Product Description
In this remarkable memoir, Tung Pok Chin casts light on the largely hidden experience of those Chinese who immigrated to this country with false documents during the Exclusion era. Although scholars have pieced together their history, first-person accounts are rare and fragmented; many of the so-called "Paper Sons" lived out their lives in silent fear of discovery. Chin's story speaks for the many Chinese who worked in urban laundries and restaurants, but it also introduces an unusually articulate man's perspective on becoming a Chinese American.

Chin's story begins in the early 1930s, when he followed the example of his father and countless other Chinese who bought documents that falsely identified them as children of Chinese Americans. Arriving in Boston and later moving to New York City, he worked and lived in laundries. Chin was determined to fit into American life and dedicated himself to learning English. But he also became an active member of key organizations—a church, the Chinese Hand Laundrymen's Alliance, and Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association—that anchored him in the community. A self-reflective and expressive man, Chin wrote poetry commenting on life in China and the hardships of being an immigrant in the United States. His work was regularly published in the China Daily News and brought him to the attention of the FBI, then intent on ferreting out communists and illegal immigrants. His vigorous narrative speaks to the day-to-day anxieties of living as a Paper Son as well as the more universal immigrant experiences of raising a family in modest circumstances and bridging cultures.

Historian K. Scott Wong introduces Chin's memoir, discussing the limitations on immigration from China and what is known about Exclusion-era Chinese American communities. Set in historical context, Tung Pok Chin's unique story offers an engaging account of a twentieth-century Paper Son. ... Read more

Product Description
Driven Out exposes a shocking story of ethnic cleansing in California and the Pacific Northwest when the first Chinese Americans were rounded up and purged from more than three hundred communities by lawless citizens and duplicitous politicians. From 1848 into the twentieth century, Chinatowns burned across the West as Chinese miners and merchants, lumberjacks and fieldworkers, prostitutes and merchants' wives were violently loaded onto railroad cars or steamers, marched out of town, or killed.
But the Chinese fought back--with arms, strikes, and lawsuits and by flatly refusing to leave. When red posters appeared on barns and windows across the United States urging the Chinese to refuse to carry photo identity cards, more than one hundred thousand joined the largest mass civil disobedience to date in the United States. The first Chinese Americans were marched out and starved out. But even facing brutal pogroms, they stood up for their civil rights. This is a story that defines us as a nation and marks our humanity. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

"DRIVEN OUT" DEMONSTRATES MODEL SCHOLARSHIP
There were nearly 200 expulsions of Chinese populations from American communities in the American West and Northwest from the early 1850s to 1906.

White Protestant nativists - as well as immigrants whom the nativists vilified - were vocal in their objections to Chinese living in their midst, even as the latter were helping to build the railroads, working as launderers and domestics and laboring in mines, in canneries, in logging camps and on ranches. Notes Pfaelzer, "The white man's racial rhetoric was, in fact, about himself: the Chinese worked too many hours; the Chinese worker was drugged on opium; the Chinese worker was slovenly; the Chinese debased the town and created the need for civic jobs; the Chinese ate rats; the Chinese were renters; the Chinese lived in overcrowded housing; the Chinese demanded the right to own property; the Chinese were expected to send scarce money back to their homeland."

The Chinese were also derided as "sojourners," people with unbreakable ties with their empire across the ocean and incapable of assimilating and becoming good, loyal American citizens - even if white Americans would have them. The assaults on life, liberty and property that resulted from this mind-set ranged from the spontaneous to the systematic: from armed gangs of resentful white prospectors evicting their Chinese counterparts from the California gold fields, to average citizens joining in boycotts to deprive their resident "celestials" of their livelihoods.

For example, in Eureka, Calif., in early 1885, an unfortunate incident in which a city councilman was shot to death during a dispute between two Chinese turned into an excuse for vigilantes to round up more than 300 Chinese residents, imprison them in warehouses, then force them onto ships bound for San Francisco. The eviction conducted in Washington Territory in November of that year would follow Eureka's model.

By contrast, in late 1885 and early 1886, the white citizens of Truckee, Calif., sought a more peaceful means of expulsion by boycotting Chinese businesses and those that employed Chinese workers. Never mind the fact that Truckee's Chinese were "renters, shoppers, and low-paid laborers, and white agents made money from their legal, real estate, and commercial transactions," and that "seemingly, this interracial relationship benefited everyone," writes Pfaelzer: The so-called Truckee Method, while slower than the Eureka Method, achieved the same goal.

Pfaelzer's scholarship is exemplary, not just because it reveals that expulsions of Chinese were common exercises in ethnic cleansing - rather than just a few isolated incidents - in small towns and large over a period of more than 50 years, but because most of this information was there all along for the sifting, in newspaper accounts and public documents. No newly uncovered treasure trove of documents, no long-buried diaries suddenly brought to light: Rather, Pfaelzer took what others missed and added an essential and long-overdue chapter to our nation's past.

But Pfaelzer gives us much more than a litany of shameful events: She shows that beleaguered Chinese were willing to stand up for themselves by using the legal system to sue for reparations, by testifying to the injustices that they were subjected to, by striking for fair wages and refusing to supply goods to hostile businesses - even purchasing arms to defend their homes and their lives. Certainly, the Chinese understood the rights and duties that American citizenship entailed; what they were denied was the paperwork that would give them that legal status.

What a twist of events
I could hardly put it down.At one point, you get tired of hearing about Chinese being driven out of everywhere in the West.However, the book picks back up with the Chinese fighting back with the very products of democracy.A double standard still exists today.White american loves Chinese as a group, but dislike us as individuals.(sound familiar?)

For everyone growing up Chinese in America, this is a must read, not so much as to be revengeful for to understand the complexities of life in the U.S. and how we got here.

It's pretty ironical to see today's situation.For the most part, the Chinese in America are fairly successful.Our ethnic motherland's potential integration only produces more resentfulness as is being previewed by the Australians in the current environment.

The Best History of Ethnic Cleansing of Chinese in late 19th Century US
An exhaustive historical treatise about ethnic cleansing during the Gold Rush era. The best 1-page introduction to Professor Pfaelzer's work can be summarized on the California map p.ix where over 200 sites of Chinese expulsionary roundups occurred. The markers show that most are concentrated in the Sacramento and San Jacquin river basins, Sierra mountain range, SF Bay area, and the northern CA coast. This unique illustration shows that the Chinese ethnic cleaning was a widespread and systematic pogrom perpetuated by mining settlements, townships, and city groups. The documentation includes names of city father's and vigilante group leadership who sanctioned and perpetuated lynchings and burning Chinatowns to the ground.

Pfaelzer, writing from a political and legal historian POV, newspaper cites (without page#) from city, state and national historical society archives, legal cites from local courts and government documents to the Library of Congress, and from Western and Chinese scholars conversations and books written in English. She includes a few personal interviews with 3nd and 4th generation Chinese immigrants who survived the persecution and exclusion.

From the groundswell of anti-Chinese support, Pfaelzer shows how political inflammation in local, state and national newspapers lead to the US's Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, passed by Congress and Presidents Arthur (1881-5 (Rep)) and Cleveland (1885-9, 93-97 (Dem)), and its enforcement for 60+ years, only recinded during WWII. This Exclusion exempted CN foreign students and members of the "merchant" class, however, this exemption was not uniformly practiced, cite 142, p386. This history doesn't examine the "Paper Son" controversy after the SF Earthquake and Fire of 1906 which destroyed most CN immigration and birth records. It is also weak in the area of the CN Family associations (China 6) and Tong protection gangs.

Pfaelzer's book is nicely illustrated with 80 B&W drawings and pixs including 15 anti-Chinese newspaper cartoons and posters, a 12-pg index, a 30-pg notes and reference, and a 4-pg Acknowledgments sections. She also refers to a PBS / KEET-13 (Eureka Public TV) underwrote, in part, a HSU TV symposium, "The Chinese in Humboldt County (2003)," p348 and there is a NPR program sponsored by the Commonwealth Club of CA on 15 Jan 08 discussing her book (fora.tv15Jan08). Furthermore, Bill Moyers developed a three part series titled "Becoming American: The Chinese Experience" aired in March 2003, covering similar material that Pfaelzer presents.

Curiously, Pfaelzer does not cite Iris Chang's previous seminale book on "Chinese in America: a narrative history (2003)". Chang's book was this reviewer's first detailed study of 500+pgs on Chinese immigration history. Perhaps Chang's being a J-school UG and later suicide, as opposed to a certified history academician, caused this lack of regard? YouTube 1hr(9h8LVorTecE) at UC Santa Barbara.

