Patricia S. (mountainreader) reviewed The Chinese in America : A Narrative History on + 113 more book reviews
"In this richly detailed book, Iris Chang skillfully weaves together the broad historical panorama of Chinese migration with fascinating case studies of individual Chinese immigrants and the lives they have made for themselves in the United States." * -" If you are hungry for the history of the American experience, The Chinese in America is a must-read. We are fortunate to have the incomparable Iris Chang tell this important and timely story." ** from the back - * Jonathan D. Spence from the back -** James Bradley, author of Flags Of Our Fathers
Iris Chang. The Chinese In America. NY: Viking, 2003
This is the Penguin pb edition of 2004
The author has extensively researched secondary sources but failed to gather family stories (which are not much esteemed by historians but are often informative, especially in the absence of other data). She seems to come holding a firm belief that the Chinese were treated badly in America at every turn. She did fail to condemn the way Japanese immigrants took over the celery industry from the Chinese in LA County, circa 1903, but seems to have missed little else. I have not found any chapters thus far that are balanced enough to use as collateral reading in a US History class. This book and others of its ilk are in common use in college classes.
No maps, very good footnotes with citations to mostly secondary sources, index, and a few photos.
Chapter One. The Old Country: Imperial China in the Nineteenth Century.
A good summation of life under the rule of the Manchus is offered by Ms. Chang. This book has almost nothing about Sun Yat Sen's long work to overthrow them [my friend, a WWII vet, told me of how his parents gave a few dollars for the cause when that troublemaker came through Los Angeles], although it does mention rebellions and arrogant foreign businessmen.
Chapter Two. America, A New Hope.
The author begins by comparing China to the US in terms of urbanization, population (23 million USA, 430 million China), and area. [She fails to note the relative scarcity of arable land in China.] Speaking of all immigrants to America, she notes that no one found the streets paved with gold.
It was not easy to adjust--and the author launches her main theme of this book: "For the Chinese headed for California from across the Pacific, the greatest threat would come not from the harshness of nature, but from the cruelty of fellow humans and the racism endemic to their beloved 'Gold Mountain' (25)." [Nothing about how minorities were and are treated by the Han nor how few employment opportunities with fair wages and benefits Chinese-Americans and Chinese immigrants grant the people of the communities they (often do not) join.]
Chapter Three. "Never Fear, and You Will Be Lucky."
Ms. Chang describes the dubious methods used by 'recruiters' to fulfill their quota in China. Coolies were also sent to Peru (guano mining), Hawaii (sugar), etc. Virtually all Chinese emigrants intended to return home. (thus the queue)
Chapter Four. Gold Rushers on Gold Mountain.
Ms. Chang writes nicely about the Gold Rush being the product of those (of any nationality) who had great hopes and saw no other way to change their condition; others with more established prospects were less likely to come. Some Chinese miners made lucky finds, others prospered by working as partners, and many worked very hard. The author begins with Joaquin Murietta special attention toward torturing and robbing Chinese miners and continues onward into the lack of established law, the Miners Tax, etc. "Legalized persecution turned the Chinese into god rush scavengers (45)" who worked claims on the edge. Overall, Ms. Chang credits the Chinese with mining millions of dollars in gold, although most had only marginal earnings. They soon turned to pursuits such as eateries, butchers, bakers, tailors, barbers, boarding houses, laundries, and curio shops. The first two 'Celestials' arrived in SF in February of 1848 and by 1853 many had shops and living quarters on Dupont Street. Some San Franciscans early objected to their presence but the Civil War loomed so there was no response from D.C.
Chapter Five. Building the Transcontinental RR.
I believe the Central Pacific workers were not as "exploited" as claimed. While paid less, they were paid in gold, not depreciated greenbacks.
50,000 Chinese in California was a huge population in the West; for example, Washington Territory had no town with a population of one thousand until the late 1870s.
Ms. Chang largely ignores the exploitation of workers by their countrymen at this time 'labor contractors' although it is mentioned regarding the late 20th C. Many people then worked six days a week, twelve hours a day, but the lucky and prudent would save up.
Horse fodder was bulky and thus expensive to deliver to the rail head.
The author lays out the dangers of the work well; injuries suffered by those working on RRs were to be a major argument in California's passage of Workers Compensation in 1913.
