#346 A Forgotten History of Chinese Life in the United States w/ Beth Lew-Williams
The Road to Now
Benjamin Sawyer
4.8 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 15 September 2025
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Chinese immigrants helped establish America's foothold on the western coast, yet few of us know what life looked like for those Chinese people who came to live in the US. In this episode, Beth Lew-Williams joins us to discuss her new book, John Doe Chinaman: A Forgotten History of Chinese Life Under American Racial Law, which blends extensive archival research with new technologies to illuminate stories that have long been buried in our history.
Beth Lew-Williams is Professor of History at Princeton University and a recipient of the 2025 Dan David Prize.
If you enjoy this episode make sure to check out our conversations with previous Dan David Prize winners: Women and American Slavery w/ Stephanie E. Jones Rogers (#270) and The Archaeology of Dust w/ Anita Radini (#269).
This episode was edited by Ben Sawyer.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Bob Crawford. |
| 0:06.3 | And I'm Ben Sawyer and this is the road to now. |
| 0:09.2 | We are so excited to welcome Beth Lou Williams, who is, I think, a recent Dan David |
| 0:15.5 | award winner. |
| 0:16.6 | Welcome to the show, Beth. |
| 0:18.1 | Thank you. |
| 0:19.3 | I love the way that Bob says, I think we know. |
| 0:22.1 | We know. |
| 0:22.7 | We know. |
| 0:23.5 | David Prize winners make incredible guests on this show. |
| 0:26.3 | So whenever we found, we got hit up about doing some more episodes. |
| 0:29.2 | We were like, yes, of course. |
| 0:30.6 | If you guys who listened to the show, remember back in 2023, we actually had Stephanie |
| 0:35.7 | Jones Rogers on talking about women in slavery |
| 0:38.4 | and Anita Rodini. |
| 0:40.0 | Remember the conversation about the archaeology of dust, Bob? |
| 0:43.6 | It's the only one we've ever done with archaeology. |
| 0:47.1 | And it's just fascinating. |
| 0:48.3 | The thing that binds all these researchers together is they're taking innovative approaches |
| 0:52.1 | to their research, really taking |
| 0:54.2 | sources that, you know, maybe the sources aren't new. In your case, they are, Beth. You did so, |
| 0:59.2 | such insane amounts of research. But then applying new technologies to them. And I'm excited to talk to you |
... |
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