Beth Lew-Williams has won the Cundill History Prize for John Doe Chinaman, her history of Chinese immigrants living under American racial law. Announced in Montreal, the award carries 75,000 US dollars. The Princeton historian draws on court documents, immigration files and personal accounts; the jury praised her recovery of individual lives obscured by legal categories.
Beth Lew-Williams has won the Cundill History Prize for John Doe Chinaman.[1], [2]
The history award, administered by McGill University, carries 75,000 US dollars. Jury chair Emily Greenwood announced the result on 23 October at the prize festival in Montreal, Canada, with the finalists and jury present. Lew-Williams is a history professor at Princeton University and directs its Program in Asian American Studies.[1]
John Doe Chinaman: A Forgotten History of Chinese Life under American Racial Law examines restrictions on Chinese immigrants in the American West and their responses to discrimination. Court documents, immigration files and personal accounts supply its material, alongside quantitative research and big data methods. Greenwood described a study of anti-Chinese laws from the 1850s to the 1920s, their intentions and effects, and migrants’ attempts to negotiate, circumvent or resist them.[1]
Fellow finalists Jonathan Cheng and Alexander Lee each receive 10,000 US dollars. Greenwood praised the winning book for recovering individual voices obscured by legal categories. Historian Barbara Weinstein highlighted its treatment of immigrants valued for their labour but rejected as citizens. Lew-Williams previously wrote The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America; earlier Cundill winners include Lyndal Roper, Kathleen DuVal and Tania Branigan.[1]
