Fitting in Space: Rose Hum Lee's Negotiation of Assimilation and Citizenship in America (Biography‪)‬

THE PAGES OF HISTORY: FILLING IN THE GAPS In commenting on his own research in Chinese American history, Him Mark Lai, an important contributor to Asian American history said, "in spite of all the new areas that had been probed, there are still too many blank pages, and even more that are incomplete or poorly defined, that await further delineation." (1) One of these incomplete pages is the study of native-born Chinese Americans in the 1950s. Studies on Chinese Americans in the 1950s, like those of Jack Chen and Shih-Shan Henry Tsai, tend to emphasize a more general picture of Chinese American history For example, in The Chinese of America, Chen provided information on the urbanization of Chinese Americans and the problems they had with the various immigration law changes from the 1940s to the 1950s. (2) Tsai, in The Chinese Experience in America, gave information on sex ratios of the Chinese population and the expanding opportunities that were available to the Chinese after World War II. (3) However, away from these more general pictures of Chinese American history are individual lives that, when explored, can provide a key to a better understanding of the historical experience of Chinese Americans in the 1950s. The experience of Chinese Americans' individual negotiations of the meaning of citizenship and how to fit into the American nation are missing from these pages of history Careful examination of these negotiations can help fill in the gaps left empty by the more general narratives of Chinese American history