The Chinese in America
A Narrative History
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4.7 • 7 Ratings
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
A quintessiantially American story chronicling Chinese American achievement in the face of institutionalized racism by the New York Times bestselling author of The Rape of Nanking
In an epic story that spans 150 years and continues to the present day, Iris Chang tells of a people’s search for a better life—the determination of the Chinese to forge an identity and a destiny in a strange land and, often against great obstacles, to find success. She chronicles the many accomplishments in America of Chinese immigrants and their descendents: building the infrastructure of their adopted country, fighting racist and exclusionary laws and anti-Asian violence, contributing to major scientific and technological advances, expanding the literary canon, and influencing the way we think about racial and ethnic groups. Interweaving political, social, economic, and cultural history, as well as the stories of individuals, Chang offers a bracing view not only of what it means to be Chinese American, but also of what it is to be American.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this outstanding study of the Chinese-American community, the author surpasses even the high level of her bestselling Rape of Nanking. The first significant Chinese immigration to the United States came in the 1850s, when refugees from the Taiping War and rural poverty heard of "the Golden Mountain" across the Pacific. They reached California, and few returned home, but the universally acknowledged hard work of those who stayed and survived founded a great deal more than the restaurants and laundries that formed the commercial core they founded a new community. Chinese immigrants building the Central Pacific Railroad used their knowledge of explosives to excavate tunnels (and discourage Irish harassment). Chinese workers also married within the Irish community, spread across America and survived even the racist Chinese Exclusion Act of 1880, which lost much of its impact when San Francisco's birth records were destroyed in the earthquake and fire of 1906 and no one could prove that a person of Chinese descent was not native born. Chang finds 2oth-century Chinese-Americans navigating a rocky road between identity and assimilation, surviving new waves of immigrants from a troubled China and more recently from Taiwan and Hong Kong. Many Chinese millionaires maintain homes on both sides of the Pacific, while "parachute children" (Chinese teenagers living independently in America) are a significant phenomenon. And plain old-fashioned racism is not dead Jerry Yang founded Yahoo!, but scientist Wen Ho Lee was, according to Chang, persecuted as much for being Chinese as for anything else. Chang's even, nuanced and expertly researched narrative evinces deep admiration for Chinese America, with good reason. (May)
Customer Reviews
Something missing
This articulate and thoughtful book is marred in this edition only by the omission of the photographs found in the hardcover print edition. The same omission in The Rape of Nanking leaves the reader with an incomplete experience in reading these fine works. Come on, Apple. Many of your other books have the photos and text. These two books deserve to be presented in their entirety.
An Important Work in American History
Iris Chang's 'The History of Chinese in America' is an important work and should be required reading for any modern American history class. It reads with a smooth flow and covers great range of contributions and triumphs, as well as too many tragedies to speak of.
It is just as much about the powerful taking advantage of the less powerful, in general, as it is about the plight of various generations and groups of emigres. Even though the author reminds the reader that the conditions most left were far far worse than their plight in America, it is still an ugly realization for the reader that the ideal of America isn't a given at all for the Chinese immigrant, and frankly most groups of immigrants in general.
It's a great read, and fills gaps in knowledge formed by the little coverage Asia and Asian Americans received in history classes over the years.
Read it. You'll be happy you did.