The Chinese in America

The Los Angeles Times

Iris Chang of San Jose, the author of the 1997 book The Rape of Nanking,Anthony Day

The Washington Post

Chang has found a great subject, and her stories are well worth reading. — Peter Schrag

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 20th-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) Forecast: This book is likely to become the primary one-volume popular account of Chinese-American history. Expect excellent review coverage and a warm reception during Chang's 20-city tour, also expect the book to be as unpopular in some circles as Nanking is in Japan. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

In 1998, Chang won acclaim for The Rape of Nanking. Like that book, her latest work is meticulously researched and clearly states her agenda: "The lack of strong Chinese American role models in popular culture-or even realistic images of Chinese Americans as diverse and multifaceted human beings-bothered me deeply." Thus, the purpose of this work is to correct general misperceptions through many excellent examples and, in so doing, narrate a history of how Chinese people came to live in the United States and how they confronted the rise and fall of anti-Asian prejudice. Chang, daughter of second-wave Chinese immigrants, identifies at least four waves of immigration, including pre-1900 "Gold Mountain" settlers, early 1900s pre-Communist sojourners, mid-1900s escapees from the draconian Communist (and Nationalist) political systems, and late-1900s (to the present) technocrats. Though some scholars might hope for more rigorous analysis, general readers will find many surprising aspects of the Chinese American experiences in the United States. Because of its breadth and interesting details, this book is highly recommended for both public and academic libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/03.]-Peggy Spitzer Christoff, Library of Congress Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

California-based historian Chang (The Rape of Nanking, 1997, etc.) searches out common themes in the Chinese immigrant experience over time. "America is a place with gold floors, diamond windows, tall buildings, and seven-foot-tall whites with red moustaches," recalls a Chinese immigrant who came to the US in 1979, sounding very much like his compatriots who arrived in America 13 decades before. They too undertook the dangerous business of relocating to a new land only to discover that racist policies were often the rule and neighbors tended to suspect that the newcomers’ loyalties lay elsewhere. Also unchanging over 150 years, however, were the harsh realities at home that prompted the Chinese to what they called "Gold Mountain" in the first place. The Chinese did not arrive in a single wave, writes Chang; although more than 100,000 of them flocked to work in the goldfields during the California rush of 1849, in general they have come (and gone) at a fairly constant rate throughout the last two centuries, with the occasional surge caused by events such as the Communist takeover of Hong Kong in 1997. As with most other immigrant groups, the children and grandchildren of the newcomers readily enter the cultural mainstream. Unlike many immigrant groups, however, the Chinese have long been singled out, stereotyped, and too often attacked. Drawing on interviews and a wealth of documentary material, Chang brings the immigrant experience into the present, writing effectively of the "three pressures" now facing American-born Chinese: "the pressure to excel, the pressure to become white, and the pressure to embrace their ethnic heritage," all the while contending with a dominant society many ofwhose members mistrust and fear them. Though it lacks the gravity and grace of Lynn Pan’s Sons of the Yellow Emperor (1994), which covers much of the same ground, this is a solid addition in a far-from-exhausted field. Author tour