Wow, oops on the date. Hmm, apparently the anti-Asian prejudice of the 50s wasn't just an artifact of WWII. Was it a general xenophobia that included any non-American (or non-white) peoples? One cringes at the casual prejudice of all kinds in early and middle 20th-century American (and in British, to be fair) literature, let alone in more popular entertainment.
One trick Heinlein did use, in Star Beast and Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Podkayne of Mars (and probably other books), was writing characters who, somewhere buried in the middle or late action, would be described off-handedly as non-white. This might not address racism actively, but it shakes up a white reader's (that's me) assumptions pretty painlessly in a way that sticks.
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One trick Heinlein did use, in Star Beast and Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Podkayne of Mars (and probably other books), was writing characters who, somewhere buried in the middle or late action, would be described off-handedly as non-white. This might not address racism actively, but it shakes up a white reader's (that's me) assumptions pretty painlessly in a way that sticks.