Prof Went East To Find West A Chinese Immigrant, Ewu Historian Embraces Western Ideals

Liping Zhu can talk about democracy now. But in his native China, the police would’ve thrown him in prison.

As a child growing up in Shanghai, Zhu wasn’t allowed to speak in class. As an adult studying history, he was forbidden from questioning communism and instructed to always follow the party lines.

But Zhu was in love with America. Although he said little in public, he devoured “Tom Sawyer,” Abraham Lincoln biographies and other American books at home.

He was hooked on independence, cowboy lore, the romance of the Western frontier.

Zhu left his homeland in 1982.

Now, the 40-year-old is a history professor at Eastern Washington University and an expert on the American West.

“I grew up in a country where you can’t have opinions,” Zhu said one afternoon.

“Here, you can say whatever you want.

… Americans sometimes take that for granted.

They don’t know how many people have to fight for this right.”

Zhu was raised by middle-class parents who were both teachers. It was hard to live in such a closed society, he said.

When relatives in Wichita, Kan., petitioned for him to come to the United States, he jumped at the chance. Zhu wanted academic freedom, he said, and immediately changed the focus of his studies from Chinese history to American history. He was 24 years old.

Sixteen years later, he’s still grateful for the freedom to speak.

With a detailed outline written on the blackboard, Zhu lectured to a class one recent afternoon while standing behind a small podium. He gestured wildly with his left hand while his right held a piece of chalk like a cigarette.

The subject of the day was American Indian fishing rights. He told the students about historical treaties and court rulings. He talked about Isaac Stevens and Slade Gorton. He explained the controversy today and how it stems from the time when white settlers first encountered the tribes.

“The Indian didn’t give up one thing: their fishing right,” said Zhu. “They wanted to make a living by fishing.”

“He’s so excited about the subject,” said Carl Miller, an EWU senior and one of 16 students in Zhu’s course on Pacific Northwest History. “He seems more interested in it than people who actually live here.”

That’s evident in Zhu’s work, as well as his surroundings. His office is filled with books with titles such as “Western Writers” and “The American West.” The poster on his wall is a 1937 advertisement promoting the National Park Service.

Despite his accent, he’s quite the Westerner himself. Although he doesn’t wear cowboy boots or 10-gallon hats, he enjoys camping, hiking in the mountains and occasionally hanging out in country western bars.

Zhu also published a book last month called “A Chinaman’s Chance,” which explains the history of the Chinese on the Rocky Mountain mining frontier. Unlike some historians who say the Chinese were used by whites to build the railroads, Zhu argues that the Chinese were actually given an opportunity in the western United States.

“Even though minorities experienced discrimination, they had an equal chance,” he said. “They had free land, free gold. That’s why the frontier history inspired me.”

Before earning his doctorate from the University of New Mexico, Zhu received a grant to study the history of Chinese immigrants in Idaho. He spent five months in the Boise Basin where he “challenged the stereotypical view of the Chinese immigrant as the victim.”

Most ethnicity scholars have examined only part of the Chinese experience in the West, he said. That’s why their stories are usually about oppression.

From his research, Zhu believes that after decades of hard work, many Chinese immigrants were able to earn a living as miners, had good living conditions and managed to attain political and judicial rights.

“Like many other immigrants, the Chinese on this unique Rocky mountain mining frontier had remarkable access to economic upward mobility,” Zhu wrote in an article for “Montana, the Magazine of Western History. “In the end, (they) tasted more success than failure in their search for better lives.”

Zhu’s work is considered revisionist history, said Ferenc Szasz, a history professor at the University of New Mexico who worked with Zhu on his dissertation. Zhu took a standard point of view and challenged people’s beliefs, Szasz said. He is one of the first to focus on the Chinese in this area.

“It’s a celebration of the Chinese experience in the Northwest,” Szasz said. “It’s very solid and based on archival research. It goes against the prevailing assumptions.”

Despite Zhu’s love for the United States, he still cooks Chinese food and celebrates Chinese New Year. He also returns to China every year to visit his wife and infant son. They’re waiting for visas, he said, and it may be another two years before they can join him in the United States.

Zhu, who’ll apply for American citizenship next year, sees himself caught between two worlds. When he goes to China, people there don’t consider him Chinese. Here, people don’t view him as being completely American.

“I’m in the middle,” he said. “But that’s good in a sense. It’s the bridging of two cultures.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo