If America Were Really China or How Christopher Columbus Discovered Asia

Gregory Lee (1)

1 IETT - Institut d'Etudes Transtextuelles et Transculturelles

This text investigates the notion that America may well have been first “discovered” and peopled by migrants from what is now China; and concludes by wondering whether China has not become another America and whether America is now not about to become China; which in any case is another America. Between the introduction and the conclusion; the history of other imagined Americas is examined: the Americas that were not the USA (such as the French Caribbean island of Martinique and Cuba where Chinese coolies were lured and duped with contracts for America (Amérique; A-mei-li-ga); and the USA of the Chinese American which was not quite Utopia – an America from which Chinese were excluded between 1882 and WW2. The Story of Chan/Chen – a scenario for a Chinese American film yet to be made – is sketched out.

Mots clés: Christina Garcia “Monkey Hunting”; Raphaël Confiant “Case à Chine”; métissage; hybridity; migration: emigration; China; America; Zhu Di; Hui Shen; Christopher Columbus; Shawn Wong “Homebase”; Brian Castro Birds of Passage

Domaines: Histoire; Héritage culturel et muséologie; Littératures

Gregory Lee. If America Were Really China or How Christopher Columbus Discovered Asia. 2009. ⟨hal-00435655⟩