Sinophobia differed from generic American racism in predicting that the “inferior” race would triumph in a contest with whites. In the providential racist thinking that had become conventional by midcentury, Indians were destined to be displaced by a superior race; people of African descent were destined to be slaves or disappear because they could not stand in direct competition with whites; Mexicans, derided as a mixed race, could not stand against “Anglo-Saxons.” But unless banned from the continent, the Chinese would displace white Americans.
