Undoing Empire: Race and Nation in the Mulatto Caribbean (review)
victims, as exemplified by his account of Ah Toy an entrepreneurial Chinese prostitute based in San Francisco who "enticed and manipulated men" (p. 78). While her thriving brothels came under fire from local authorities and other Chinese competitors ultimately pushing her out of business, Ah Toy exemplifies a woman who "had for a moment defied the customs of her homeland and perhaps those of the TransMississipi West" (p. 78). The conclusion de Leon draws from this multicultural history of the West is that while Western people of color "accepted tenets of other cultures, . . . their loyalty generally remained with the way of life that nourished them in segregated areas and defined them as a racial unit" (p. 107). Colored minorities, just like dominant whites, maintained their ancestral cultural legacies. In other words, not much melted in the proverbial melting pot. A look back at this history is / crucial for understanding how the United States came to be one of the most racially segregated countries in the world.