Yellow Peril/Quotes

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


"Whatever industry [the Chinese] have attacked they have captured; whatever they have attempted they have mastered; whenever there has been an encounter between them and our own people they have come off victorious. And these are said to be the very offscouring of the Chinese ports. If then such results come to us from contact with 130,000 of their lowest grade of intellect, what shall be the measure of their success when free intercourse, open ports, and the attractions of foreign commerce pour upon our shores the numbers they can spare from their 400,000,000 of population?--when their leading men, with subtle intellects, come in conflict with our plodding minds?--who shall dare say which is the superior race until the conflict is over? Every contest between ourselves and the Chinese hitherto has been to them a victory."
San Francisco Chronicle, 1875
"Imagine a person, tall, lean, and feline, high-shouldered, with a brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull, and long, magnetic eyes of the true cat-green. Invest him with all the cruel cunning of an entire Eastern race, accumulated in one giant intellect, with all the resources, if you will, of a wealthy government—which, however, already has denied all knowledge of his existence. Imagine that awful being, and you have a mental picture of Dr. Fu Manchu, the yellow peril incarnate in one man."
The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu, 1913

People have talked about the 'yellow peril' till it's got to be a meaningless phrase. Somebody must wake up to the realization that it's the deadliest peril that ever has menaced white civilization. Why shouldn't you have your hand in such wonderful work?"
"Linda," said the boy breathlessly, "do you realize that you have been saying 'we'? Can you help me? Will you help me?"

"No," said Linda, "I didn't realize that I had said 'we.' I didn't mean two people, just you and me. I meant all the white boys and girls of the high school and the city and the state and the whole world. If we are going to combat the 'yellow peril' we must combine against it. We have got to curb our appetites and train our brains and enlarge our hearts till we are something bigger and finer and numerically greater than this yellow peril. We can't take it and pick it up and push it into the sea. We are not Germans and we are not Turks. I never wanted anything in all this world worse than I want to see you graduate ahead of Oka Sayye. And then I want to see the white boys and girls of Canada and of England and of Norway and Sweden and Australia, and of the whole world doing exactly what I am recommending that you do in your class and what I am doing personally in my own. I have had Japs in my classes ever since I have been in school, but Father always told me to study them, to play the game fairly, but to BEAT them in some way, in some fair way, to beat them at the game they are undertaking."
Gene Stratton Porter, Her Father's Daughter
This is from someone whose next movie might feature a cold, heartless villain called The Mandarin? Good luck on not offending anyone with that! Just don't count on any tie-ins with Panda Express!
China is the only major nation in the world that is preparing to kill Americans.
—Peter Navarro, Death by China, 2011

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