Yellow Peril (sometimes Yellow Terror) was a colour metaphor for race that originated in the late nineteenth century with Chinese immigrants as coolie slaves or laborers to various Western countries, notably the United States, and later associated with the Japanese during the mid-20th century, due to Japanese military expansion.
The term refers to the skin color of East Asians, and the belief that the mass immigration of Asians threatened white wages and standards of living.
Read more about Yellow Peril: Origins, New Zealand, South Africa, American National Origins Formula, Fiction
Famous quotes containing the words yellow and/or peril:
“When there was no more lantern in the kitchen,
The fire got out through crannies in the stove
And danced in yellow wrigglers on the ceiling,
As much at home as if they’d always danced there.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
““Because a few complacent years
Have made your peril of your pride,
Think you that you are to go on
Forever pampered and untired?”
—Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935)