In Chap1, "Gold!" Pfaelzer shows that the ethnic cleansing is multi-racial, not limited to Chinese, but included Mexican mestizos, Native Americans, and later Japanese migrants. Then in Chap7 "Litany of Hate," in a 34-pg "Black Page" section, she summarizes white cleansing, as well as Chinese resistance, activities for the 1880 decade. Throughout she shows that the ostensible, but untrue, rationale by the white majority that cheap Chinese coolie labor was denying them higher paying jobs, especially during the 1873-96 Long Depression era worldwide and just after the Mexican-US War (1846-48) pxxx.

Pfaelzer's work was sparked by noticing that there was no Chinese-American students at CA State Univ, Humboldt during her new professorship days; 30 years later Prof Pfaelzer, now age 63, completes this work p.xxv by uncovering a surprisingly broad and detailed paper trail. Her nation-wide due-diligence was an exhaustive "connecting-the-dots." Her "raison d'etre" to conduct such an exhaustive study on the Chinese sojourner era is backdropped by her own family's immigration p.xxviii from Europe as Jews being persecuted by Nazi Germany only two to three generations later.

The Ethnic Cleansing That Failed...
...and thank goodness! The efforts to expel by violence and exclude by law the Chinese from joining the great migration of peoples from the "Old World to the "New" seem, from our vantage point in 2008, to have been as unsuccessful as they were vicious. May it ever be so!

I picked this book up because amazon's marvelous computer "recommended" it to me after I reviewed the book "Island", about the INS quarantine barracks on Angel Island in SF Bay. This is a more vivid account of the violent campaign waged after the building of the transcontinental railroad, to drive the Chinese out of rural America and into urban ghettoes, to deny them the rights and opportunities of ordinary citizens, and even to deprive them of life. It's based on, and includes, some powerful first-person narratives, and it reaches well beyond the Bay Area in the agricultural counties of California, Oregon, and Washington.
It also includes vivid accounts of Chinese resistance to ethnic cleansing, from evasion to self-defense to legal activism. These acts of resistance will be news to most readers, including American-born Chinese. They were exciting news to me.

One previous review, by Dr. Dolhenty, which praises the book's even-handedness and gives it five stars, also contains some amazing statements concerning the possibility that such information could fuel an imagined "Blame America" sentiment. The doctor proceeds to justify America, not absolutely but relatively, using the argument that "we" weren't nearly as bad as X, Y, & Z. So no apologies needed! We were only doing what "everyone" did in those days; we just weren't as good at it! What an incredibly infantile self-justification! Just come out and say, I chopped down the cherry tree, and stop equivocating! Or have we degenerated so far from the forthrightness that Parson Weems attributed to our Founding Father? If so, Americans should give up the study of history forevermore, since history is only useful to peoples who can acknowledge their past mistakes with dignity.

Well-written, painful to read! It should be homework for citizenship tests.

A sad, but true history.
Driven Out is a disturbing but detailed look at a sad chapter in American history. The pictures and quotes enliven the chapters and give an acurate account of the early chinese pioneers in our west. It shows the effects of the bizzare sounding laws and the exclusion acts of the 1880s. It gives a particularly intense picture of the plight of chinese women who were singled out for white agression as part of a national policy to keep the chinese as temporary workers. It is a history I never heard in school and one we should all be more familiar with today. It lends itself to discussions of immigration as well as racism and feminism. The rather academic style is lighted by stories of specific people and incidents. It is well worth reading. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Getting it Right
Of all the current history books on the Asian American experience, Roger Daniels' book "Asian America" still stands out as the most scholarly, the best thought-out and the most clearly presented. While thisis not to deny the achievements of Asian American historians such as RonTakaki (whose "Strangers From a Different Shore", and "IronCages" remain classics), Daniels' book presents a more systematicaccount of the social and historical context for the Chinese and Japaneseexperience in the US.He has an undoubted talent for presenting historicaldata with rigor, sensitivity, and skill.

I recommend this volume to allmy students who are doing papers on Chinese or Japanese American topics,but it is also useful for anyone who wants to understand the development ofthe particular version of US race ideology during the late 19th andearly-mid 20th centuries.

Highly highly recommended

Great Book
I Used This Book On History Project. It Was Great. ... Read more

Product Description
This lively book explores changes in contemporary China through the compelling personal accounts of young Chinese journalists. Through a series of engaging oral histories, Judy Polumbaum puts a human face on vital issues of freedom of expression and information that will chart China's future. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

... And some have great humanity thrust upon them
(with apologies to WS, Twelfth Night II:5)

This is a wonderful book - a testament, really, to karma, commitment, compassion, and surrender to the personal tao. It is also an easy and engaging read - easy, that is, when one is prepared for the flood of evocations inevitable when such universal stories are recounted so intimately.