Chapter Six. Life on the Western Frontier.
This is a depressing chapter (injuries inflicted on Chinese). As the author offers virtually no testimony about those in the community who valued what some Chinese brought to the community, her agenda with this book is clear.
I believe that many Chinese were seen as sojourners, people who were planning to return âhome' soon (including quite a few European immigrants who would return to Greece, etc.) with their gains.
Most hard workers built some capital and I imagine many Chinese sent considerable funds abroad as is done with remesas today, rather than investing in their town or county here in the USA.
Ms. Chang's information regarding remittances resulting in recipients becoming loafers has a parallel today in Latin America, for example, per the occasional article in La Opinion.
Nothing is said by Ms. Chang about Chinese replacing itinerant workers, Indians, etc. in the fields. Maybe that is why the number of Latino workers wintering in LA was so small in the 1870s but increased in the 1890s.
The SPRR's Pacific Fruit Express box cars were simple but excellent technology.
Noting comments on the fishery industry, the Chinese were obviously undercutting and crowding labor markets. Also wages in mining camps were initially very high but would fall when more laborers arrived. $2 is low but $7 or even $5 a day would not be offered for long. Mexicans fleeing Don Porfirio's rurales often worked in Arizona mining towns such as Bisbee, but after making a stake would leave that bleak area.
The role of the Six Companies is well explained as is the life of the few women in the US.
Iris Chang. The Chinese In America. NY: Viking, 2003
This is the Penguin pb edition of 2004
Chapter Seven. Spreading Across America.
Chinese labor in the post-bellum South is highlighted by the author. But people coming to work in the fields today still tend to move on to other pursuits as they find their feet.
The few well educated and well connected Chinese provides and interesting sidebar but a high school education did not come into style in the US until the beginning of the 21st C.
Chapter Eight. Rumblings of Hatred.
I had forgotten how popular Bret Harte's humorous poem was in the 1870s (reprinted as 'The Heathen Chinee' and first published in the Overland Monthly, September 1870).
The Chinese tong member should not have killed a cop in LA in 1871, but it does give the author yet another opportunity to expose mistreatment of Chinese.
Denis Kearney, the Workingman's Party, et. al. gets five pages.
Chapter Nine. The Chinese Exclusion Act.
The legislative history dealing with Chinese people is covered well by Ms. Chang. The efforts to boycott US trade in China is little known.
I would imagine rioters in small town's saloon idlers, although the author feel they were a majority of the residents. The information offered about the destruction of Chinatown after the 1906 SF earthquake is sketchy.
Angel Island's shortcomings are reminiscent of the complaints today under the Trump administration but why don't they go elsewhere? Brazil, Burma, Belgium, Poland, etc.
There is nothing in this book about bribery, a common practice in China then and now; see Boyle Workman's The City That Grew (1935). His dad was offered a goodly amount in gold coin when mayor of Los Angeles. Also City of Rosemead case, late 1970s.
Chapter Ten. Work and Survival in the Early Twentieth Century.
It is acknowledged by the author that those Chinese in the USA (as bad as it was) had it better than those living under Manchu rule. However, she mentions only in a footnote that the Indemnity from the Boxer Rebellion paid to the US was soon diverted to educate Chinese students in the USA (footnote only) and there is no praise. She has not conveyed the good feeling many had toward Chinese folk in the first half of the 20th C. (Pearl Buck, YMCA missionaries, donations to orphanages, etc.).
Soon after Double Ten, the Kuomintang were active in the US (and Chiang Kai Shek's agents would long ensure the party line was followed by Chinese residing in the USA).
California's Alien Land Act curtailed opportunities in ranching and farming for Asians, but other conditions in other states are not mentioned (she does continue to sometimes cite the research about the South). Ms. Chang does not note that farmwork tends to be seasonal, with most of those engaging in it full time retreating to the cities and towns for the winter. Also there is nothing about Chinese families following the crops for a few weeks in the summer to earn some money or guys working their way through school hitting whatever harvest there was with high pay for a couple of weeks.
Chinese did find running a cafe to be profitable and she nicely points out that the money was earned "not by offering authentic cuisine from their homeland, but instead dishes that looked Chinese, but appealed to the American palate (163)." Unfortunately, Ms. Chang does not cover the economics of this. I know that Chinese in San Francisco even in the post WWII era would often eat at a cafe in their neighborhood; it cost less than cooking, somehow.
