The Fortunes

The queue was a hairstyle historically worn by Chinese men during the Qing period, a Manchu-led imperial dynasty that was China’s last before the establishment of the Republic of China. All men were required to wear the queue as a sign of their loyalty to the emperor. In The Fortunes, the queue symbolizes Chinese identity as well as the cultural connection that Chinese immigrants felt to their home country. It also becomes a marker of foreignness, and Chinese men like Ling are easy targets of racist violence because they wear the queue and are thus immediately recognizable as Chinese. Although many Chinese men journeyed to the United States to work on the railroad or even strike it rich in gold mining, Chinese workers in particular were characterized by their willingness to leave the United States once they had amassed enough money to live comfortably in China. Because of this, many Chinese workers maintained especially strong cultural ties to their home country and were seen as a particular threat for their unwillingness to assimilate. That such an overwhelming majority of male Chinese workers continued to wear the queue became a point of contention for American workers already worried about their jobs being stolen by Chinese immigrants, and it was common for Chinese men to be targeted by white individuals.