The Diary of Afong Moy | The History of White People in America, Episode 4
Special | 4m 52sVideo has Closed Captions
How America's first Chinese woman was exhibited and exploited as a circus oddity in 1830s New York.
Acclaimed poet Sally Wen Mao narrates the animated history of Afong Moy, America’s first recorded Chinese woman. She was brought to America by merchants and was exhibited as a circus oddity in 1830s New York City. She was eventually managed and exploited by circus showman P.T. Barnum as a sideshow attraction.
The Diary of Afong Moy | The History of White People in America, Episode 4
Special | 4m 52sVideo has Closed Captions
Acclaimed poet Sally Wen Mao narrates the animated history of Afong Moy, America’s first recorded Chinese woman. She was brought to America by merchants and was exhibited as a circus oddity in 1830s New York City. She was eventually managed and exploited by circus showman P.T. Barnum as a sideshow attraction.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Number eight Park Place, Manhattan, November 1834.
The merchant brothers who brought me here, Freddie and Nate Carne, knew I'd make it rain for them.
In their eyes, I was a hothouse flower.
- ♪ Hothouse flower ♪ - A goddess of dollar, - ♪ Dollar ♪ - Dollar, dollar, dollar.
- ♪ Dollar, dollar .
♪ - I was a breathing mannequin on my brocade throne.
I couldn't believe how many people paid to see me.
Banknotes dropped, jaw bones dropped.
And it was truly unnerving to watch the white people stare at me.
- ♪ the white people stare at me.
♪ - Mouths twitching in awe or pity or both.
♪ (world music) ♪ The Oval Office, Washington, D.C., 1835.
They took me to the Capitol, the White House with its forlorn arches.
They asked me to sing for the president.
♪ (world music) ♪ He seemed polite enough, but he was no emperor.
My translator, Atung, warned me, - Mr. President may look unremarkable, but this nice man is a slave trader, a plantation owner, and his nickname is Jackass.
- Andrew Jackson shook my hand, stared at my feet like the other men, begged me to ask my countrymen to change its laws.
I sang, I hollered, my whole life in my throat.
To the audience my voice sounded ghastly.
My words, inscrutable.
♪ (inscrutable singing) ♪ Charleston, South Carolina, 1835.
In Charleston, the public began demanding me to strip.
Take off your shoes.
- Take off your shoes.
- They wanted my naked feet, and even I barely saw my own feet uncovered.
They loved how I flinched, my cheeks burning like copper, and at last I lost it.
I smashed the trinkets, snuffed the snuff boxes, tore the soap.
Raided the chests, drank all the wine, ripped the irises from their parched soil.
Panic, plundered the property.
Its wreckage was my greatest show on earth.
- Mr. Phineas T. Barnum.
- Mr. Phineas T. Barnum.
- He loved his freaks.
A prophet for profits.
There was no word for tokenism in those days of yore.
When you were rare, when you were a lady, - A Chinese lady.
- you had to be tender.
You had to be good.
The show must go on and on and on.
Replaced by another show.
And that's the trouble with artifice.
It never ends.
♪ ♪ ♪ Dollar ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Dollar ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Dollar ♪ ♪ ♪