[Herbalists of Chinatown in Los Angeles had respect in the early 1960s, as I well recall (164-165).]
Chinese continued to own laundries and often lived there, 'a humid prison (169).' Ms. Chang writes well on this subject; note the dismay of a laundryman's wife when she arrived at the hard time laundry and the family at home had no idea how hard it was to earn a dollar (170-172). Ironing collars was a skill (see Ralph Moody).
The folks at home were very demanding!
Chapter Eleven. A New Generation Is Born.
Given the immigration laws, very few Chinese women could legally emigrate. Thus most children born in the USA of Chinese families were not from the poorest class of Chinese.
Ms. Chang delights in relating the insults and problems Chinese kids faced, especially in obtaining a first class education, that being seen as the best opportunity for Chinese folk.
When California schools became segregated (Black, Chinese, and Indian all to their own schools), the Chinese fought back in court and politically. San Francisco was not then a liberal bastion. The author notes it was possible for a few Chinese to enroll if no one complained. [I would think the community was reluctant to pay for other school buildings and staff. Plus, for a long time out West, most anyone was welcome if they could contribute to the community. Of course, it would be more difficult for a sojourner, sending remesas, to measure up.]
The author then discusses family strife with Americanized kids, limits in the job market for American Born Chinese (ABC), and that women were expected to be housewives.
Ms. Chang does include some success stories, such as National Dollar Stores.
Chapter Twelve. Chinese America During the Great Depression.
After late October of 1929 there were hard times. The agriculture of California was able to limp along better than that of the Midwest and South, and the state was less dependent on jobs in large factories. "Most Chinese were able to avoid these upheavals in rural California (201)" because so many lived in the urban areas. But most everyone was cutting back on spending and that pinched laundries, restaurants, etc. where Chinese earned a living. [Hollywood was an exception, but the author complains of the negative image of Fu Manchu, Oriental maidens needing to be rescued, etc.]
Ms. Chang lauds the self-sufficiency of Chinese communities, trading among themselves, using a hui to raise capital rather than a bank, etc. [Not mentioned is that the Chinese stance had not led to better relations with other communities.] [With the heavy immigration after the Act of 1965 there was controversy in the West San Gabriel Valley about signage that was in Chinese only.]
The author notes that Chinese worked harder and also organized to attract tourists. [LA's New Chinatown, 1938]
Some Chinese youth were sent to China for education but found it hard to then obtain a position in the US despite their qualifications, 90% of offered work being in cafes.
Chapter Thirteen. 'The Most Important Historical Event Of Our Times:' World War II.
A lousy job in America had the advantage of being far from the war lords and Japanese invaders. There were Chinese Americans with aviator skills that fought for the Republic. Collections were made for the Chinese War Relief Association (generous Chinese Americans) , demonstrations against the occupation were well attended, and an embargo on trade with Japan was pushed. [Too bad Japanese Americans were not in the forefront]
Meiling Soong's (Mrs. Chiang Kai-Shek) success as a lobbyist is detailed.
[I jumped off the bus one day circa 1980s to see a small exhibition in a Chinatown bank lobby of memorabilia from WWII and a Chinese guy standing beside me recalled how important it was to wear the pin that identified one as an ally and thus avoid being beaten up.]
Congress rectified the earlier measures against the Chinese in 1943.
Chapter Fourteen. 'Mass Inquisition:' The Cold War, the Chinese Civil War, and McCarthyism.
Ms. Chang details the suspicions of Chinese Americans that arose during the Cold War, especiall when after the Red Army won the civil war, the USSR became a staunch ally of the PRC.
There were investigations to root out spies The Korean War is mentioned only in passing. Chinese Americans increasingly departed Chinatown (as did Jews from NYC, most anyone into suburbs).
[Ms. Dorothy Klotz, who I had at Glendale Jr. College for her classes in Geography (she had been to China in the 1930s when Americans could take such trips) and Astronomy also worked on the side in real estate. She told us that she built a small development off Verdugo Road in the late 1950s and one of the first sales was to a Chinese American. Glendale real estate interests shut down further sales and her bank loans were outstanding. He kindly withdrew.]
