particular race based on your physical features. The most distinctive features of the race are skin color, physical features, and facial features. For example, the skin
color, physical and facial features of Chinese is different from Afro-American. The same features people share with others mark that they come from the same
race which means they are in the same group of race, which also serves as their racial identity.
6
CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE
A. Review on Related Studies
In order to understand more about the topic of the research, the writer provides several studies to support this research. The first study is about how
Chinese people can end up in America. For this topic, the writer took an undergraduate thesis by Emeilya Kumala Sari entitled “The Responses of Chinese
Immigrant Women in America in the Mid 20
th
Century toward the Demand of the Society in Lisa See’s Shanghai Girls.” This study will provide basic information
on why Chinese people choose to live in America in the first place. In the late 19
th
century until the early 20
th
century there was a series of war happened in China. These long desperate wars forced people to seek better
lives outside China. Since the United States of America was famous for its American Dream, the United States of America attracted millions of
immigrants from all over the world. Believing that they could get better lives, many Chinese people also migrated to America Sari, 2011: 2-3
Sari’s writing showed that there were two backgrounds of why Chinese at that time chose to move from China and decided to choose America as a new place to
live in. First, it was because of countless wars in China that made their lives insecure. Second, it was because of the famous motto of the “American Dream”
which made the United States of America famous at that time. Therefore, Chinese immigrants moved to America in order to have better lives. In America, their lives
were not getting better and they encountered hardship due to the stereotypes from the Americans toward them. More detailed explanations about stereotypes shall be
explained in the next part of the studies.
The second study is about stereotypes. For this part, the writer takes Dan Caldwell’s writing “The Negroization of the Chinese Stereotype in California”
who gives brief explanation about stereotypes. The latent prejudice of early Californians was nurtured by the use of popular
stereotypes. Defining stereotypes as pictures in our heads, Walter Lippman first introduced the concept of the stereotype to social science in 1922. He
went on to point out that the stereotype is an undifferentiated caricature of the group or individual it presumably represents and that prejudiced people see
mainly what they expect to see rather than what is really there. In regard to the Chinese, early Californians were no exception to this rule Caldwell,
1971:123. Caldwell showed that stereotypes are actually only “pictures in our head” and
people see “what they expect to see” rather than “what is really there.” Therefore, it means that stereotypes are based only on someone or some group’s perspective
and expectation toward a certain group of people that are, at most times, not true. This is usually because stereotypes toward certain groups are one-sided. Caldwell
also noted this in the next part Often stereotypes disregard fact and concern only image .The most common
stereotypes refer to physical characteristics or to out of the ordinary lifestyles. The most common physical characteristics include skin color and features of
the head: hair, eyes, nose, mouth and shape of the head. Stereotypes referring to lifestyles often attribute decadent and immoral behavior to the group that
does not conform to the majority Caldwell, 1971:123. As noted, common stereotypes deal with physical characteristics like skin color
and features of the head. People usually start from physical points and make some mistaken beliefs toward it. For example, people with Black skin are more resistant
to heat, a stereotype toward Afro-Americans that led them to become workers in cotton plantations during the era of slavery. Whether this stereotype is true or not,
nobody knows because no one has attempted a research on it. They simply agree to believe it and thus made the stereotypes look true. Other stereotypes lead to
