Mississippi Triangle: Relation of black, white and Chinese in the Delta

     Almost all discussions about problems in race relations historically have focused on a binary, black versus white, and give little or no attention to other groups. In the Mississippi Delta, such a focus misses the unique situation which has existed there for over a century. The Chinese, although small in number, played a significant role as a group situated physically and socially between the larger black and white communities.              

    There is no lack of information about the dominant relationship that whites held in the Delta with respect to blacks. Much less is known about how blacks and whites regard and treat the Chinese?  And how did the Chinese view and react to the black and the white communities?

    Whites had the most power and dominated the blacks in the Delta as throughout the racially segregated South.  The Chinese had less status than the whites but more than the blacks. They were in an in-between status, higher than blacks, but not as high as whites. The Chinese made their living for decades almost entirely operating small grocery stores in black neighborhoods of small rural towns in the Delta. They provided invaluable services to blacks, even extending goods to them on credit until payday, which was not possible in white grocery stores that were less welcoming to black customers. So, while the Chinese benefited financially from serving blacks, they wanted to have the social privileges of whites, not the least of which was access for their children to white schools which were better financed than schools for blacks. Some Chinese children attended mission schools provided by the Baptist church in Cleveland, MS. even though some had to board at the school because it was not within commuting distance.  The Chinese could not attend white schools until a few years after WWII, with one of the main reasons being white fears that some Chinese children were not "pure" Chinese but may have had a black mother.

      Blacks benefited from the better treatment from Chinese grocers than from white stores, but some blacks felt some Chinese overpriced merchandise. Chinese also had cause for tensions with some blacks, and over the years there were many assaults, robberies, thefts, and even homicides committed by blacks against Chinese. Although most black customers were innocent of such offenses, the Chinese had to be vigilant and wary of the dangers they faced from some black residents. Newspaper clippings of some of the many attacks on the Chinese over the decades document the dangers they faced constantly.

     Awareness and memories of these harmful actions by blacks on the Chinese is a sensitive topic that the Chinese do not like to discuss. They have been "sitting targets" for decades with incidents as far back as 1892. They have little control over the situation and prefer to brag about their success as grocers and the academic achievements of their children.

    One of the first attempt to film interviews and interactions with Chinese, whites, and blacks in the Delta, aptly named, Mississippi Triangle, was in 1982-3 by a trio of filmmakers led by Christine Choy, a Korean American from New York along with Worth Long, a black, and  Allan Siegel, a Jew.  Hoping to get more honest answers about racial attitudes, the filmmakers matched the race of the respondent with that of the interviewer. Although several Chinese were interviewed, one elderly woman, Arlee Hen, who was part Chinese and part black, clearly was interviewed more extensively and presented in short snippets throughout the film.

    The Chinese were very sensitive to any insinuation that they were racist and unhappy to have so much focus on an unrepresentative member of their community and felt the film sometimes depicted Chinese negatively.  The rumor, which was not confirmed, was that after the filmmakers ended their interviews and departed, they secretly returned to continue their interview with Arlee Hen. The Chinese were quite upset with the film and felt they had been deceived about the purpose of the film. Mississippi Triangle examined the attitudes of each of the three communities toward each other but some Delta Chinese assumed the film would call attention to the many successes of the Delta Chinese. At a Clarksdale screening of the film and discussion with the filmmakers attended by about 200 Chinese, the reaction was negative because they felt the film gave a negative view of the Delta Chinese, one that might have been valid decades ago but did not reflect the present.

Here is a  trailer for the film.

    I learned about the film and its controversy a decade or more ago but had never seen it until recently with I discovered it can be rented for online viewing on vimeo.com.

      I also unearthed a podcast on Soundcloud where two commentators discuss their reactions to Mississippi Triangle on a series that covers Asian American topics on Saturday School.  The above link I provided skips the opening chit chat of 8:45 before they get down to business discussing the film.

You will note the podcast audio screen below includes a photo of Arlee Hen.

    The podcast raises some worthwhile points illustrated with audio clips from the film.  Unfortunately, the two podcasters are a bit too jovial and "amused" in their discussion in my view, which detracts from their analysis.

A difficult to locate but a more detailed discussion of the film and its reception  by Renee Tajima and Adria Bernardi is in the July/August 1984 issue of Southern Exposure, pp 17-23, "The Chinese: 100 years in the South."