The Downstairs Girl

The Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution says no federal government can deny a citizen’s right to vote “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude,” and was ratified in 1870. Nevertheless, on the ground, the promises of the amendment remained unrealized, especially in the south. Black men could theoretically now vote (the amendment did not explicitly mention gender), but in practice, they were often beaten up on the way to polling booths, or subjected to worse violence. In 1877, a controversial election further weakened the application of the amendment. Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was elected president, but only after wrangling support from three Southern states. The condition of the support was white Democratic governments in the South could rule without federal interference. This paved the way for states to implement the racist laws that came to be known as “Jim Crow” laws, after a pejorative portrayal of Black people.

Thus, in the post-reconstruction period, the promise of a racially equitable society in the south was decimated. Still smarting over the economic losses of the Civil War (in which the Confederates were defeated), the popular mood in the south was to blame the attempt to change the social order for financial hardships. Laws that enforced racial segregation, such as segregation on race cars in Georgia in 1891, were a way to reverse this seemingly disastrous social change. Lee uses the streetcar segregation event as an important plot point in her novel. Further, even where racist laws did not exist, there was a pervasive social “etiquette” governing the interaction between Black and white individuals, such as Black people riding bicycles being seen as insolent. The Jim Crow laws segregating Black Americans in public spaces would persist until the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, under euphemisms such as “separate but equal.” In Lee’s novel, racism is an ever-present reality. Characters like Robby can never hold permanent white-collar jobs and have to carefully consider their interactions with white people. Noemi has to contend with the double threat of racism and sexism. Lynchings are ubiquitous.

Where do Chinese characters like Jo fit in this society? Though their challenges are not the same as that of Black Americans, Chinese characters face racism and injustice as well. Jo is often called racist slurs (as is Noemi), and not even considered American by most white people. Interracial marriage is banned in Georgia and couples need to move out of the state to marry and, in fact, to even survive. Chinese individuals are not recognized as citizens, are not allowed to vote, and are forbidden to rent or own land. However, even though their lot seems worse than those of Black folks in some regards—Black people could still theoretically acquire land during the period—in other respects, the Chinese fared better. For instance, streetcar segregation was not as strict for Chinese individuals, as Jo and Old Gin note.

Thus, the text presents a realistic and nuanced portrayal of the various kinds of racism in the south in the 1890s. The Chinese population in Georgia grew during the Reconstruction, as Lee observes in her Author’s Note at the end of the book. Planters shipped in Chinese workers to replace their emancipated work force, expecting a cliched orientalist model of submission. The Chinese, however, protested their work and living conditions, much as the enslaved Black people had done, and migrated out of the south in large numbers. By 1883, Georgia had passed a federal law prohibiting new Chinese immigrants. In the novel’s 1890 milieu, Jo notes that people do not consider Chinese individuals a great threat in Atlanta, because they are so few in number.