Chapter Fifteen. Ms. Chang heaps criticism on the UK for limiting immigration from the PRC when Chinese began streaming across the border' and did not provide good housing, jobs, schooling, etc. She forgets the UK was constantly reducing its military in those years and that food rationing did not end in Great Britain when the war was over.
She does find that the Immigration Act of 1965 rapidly overcrowded the labor market with Chinese Americans being the first victims (and they were followed by Latinos, Blacks, and Anglos). There is nothing about the propensity of those who come under the 1965 Act to not want to work alongside any but 'their own kind.'
Ms. Chang does face the problem of gang bangers and gives several pages to radical Chinese, liberal do-good Chinese, etc. of the late 1960s as a contrast to the 'Model Minority.'
She also mentions the small group of talented Chinese who came in the 1930s and 1940s.
Immigration from the Republic of China included young scholars and businessmen relocating. Ms. Chang shares their complaints about American food, customs, language, etc.
Chapter Sixteen. The Taiwanese Americans.
Ms. Chang expands her description of the motives of these Chinese to come, of course including a whole raft of their complaints. Many attended university here and did not return to Taiwan. A discussion of their failure to employ veterans in their enterprises is lacking.
As usual, when not treated with dignity, these Chinese fall back on pride in their culture.
Chapter Seventeen. The Bamboo Curtain Rises: Mainlanders and Model Minorities.
Mao's death--"many Chinese felt a sense of relief (312)." Deng Xiaoping's reforms.
Chang claims Chinese Americans seldom knew what had gone on in the PRC when they began to visit in the 1990s. Happily, "often all it took was a single appearance from a Chinese-American to transform overnight the status of an individual or an entire family (315)." NOTE the fate of descendants of Yuan Shikai, once general and emperor.
The author offers some insight regarding Chinese who returned to the PRC rather than remain abroad. Note that the author used 'Taiwan' rather than the proper RofChina. She gives examples of PRC citizens emigrating to the US who found some prosperity or found hard times, then segues into the growing income disparity in the USA, drugs, outsourcing, and imports. This proves to be her build up for Vincent Chin's murder in Detroit, 1982. In the 1980s there was a tidal wave of overseas Chinese who partnered with other Chinese and formed a 'nouveau riche' class of suburban homebuyers. [I noticed they liked newly built homes over existing houses.] The author fails to note that American kids entering adulthood were forced to buy farther east, even outside of LA County as prices rose.] Ms. Chang finds anti-Chinese activity before moving on to complain about her people not getting enough seats at prestigious universities. [0 about drug dealers, gangs]
Chapter Eighteen: Decade of Fear: The 1990s
The 1989 massacre at Tiananmen Square, the agreement for the UK to abandon Hong Kong, and business opportunities brought more overseas Chinese to the USA. [0 said about former Red Guards emigrating.] Ms. Chang weeps over the separated families, reminiscent of the 19th C., as overseas Chinese put all their energy into getting rich and tells readers of the 'parachute kids.' After a few years kidnappers and people smugglers were at work but the author largely ignores the burden borne by other residents.
Chapter Nineteen: High Tech vs. Low Tech.
"The growing divide between American haves and have-nots was felt keenly not only among whites and blacks, but within the ethnic Chinese population as well (349)." Both well-off and quite poor Chinese continued to arrive. The Computer Age suited the skill set of some Chinese well, Jerry Yang of Yahoo! being a good example, and connections with Taiwan made for manufacturing efficiencies. The author admits that the H1-B visa program (Immigration Act of 1990) favored employers seeking fodder for exploitation. Ms. Chang gives many pages to the growing competition with the PRC and obviously believes that the PRC is stealing very little data, the furor being more anti-Chinese rot.
She gives several pages to the adoption of unwanted girls from orphanages and ends the chapter with the hard life of poor Chinese who were smuggled in by snakeheads.
Chapter Twenty: An Uncertain Future.
"I can only close this book with a fervent hope: that readers will recognize the story of my people--the Chinese in the United States--not as a foreign story, but a quintessentially American one (389)." Ms. Chang lists the positive attributes of her people and then deplores examples of Chinese still being seen as 'foreigners.' She pins her hopes of a better day on multi-ethnic Chinese-Americans, political activity, and the founding principles of the USA. [The first Gulf War was about oil, used by all, but almost no one of Chinese descent served, leaving the burden to Anglos and especially to Black Americans.]
