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Abstract

Grant Number:	5G13LM009223-02
Project Title:	San Francisco's Plague: The View from Chinatown

PI Information:	Name	Email	Title
	RISSE, GUENTER B.	profgrisse@comcast.net

Abstract: DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Several recent publications (including those of the PI) have sought to recount and analyze the arrival of bubonic plague in San Francisco during the year 1900. The outbreak -the first in North America-generated radical and conflicting responses from federal, state, and local authorities, merchants and medical elites. According to the existing sources, this outbreak was restricted to Chinatown, leading to dramatic public health measures such as several quarantines of the entire district and repeated sanitary campaigns inside its perimeter that culminated in the demolition of houses and threats to permanently expel all inhabitants. Most of the information about the plague and its impact has come from official municipal, state and national authorities, as well as accounts published in local newspapers. They reflected the new medical concepts of disease based on bacteriology as well as the old prejudices of class and race aimed at the afflicted Chinese community. However, the available historical works share a common shortcoming: they never view the events through the eyes of the Chinese. Therefore, it is time to balance these reconstructions by including the contemporary ideas, feelings, and reactions of the community directly affected by the plague: the people of Chinatown. This project proposes to remedy the omission by systematically examining both the news and editorials dealing with plague, public health, and medicine, printed in the leading San Francisco Chinese language publication of the day, the daily newspaper Chung Sai Yat Po ((China West Daily). Preliminary investigations suggest that during the plague this widely circulated newspaper became an influential voice in the community, breaking ethnocentric barriers and encouraging the community to organize and fight discrimination. Combining this important source with additional Chinese and English -language sources, the proposed project aims to produce a monograph that integrates both the Western and Chinese narratives of the bubonic plague outbreak from 1900 to 1904 within a genuine transcultural framework. Moreover, a website containing the data obtained from this study will further facilitate the dissemination of this information. The conclusions may offer valuable lessons for understanding the contemporary management of public health campaigns for global epidemic outbreaks such as AIDS, SARS and avian influenza as well as the health consequences of natural and terrorist disasters.

Public Health Relevance:
This Public Health Relevance is not available.

Thesaurus Terms:

There are no thesaurus terms on file for this project.

Institution:	INDEPENDENT SCHOLAR- -RISSE, GUENTER B
	BURIEN, WA 98166
Fiscal Year:	2007
Department:
Project Start:	15-SEP-2006
Project End:	14-SEP-2008
ICD:	NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE
IRG:	ZLM1

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