The book comprises a well-orchestrated score of lively reminiscences by Chinese journalists in diverse positions and media (from Finance & Economics Magazine to call-in radio), each a unique and yet broadly applicable path to service. Since the personal dramas are set on the largest of national stages, the dynamism of recent Chinese decades naturally infuses and enriches the subject matter.

This volume could be read profitably as a book on the startling evolutions in expression and other freedoms, turmoil in power politics, subtle and gross international relations and influences. For the non-historian (and non-journalist), there emerges a portfolio of powerful recountings of the one Hero's Journey: variously driven by intention, led by happenstance, entrained in strange eddies and whorls as the energies of empire expand into capitalism and post-Confucian self-determination, all following the ancient pattern of Separation from swaddling role - Initiation - Existential challenge - Transformation - Return with gifts to the tribe. In every case, the subject-speakers tell nakedly honest stories (eliciting them is only part of the genius of the author) of how speaking for the many happened to and through them, rather than something admitting of solipsistic or egotistic ownership. The power of this narrative is both greater and more subtle than that of narrator or subject.

Is this a guide to good journalism? I wouldn't know; I aren't a journalist, and don't even take the papers. Is it a guide to great story-telling, in the sense of unadorned truth told warmly and compellingly? Unexceptionably.

More than both, and the magic of its universality, it is an engaging guide to trusting both inner wisdom and evanescent opportunity in honor (not pursuit) of life and meaning that could not even be imagined in anticipation. It calls itself a book about Change, China and Journalism. Like the I Ching, it is also a book about Being, Life and Humanity. ... Read more

Product Description
When Shek and little Wong journey to America in 1865, they have work! Along with hundreds of other Chinese, the brothers are going to help build a great railroad across the West. But as days grow into months, Shek and Wong endure more than they could have imagined-bleeding hands, blasting dynamite, and treacherous avalanches. For very little pay. Are they being treated this way because of their almond-shaped eyes-because they are coolies?

Inspired by actual events in the history of the American railroad, Coolies reveals the harsh truth about life for thousands of Chinese laborers, while it celebrates the love and loyalty between two brothers who were determined not only to survive, but to succeed. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

A tribute to immigrant ancestors, and a reminder of the hard work of immigrants
This is a great book to read with children to help them understand some of the present-day debates about immigrant workers in America.Like their modern-day counterparts, the brothers in this story leave their home country to seek economic opportunity, not only for themselves, but for the family they leave behind.They endure a harrowing journey across the Pacific and then take on dangerous work.They are mistreated by their bosses, discriminated against and taken for granted.At one point, the older brother loses two of his toes due to frostbite.However, they persevere despite that, and the story ends on three happy notes: 1) they have four generations of descendants, 2) they are able to bring their family to the US, and 3) they take pride in their contribution to one of the most amazing engineering feats in the US: the construction of the transcontinental railway.

Recommended for children age eight and up.

This book explores themes of family loyalty, courage, and sacrifice
During the Ching Ming festival to honor their ancestors, PawPaw (grandmother) tells her young grandson the story of her great-grandfather Shek and his brother younger brother, Wong. Anxious to find work during desperate times in China, the boys leave their family behind and immigrate to America in the mid 1800s. After a difficult two month voyage, the two arrive in San Francisco and are hired by the Central Pacific Railroad Company to build the tracks towards the east. Enduring dangerous working conditions, primitive equipment, hatred, and prejudice, the two become "coolies," the lowly workers who achieved the amazing feat of building of the transcontinental railroad. Told through the personal story of two brothers, the book explores themes of family loyalty, courage, and sacrifice which are integral to our nation's immigrant history. Illustrated with panoramic paintings, Coolies will inform and inspire young readers.

Accurate California Story
The book, "Coolies" is a very accurately written story about the Chinese experience in California.It is the story of two brothers who work on the building of the railroad going east and the hardships that they endured.Based on many historical facts, the author tells of their dedication to each other and to the job of working on the completion of the tracks into Utah.

