Chinaman () is a term referring to a Chinese man or person, a Mainland Chinese national or, in some cases, a person native to geographical East Asia or of perceived East Asian race. While the term has no negative connotations in older dictionaries and the usage of such compound terms as Englishman, Scotsman, Frenchman, Dutchman, Irishman, and Welshman are sometimes cited as unobjectionable parallels, the term is noted as having pejorative overtones by modern dictionaries. Its derogatory connotations evolved from its use in pejorative contexts regarding Chinese people and other Asians as well as its grammatical incorrectness which resembles stereotypical characterizations of Chinese accents in English-speaking associated with discrimination. While usage of the term Chinaman is nowadays strongly discouraged by Asian American organizations, it has also been used as a self-referential archetype by authors and artists of Asian descent.
Historic usage
Use in Australia
Historically, words such as Chinaman, chink and yellow have been used in Australia to refer to Chinese Australians during the Australian gold rushes and when the White Australia Policy was in force.
Use in the United States
The term Chinaman has been historically used in a variety of ways, including legal documents, literary works, geographic names, and in speech. Census records in 19th-century North America recorded Chinese men by names such as "John Chinaman", "Jake Chinaman" or simply as "Chinaman". Chinese American historian Emma Woo Louie commented that such names in census schedules were used when census takers could not obtain any information and that they "should not be considered to be racist in intent". One census taker in El Dorado County wrote, "I found about 80 Chinese men in Spanish Canion who refused to give me their names or other information." Louie equated "John Chinaman" to "John Doe" in its usage to refer to a person whose name is not known, and added that other ethnic groups were also identified by generic terms as well, such as Spaniard and Kanaka, which refers to a Hawaiian.
In a notable 1853 letter to Governor of California John Bigler which challenges his proposed immigration policy toward the Chinese, restaurant owner Norman Asing, at the time a leader in San Francisco's Chinese community, refers to himself as a "Chinaman". Addressing the governor, he writes, "Sir: I am a Chinaman, a republican, and a lover of free institutions." Chinaman was also often used in complimentary contexts, such as "after a very famous Chinaman in old Cassiar Rush days, (who was) known & loved by whites and natives".
As the Chinese in the American West began to encounter discrimination and hostile criticism of their culture and mannerisms, the term would begin to take on negative connotations. The slogan of the Workingman's Party was "The Chinese Must Go!", coined in the 1870s before Chinaman acquired a derogatory association. The term Chinaman's chance evolved as the Chinese began to take on dangerous jobs building the railroads or ventured to exploit mine claims abandoned by others, and later found themselves victims of injustice as accused murderers (of Chinese) would be acquitted if the only testimony against them was from other Chinese. Legal documents such as the Geary Act of 1892, which barred the entry of Chinese people to the United States, referred to Chinese people both as "Chinese persons" or "Chinamen".
Use on Japanese people
The term has also been used to refer to Japanese men, despite the fact that they are not Chinese. The Japanese admiral Tōgō Heihachirō, during his training in England in the 1870s, was called "Johnny Chinaman" by his British comrades. Civil rights pioneer Takuji Yamashita took a case to the United States Supreme Court in 1922 on the issue of the possibility of allowing Japanese immigrants to own land in the state of Washington. Washington's attorney general, in his argument, stated that Japanese people could not fit into American society because assimilation was not possible for "the Negro, the Indian and the Chinaman".
Use on Korean people
Mary Paik Lee, a Korean immigrant who arrived with her family in San Francisco in 1906, writes in her 1990 autobiography Quiet Odyssey that on her first day of school, girls circled and hit her, chanting:
Ching Chong, Chinaman, Sitting on a wall. Along came a white man, And chopped his tail off.
A variation of this rhyme is repeated by a young boy in John Steinbeck's 1945 novel Cannery Row in mockery of a Chinese man. In this version, "wall" is replaced with "rail", and the phrase "chopped his tail off" is changed to "chopped off his tail":