[The untimely death of the inept Chinese-American soldiers after publication is a disgrace.]
This is the Penguin pb edition of 2004
The author has extensively researched secondary sources but failed to gather family stories (which are not much esteemed by historians but are often informative, especially in the absence of other data). She seems to come holding a firm belief that the Chinese were treated badly in America at every turn. She did fail to condemn the way Japanese immigrants took over the celery industry from the Chinese in LA County, circa 1903, but seems to have missed little else. I have not found any chapters thus far that are balanced enough to use as collateral reading in a US History class. This book and others of its ilk are in common use in college classes.
No maps, very good footnotes with citations to mostly secondary sources, index, and a few photos.
Chapter One. The Old Country: Imperial China in the Nineteenth Century.
A good summation of life under the rule of the Manchus is offered by Ms. Chang. This book has almost nothing about Sun Yat Sen's long work to overthrow them [my friend, a WWII vet, told me of how his parents gave a few dollars for the cause when that troublemaker came through Los Angeles], although it does mention rebellions and arrogant foreign businessmen.
Chapter Two. America, A New Hope.
The author begins by comparing China to the US in terms of urbanization, population (23 million USA, 430 million China), and area. [She fails to note the relative scarcity of arable land in China.] Speaking of all immigrants to America, she notes that no one found the streets paved with gold.
It was not easy to adjust--and the author launches her main theme of this book: "For the Chinese headed for California from across the Pacific, the greatest threat would come not from the harshness of nature, but from the cruelty of fellow humans and the racism endemic to their beloved 'Gold Mountain' (25)." [Nothing about how minorities were and are treated by the Han nor how few employment opportunities with fair wages and benefits Chinese-Americans and Chinese immigrants grant the people of the communities they (often do not) join.]
Chapter Three. "Never Fear, and You Will Be Lucky."
Ms. Chang describes the dubious methods used by 'recruiters' to fulfill their quota in China. Coolies were also sent to Peru (guano mining), Hawaii (sugar), etc. Virtually all Chinese emigrants intended to return home. (thus the queue)
Chapter Four. Gold Rushers on Gold Mountain.
Ms. Chang writes nicely about the Gold Rush being the product of those (of any nationality) who had great hopes and saw no other way to change their condition; others with more established prospects were less likely to come. Some Chinese miners made lucky finds, others prospered by working as partners, and many worked very hard. The author begins with Joaquin Murietta special attention toward torturing and robbing Chinese miners and continues onward into the lack of established law, the Miners Tax, etc. "Legalized persecution turned the Chinese into god rush scavengers (45)" who worked claims on the edge. Overall, Ms. Chang credits the Chinese with mining millions of dollars in gold, although most had only marginal earnings. They soon turned to pursuits such as eateries, butchers, bakers, tailors, barbers, boarding houses, laundries, and curio shops. The first two 'Celestials' arrived in SF in February of 1848 and by 1853 many had shops and living quarters on Dupont Street. Some San Franciscans early objected to their presence but the Civil War loomed so there was no response from D.C.
Chapter Five. Building the Transcontinental RR.
I believe the Central Pacific workers were not as "exploited" as claimed. While paid less, they were paid in gold, not depreciated greenbacks.
50,000 Chinese in California was a huge population in the West; for example, Washington Territory had no town with a population of one thousand until the late 1870s.
Ms. Chang largely ignores the exploitation of workers by their countrymen at this time 'labor contractors' although it is mentioned regarding the late 20th C. Many people then worked six days a week, twelve hours a day, but the lucky and prudent would save up.
Horse fodder was bulky and thus expensive to deliver to the rail head.
The author lays out the dangers of the work well; injuries suffered by those working on RRs were to be a major argument in California's passage of Workers Compensation in 1913.
Chapter Six. Life on the Western Frontier.
This is a depressing chapter (injuries inflicted on Chinese). As the author offers virtually no testimony about those in the community who valued what some Chinese brought to the community, her agenda with this book is clear.
