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January 27, 2023 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM
From the earliest days of non-Native settlement of Montana, when Chinese immigrants made up more than 10 percent of the territory’s population, Chinese pioneers played a key role in the region’s development. But this population, so crucial to Montana’s history, remains underrepresented in historical accounts, and popular attention to the Chinese in Montana tends to focus on sensational elements—exoticizing Chinese Montanans and distancing their experiences from our modern understanding. The Middle Kingdom under the Big Sky recovers the stories of Montana’s Chinese population in their own words and deepens understanding of Chinese experiences in Montana with a global lens.
Mark Johnson will be at Isle of Books on Friday January 27 from 5-6:30pm, and will be speaking at 5:30 about how Chinese pioneers played a key role in Montana’s development. Navigating life in this new land, Montana’s Chinese residents gained comfort through the continuation of their spiritual and cultural practices. Yet, publicly practicing cultural traditions invited unwanted attention from anti-Chinese forces who sought to expel the Chinese from the region. Mark Johnson will detail how Chinese Montanans achieved cultural continuity and togetherness through these practices while resisting tensions and threats from their detractors