Image Above: "Chinese Farm Family, Mississippi Delta" Image courtesy of Sunny Nash.
"What shall we do with John Chinaman? [2 illustrations: 1. Irishman throwing a Chinese man over cliff towards China; 2. Southern plantation owner leading him to cotton fields". Courtesy of Library of Congress.
[Alfred Waud. “Chinese Cheap Labor in Louisiana – Chinamen at Work on The Millaudon Sugar Plantation, July 29, 1871.” Courtesy of the Historic New Orleans Collection and Winston Ho.
"While the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act banned all Chinese immigration for 60 years, "Honor and Duty" tells the story of how a community settled into the Mississippi Delta despite the law. People found a loophole: If you were a merchant, or joining family who were already in the United States, you could move there. So, while the first 16 Chinese who lived in the area were laborers, those who followed were general store merchants that molded the local economy."-Christina Lee. 
"In the Mississippi Delta. There is an ever-increasing number of Chinese grocerymen and merchants. Leland" Photo by Marion Wolcott, courtesy of the Library of Congress.
"Man with children, meat locker." From Mississippi Delta Chinese Heritage Photos Store Collection, Courtesy Mississippi Delta Chinese Heritage Museum.
"Joe Brothers, Around 1925." Courtesy Joe Y. Sing. From "Journey Stories from the Cleveland Chinese Mission School."
"Min Sang, Greenville opened in 1934 and replaced in 1952." Courtesy, Delta State University Archives.
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"Man in Cotton Field." Courtesy Mississippi Delta Chinese Heritage Museum.
After the Civil War, when African-American slaves were set free, landowners needed to find people to work on their plantations. So, some Southern whites made a plan to bring Chinese railroad workers from the West down to places like the Mississippi Delta. These workers didn't like the poor pay and working conditions in the South, but found they could work between the black and white races, opening groceries and laundromats in these small Southern towns. Over the next sixty years, the number of Chinese grew to several thousand.
"The Hopson Plantation in the Mississippi Delta". Caption and image courtesy of usslave.blogspot.com.
"Locating in the Mississippi Delta to work in farming seemed a harsh way to fulfill the goal of making money to support families back in China, although in many ways the Delta was preferable to the more populated West Coast, where discrimination against Chinese laborers...was well documented...Their dream of making money in farming was short-lived, however. Explotiation by planters, low economic returns from their labor, and the extreme physical demands of farm life contributed to failure of the experiment." -John Thornell. 
"Exterior Min Sang Grocery Store." Courtesy Mississippi Delta Chinese Heritage Museum.
"Interior Grocery Store." From Mississippi Delta Chinese Heritage Photos Store Collection, Courtesy Mississippi Delta Chinese Heritage Museum.
"Behind the Counter. " Courtesy Mississippi Delta Chinese Heritage Museum.
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