Titanic prejudice

In his new book, Steven Schwankert has tried to clear the names of the Titanic's Chinese survivors while also underscoring the fact that immigrant experiences have not changed much since 1912. Mariella Radaelli reports.

Remarkably, six of the eight Chinese passengers who sailed on the Titanic survived the disaster on that moonless night of April 15, 1912. Touted as the most luxurious ocean liner ever, the "unsinkable" vessel that had set sail from Southampton, England, sank about 740 kilometers off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, after it hit an iceberg, killing 1,517 of the 2,200 people on board.

The pre- and post-Titanic lives of its Chinese survivors have been a bit of an obsession with Steven Schwankert, a Beijing-based American maritime historian. Published in April, his new book, The Six: The Untold Story of the Titanic's Chinese Survivors, marks the culmination of a journey that began in 2013. In between then and now, Schwankert was also the lead researcher on the documentary film The Six (2021), directed by Arthur Jones.

While they were on board, the Chinese passengers - sailors on their way to start work on a newly opened Caribbean shipping route - went almost unnoticed. Following the disaster, however, the survivors among them began attracting attention for the wrong reasons. It was alleged, by both the public and the press, that they had gained access to lifeboats by unfair means.

"Newspaper articles containing baseless and vile accusations against these men were appearing in New York and elsewhere," says Schwankert, quoting headlines such as "Chinese coolies save their lives by clever hiding "and "Disguised as women they secure places in lifeboats".

It was primarily his wish to clear the names of the Titanic's Chinese survivors that prompted Schwankert to write their story.