Sarah Orne Jewett's China.

This article analyzes Sarah Orne Jewett's 1877 regionalist fiction *Deephaven* to demonstrate how chinaware functions as a symbol for constructing American and specifically New England identity in the late nineteenth century. It argues that Jewett's characters use Chinese porcelain—valued for its exoticism and material "power"—to link past generations with the present, thereby appropriating foreign objects to reinforce local heritage and kinship while obscuring the Asian origins and labor behind them. The essay situates this appropriation within broader cultural and racial dynamics, noting how Deephaven's use of Chinese objects and the popular New England funeral hymn "China" reflect a domesticated, exclusionary form of orientalism that allows the region to assert distinctiveness from national identity amid contemporaneous anti-Chinese violence. Ultimately, the article shows how Jewett's work reveals the complex interplay between material culture, regionalism, and imperialist attitudes in shaping American belonging.