I believe that many Chinese were seen as sojourners, people who were planning to return âhome' soon (including quite a few European immigrants who would return to Greece, etc.) with their gains.
Most hard workers built some capital and I imagine many Chinese sent considerable funds abroad as is done with remesas today, rather than investing in their town or county here in the USA.
Ms. Chang's information regarding remittances resulting in recipients becoming loafers has a parallel today in Latin America, for example, per the occasional article in La Opinion.
Nothing is said by Ms. Chang about Chinese replacing itinerant workers, Indians, etc. in the fields. Maybe that is why the number of Latino workers wintering in LA was so small in the 1870s but increased in the 1890s.
The SPRR's Pacific Fruit Express box cars were simple but excellent technology.
Noting comments on the fishery industry, the Chinese were obviously undercutting and crowding labor markets. Also wages in mining camps were initially very high but would fall when more laborers arrived. $2 is low but $7 or even $5 a day would not be offered for long. Mexicans fleeing Don Porfirio's rurales often worked in Arizona mining towns such as Bisbee, but after making a stake would leave that bleak area.
The role of the Six Companies is well explained as is the life of the few women in the US.
Iris Chang. The Chinese In America. NY: Viking, 2003
This is the Penguin pb edition of 2004
Chapter Seven. Spreading Across America.
Chinese labor in the post-bellum South is highlighted by the author. But people coming to work in the fields today still tend to move on to other pursuits as they find their feet.
The few well educated and well connected Chinese provides and interesting sidebar but a high school education did not come into style in the US until the beginning of the 21st C.
Chapter Eight. Rumblings of Hatred.
I had forgotten how popular Bret Harte's humorous poem was in the 1870s (reprinted as 'The Heathen Chinee' and first published in the Overland Monthly, September 1870).
The Chinese tong member should not have killed a cop in LA in 1871, but it does give the author yet another opportunity to expose mistreatment of Chinese.
Denis Kearney, the Workingman's Party, et. al. gets five pages.
Chapter Nine. The Chinese Exclusion Act.
The legislative history dealing with Chinese people is covered well by Ms. Chang. The efforts to boycott US trade in China is little known.
I would imagine rioters in small town's saloon idlers, although the author feel they were a majority of the residents. The information offered about the destruction of Chinatown after the 1906 SF earthquake is sketchy.
Angel Island's shortcomings are reminiscent of the complaints today under the Trump administration but why don't they go elsewhere? Brazil, Burma, Belgium, Poland, etc.
There is nothing in this book about bribery, a common practice in China then and now; see Boyle Workman's The City That Grew (1935). His dad was offered a goodly amount in gold coin when mayor of Los Angeles. Also City of Rosemead case, late 1970s.
Chapter Ten. Work and Survival in the Early Twentieth Century.
It is acknowledged by the author that those Chinese in the USA (as bad as it was) had it better than those living under Manchu rule. However, she mentions only in a footnote that the Indemnity from the Boxer Rebellion paid to the US was soon diverted to educate Chinese students in the USA (footnote only) and there is no praise. She has not conveyed the good feeling many had toward Chinese folk in the first half of the 20th C. (Pearl Buck, YMCA missionaries, donations to orphanages, etc.).
Soon after Double Ten, the Kuomintang were active in the US (and Chiang Kai Shek's agents would long ensure the party line was followed by Chinese residing in the USA).
California's Alien Land Act curtailed opportunities in ranching and farming for Asians, but other conditions in other states are not mentioned (she does continue to sometimes cite the research about the South). Ms. Chang does not note that farmwork tends to be seasonal, with most of those engaging in it full time retreating to the cities and towns for the winter. Also there is nothing about Chinese families following the crops for a few weeks in the summer to earn some money or guys working their way through school hitting whatever harvest there was with high pay for a couple of weeks.
Chinese did find running a cafe to be profitable and she nicely points out that the money was earned "not by offering authentic cuisine from their homeland, but instead dishes that looked Chinese, but appealed to the American palate (163)." Unfortunately, Ms. Chang does not cover the economics of this. I know that Chinese in San Francisco even in the post WWII era would often eat at a cafe in their neighborhood; it cost less than cooking, somehow.
[Herbalists of Chinatown in Los Angeles had respect in the early 1960s, as I well recall (164-165).]
