Williams, Princeton University

ABOUT THE TALK

Legal discrimination against Chinese people in the United States began in 1852, when California passed a tax on foreign gold miners that was explicitly designed to exploit Chinese labor. Over the next seventy years, officials in California, Oregon, Washington, and other western states instituted more than five thousand laws that marginalized and controlled their Chinese residents. Drawing on dozens of archives across the US West, Beth Lew-Williams reveals the depth of anti-Chinese discrimination beyond federal exclusion and tells the stories of those who refused to accept a conditional place in American life.

Email: (thomas.andrews@colorado.edu) for information on this free public event