This exhibition explores how the racial category “Chinese” was socially constructed and redefined in 19th-century America, leading the way to the images and stereotypes that persist in framing the perception of Asian Americans today.

Through curated selections of these American Advertising trade cards, the precursor to our postcards, Race Making offers a unique lens into how Chinese identity was imagined by Americans during a time of shifting social values, technological change, and national anxieties.

While themes like labor and nationhood directly influenced how Chinese racial identity was shaped, the exhibition also explores broader cultural dynamics. Gender, for instance, emerges as a recurring thread—then, as now, evolving ideas about gender were deeply entangled with larger social transformations, and Chinese imagery was often used to challenge or reimagine existing norms.

Race Making invites visitors to immerse themselves in a complex narrative, where past and present intermingle. The exhibition is not only about history—it is also about the ways race is continuously made and remade in American life.