China and the West

Harte, Bret. The heathen Chinee (1870)
Alger, Horatio. The young miner (1879) ; The young explorer (1880) ; Ben's nugget (1882).
The examinations of Horatio Alger's Pacific series novels demonstrate that Chinese characters were worthy of Alger's hero's and attention ; faithful Chinamen remained merely a convenient device to show his white characters' impartiality and physical strength. In the end, Alger's treatment of Chinese characters reflects the national anxiety of his time towards Chinese immigrants.
Chinese characters first appear in The young miner, and Alger does not portray them favorably because of his own racial discrimination and because of the anti-Chinese sentiment of his time. He introduced his Chinese characters Ah Sin and Ah Jim to the readers as belonging to 'that peculiar race immortalized by Bret Harte' in the 'Heathen Chinee'. They are described in the same manner as their archetype, using descriptions such as childlike smile and bland face. Alger describes Ah Shin, borrowing some words from Harte's poem : 'Ah Sin and Ah Jim, though not related to each other, were as like as two peas. The same smooth face, the same air of childlike confidence, the same almond eyes, a pigtail of the same length, a blouse and loose pants of the same coarse cloth, were characteristic of both. Alger discriminates his Chinese characters more than Harte does and adds a harsh criticism on Chinese people to his depiction of Ah Sin and Ah Jim : "A Chinaman does not set a high value upon human life, Bret Harte has not told us whether the heathen Chinee has a conscience ; but if he has, neither Ah Sin nor Ah Jim experienced any inconvenience from its possession."
In Ben's nuggets, Alger call his Chinese character Ki Sing the 'yellow heathen' and portray him as having a 'broad flat face' that looks 'like a full moon, with a 'bland' and 'childish' smile of content.
In addition to the physical characteristics of the Chinese, Alger borrows the Chinese characters' behaviors from Harte's poem.
In The young explorer Alger introduces Ki Sing as 'a terrified-looking Chinaman. "At that period in the settlement of California, a few Chinamen had found their way to the Pacific coast ; but the full tide of immigration did not set in till a considerable time later, and, therefore, the miners regarded one as a curiosity."