Chinese continued to own laundries and often lived there, 'a humid prison (169).' Ms. Chang writes well on this subject; note the dismay of a laundryman's wife when she arrived at the hard time laundry and the family at home had no idea how hard it was to earn a dollar (170-172). Ironing collars was a skill (see Ralph Moody).
The folks at home were very demanding!
Chapter Eleven. A New Generation Is Born.
Given the immigration laws, very few Chinese women could legally emigrate. Thus most children born in the USA of Chinese families were not from the poorest class of Chinese.
Ms. Chang delights in relating the insults and problems Chinese kids faced, especially in obtaining a first class education, that being seen as the best opportunity for Chinese folk.
When California schools became segregated (Black, Chinese, and Indian all to their own schools), the Chinese fought back in court and politically. San Francisco was not then a liberal bastion. The author notes it was possible for a few Chinese to enroll if no one complained. [I would think the community was reluctant to pay for other school buildings and staff. Plus, for a long time out West, most anyone was welcome if they could contribute to the community. Of course, it would be more difficult for a sojourner, sending remesas, to measure up.]
The author then discusses family strife with Americanized kids, limits in the job market for American Born Chinese (ABC), and that women were expected to be housewives.
Ms. Chang does include some success stories, such as National Dollar Stores.
Chapter Twelve. Chinese America During the Great Depression.
After late October of 1929 there were hard times. The agriculture of California was able to limp along better than that of the Midwest and South, and the state was less dependent on jobs in large factories. "Most Chinese were able to avoid these upheavals in rural California (201)" because so many lived in the urban areas. But most everyone was cutting back on spending and that pinched laundries, restaurants, etc. where Chinese earned a living. [Hollywood was an exception, but the author complains of the negative image of Fu Manchu, Oriental maidens needing to be rescued, etc.]
Ms. Chang lauds the self-sufficiency of Chinese communities, trading among themselves, using a hui to raise capital rather than a bank, etc. [Not mentioned is that the Chinese stance had not led to better relations with other communities.] [With the heavy immigration after the Act of 1965 there was controversy in the West San Gabriel Valley about signage that was in Chinese only.]
The author notes that Chinese worked harder and also organized to attract tourists. [LA's New Chinatown, 1938]
Some Chinese youth were sent to China for education but found it hard to then obtain a position in the US despite their qualifications, 90% of offered work being in cafes.
Chapter Thirteen. 'The Most Important Historical Event Of Our Times:' World War II.
A lousy job in America had the advantage of being far from the war lords and Japanese invaders. There were Chinese Americans with aviator skills that fought for the Republic. Collections were made for the Chinese War Relief Association (generous Chinese Americans) , demonstrations against the occupation were well attended, and an embargo on trade with Japan was pushed. [Too bad Japanese Americans were not in the forefront]
Meiling Soong's (Mrs. Chiang Kai-Shek) success as a lobbyist is detailed.
[I jumped off the bus one day circa 1980s to see a small exhibition in a Chinatown bank lobby of memorabilia from WWII and a Chinese guy standing beside me recalled how important it was to wear the pin that identified one as an ally and thus avoid being beaten up.]
Congress rectified the earlier measures against the Chinese in 1943.
Chapter Fourteen. 'Mass Inquisition:' The Cold War, the Chinese Civil War, and McCarthyism.
Ms. Chang details the suspicions of Chinese Americans that arose during the Cold War, especiall when after the Red Army won the civil war, the USSR became a staunch ally of the PRC.
There were investigations to root out spies The Korean War is mentioned only in passing. Chinese Americans increasingly departed Chinatown (as did Jews from NYC, most anyone into suburbs).
[Ms. Dorothy Klotz, who I had at Glendale Jr. College for her classes in Geography (she had been to China in the 1930s when Americans could take such trips) and Astronomy also worked on the side in real estate. She told us that she built a small development off Verdugo Road in the late 1950s and one of the first sales was to a Chinese American. Glendale real estate interests shut down further sales and her bank loans were outstanding. He kindly withdrew.]
Chapter Fifteen. Ms. Chang heaps criticism on the UK for limiting immigration from the PRC when Chinese began streaming across the border' and did not provide good housing, jobs, schooling, etc. She forgets the UK was constantly reducing its military in those years and that food rationing did not end in Great Britain when the war was over.
