The racial term ‘coolie’ stretched across Chinese, Arab, and South Asian workers.

Evidence

Workers were often described as ”coolies,” a racial description that encompassed people from many di√erent populations. Chinese workers notoriously were referred to as ”coolies” (Jung 2006; Yun 2008), but so were Arabs and South Asians in the labor camps built by American oil interests in Saudi Arabia (Vitalis 2007). — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 72

Categorization

• DEFINE: Shows ‘coolie’ as a capacious racial descriptor that pooled distinct populations into one fungible labor category.
• SEED: Article angle: tracing the word ‘coolie’ across Chinese diaspora, Saudi oil camps, and South Asian indenture as one thread joining apparently separate labor histories.