She does find that the Immigration Act of 1965 rapidly overcrowded the labor market with Chinese Americans being the first victims (and they were followed by Latinos, Blacks, and Anglos). There is nothing about the propensity of those who come under the 1965 Act to not want to work alongside any but 'their own kind.'
Ms. Chang does face the problem of gang bangers and gives several pages to radical Chinese, liberal do-good Chinese, etc. of the late 1960s as a contrast to the 'Model Minority.'
She also mentions the small group of talented Chinese who came in the 1930s and 1940s.
Immigration from the Republic of China included young scholars and businessmen relocating. Ms. Chang shares their complaints about American food, customs, language, etc.
Chapter Sixteen. The Taiwanese Americans.
Ms. Chang expands her description of the motives of these Chinese to come, of course including a whole raft of their complaints. Many attended university here and did not return to Taiwan. A discussion of their failure to employ veterans in their enterprises is lacking.
As usual, when not treated with dignity, these Chinese fall back on pride in their culture.
Chapter Seventeen. The Bamboo Curtain Rises: Mainlanders and Model Minorities.
Mao's death--"many Chinese felt a sense of relief (312)." Deng Xiaoping's reforms.
Chang claims Chinese Americans seldom knew what had gone on in the PRC when they began to visit in the 1990s. Happily, "often all it took was a single appearance from a Chinese-American to transform overnight the status of an individual or an entire family (315)." NOTE the fate of descendants of Yuan Shikai, once general and emperor.
The author offers some insight regarding Chinese who returned to the PRC rather than remain abroad. Note that the author used 'Taiwan' rather than the proper RofChina. She gives examples of PRC citizens emigrating to the US who found some prosperity or found hard times, then segues into the growing income disparity in the USA, drugs, outsourcing, and imports. This proves to be her build up for Vincent Chin's murder in Detroit, 1982. In the 1980s there was a tidal wave of overseas Chinese who partnered with other Chinese and formed a 'nouveau riche' class of suburban homebuyers. [I noticed they liked newly built homes over existing houses.] The author fails to note that American kids entering adulthood were forced to buy farther east, even outside of LA County as prices rose.] Ms. Chang finds anti-Chinese activity before moving on to complain about her people not getting enough seats at prestigious universities. [0 about drug dealers, gangs]
Chapter Eighteen: Decade of Fear: The 1990s
The 1989 massacre at Tiananmen Square, the agreement for the UK to abandon Hong Kong, and business opportunities brought more overseas Chinese to the USA. [0 said about former Red Guards emigrating.] Ms. Chang weeps over the separated families, reminiscent of the 19th C., as overseas Chinese put all their energy into getting rich and tells readers of the 'parachute kids.' After a few years kidnappers and people smugglers were at work but the author largely ignores the burden borne by other residents.
Chapter Nineteen: High Tech vs. Low Tech.
"The growing divide between American haves and have-nots was felt keenly not only among whites and blacks, but within the ethnic Chinese population as well (349)." Both well-off and quite poor Chinese continued to arrive. The Computer Age suited the skill set of some Chinese well, Jerry Yang of Yahoo! being a good example, and connections with Taiwan made for manufacturing efficiencies. The author admits that the H1-B visa program (Immigration Act of 1990) favored employers seeking fodder for exploitation. Ms. Chang gives many pages to the growing competition with the PRC and obviously believes that the PRC is stealing very little data, the furor being more anti-Chinese rot.
She gives several pages to the adoption of unwanted girls from orphanages and ends the chapter with the hard life of poor Chinese who were smuggled in by snakeheads.
Chapter Twenty: An Uncertain Future.
"I can only close this book with a fervent hope: that readers will recognize the story of my people--the Chinese in the United States--not as a foreign story, but a quintessentially American one (389)." Ms. Chang lists the positive attributes of her people and then deplores examples of Chinese still being seen as 'foreigners.' She pins her hopes of a better day on multi-ethnic Chinese-Americans, political activity, and the founding principles of the USA. [The first Gulf War was about oil, used by all, but almost no one of Chinese descent served, leaving the burden to Anglos and especially to Black Americans.]
[The untimely death of the inept Chinese-American soldiers after publication is a disgrace.]