Asians in America
My first inclination when I saw the title COOLIES was offensive, but as I read the book, I thought how appropriate the title was.I applaud the publisher and author for reminding us of the truth about the Chinese's struggle for dignity and equal rights.The illustrations are luminous and complimentary to the text.I appreciated the artist's attention to detail all the while capturing the human spirit and struggles of early Chinese life in America.This is a must have book for all libraries to include as part of Asian studies.Asians must owe it to the Chinese (especially the Cantonese) whose sacrifices paved the way for all Asians living comfortably in this country today.

Historic Story of Early Chinese-Americans
Delightful story of two young boys who leave China and travel to US to earn money to send home. It begins because a grandmother is trying to teach her grandson the importance of honoring their ancestors.

The story is told by the young boys as they take us on the voyage, into the work camps and show us a glimpse of the predujices they faced in America.

It shows of the love the two boys have for each other and how they sacrifice to see to each others needs during this hard time.In spite of what they face, the boys remain optimistic.

The illustrations are beautiful. ... Read more

Product Description
A comprehensive account of the life of composer Chou Wen-Chung, including biographical information, cultural and musical analysis of his approach and compositions, and ethnomusicological insights. ... Read more

Product Description
No one knows how many Chinese are being smuggledinto the United States, but credible estimates put the number at50,000 arrivals each year. Astonishing as this figure is, it representsonly a portion of the Chinese illegally residing in the United States.Smuggled Chinese presents a detailed account of how this traffic isconducted and what happens to the people who risk their lives toreach Gold Mountain.

When the Golden Venture ran aground off New York's coast in1993 and ten of the 260 Chinese on board drowned, the publicoutcry about human smuggling became front-page news. Probinginto the causes and consequences of this clandestine traffic, Ko-linChin has interviewed more than 300 people--smugglers, immigrants,government officials, and business owners--in the United States,China, and Taiwan. Their poignant and chilling testimony describes aflourishing industry in which smugglers--big and littlesnakeheads--command fees as high as $30,000 to move desperatebut hopeful men and women around the world. For many whosurvive the hunger, filthy and crowded conditions, physical andsexual abuse, and other perils of the arduous journey, life in theUnited States, specifically in New York's Chinatown, is adisappointment if not a curse. Few will return to China, though,because their families depend on the money and status gained byhaving a relative in the States.

In Smuggled Chinese, Ko-lin Chin puts a human face on thisintractable international problem, showing how flaws in nationalpolicies and lax law enforcement perpetuate the cycle ofdesperation and suffering. He strongly believes, however, that theproblem of human smuggling will continue as long as China'scitizens are deprived of fundamental human rights and economicsecurity.

Smuggled Chinese will engage readers interested in humanrights, Asian and Asian American studies, urban studies, andsociology. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Smuggled Chinese
This is an interesting book, an obvious result of extensive research. It best serves as a historical reference tool for anyone interested in the crisis of Chinese being smuggled to the U.S. in the 80's and early 90's. That is also its shortcoming, since it lacks any reference to more recentevents related to the smuggling of Chinese into the U.S.This was a majordisappointment to me for a book published in 2000.The book would bewell-served to be updated with reference to new routes being used bysmugglers; the INS Global Reach program, new offices in China, and effortsto disrupt the smuggling trade; the Chih Yung interdiction and other boatsstopped off Mexico and Central America; the Spring 1999 influx ofsmuggler's ships in Guam and Tinian; and the impact on the smuggling ofChinese as a result of the 1996 immigration reform law. ... Read more

Product Description
From the 1930s through the 1970s, Chinese American owned supermarkets located outside of Chinatown, catering to a non-Chinese clientele, and featuring mainstream American foods and other products and services rose to prominence and phenomenal success in Northern California, only to decline as union regulations and competition from national chains made their operation unprofitable. Alfred Yee’s study of this trajectory is an insider’s view of a fascinating era in Asian American immigration and entrepreneurship. Drawing on oral interviews with individuals who worked in the business during its peak and decline, he presents an accessible history that illustrates how this once-thriving business fostered the social and economic integration of Chinese Americans into life in the United States.

Yee demonstrates how Chinese American supermarkets were able to sell American groceries at reduced prices by using the cheap labor of family members and Chinese immigrants whose entry to the United States had been sponsored by their employers. This type of symbiotic relationship was eventually undermined by labor unions’ demands that employees be covered by labor laws and fully compensated for all hours worked. Also contributing to the ultimate demise of Chinese American supermarkets were increasing costs of capitalization and operation, the dominance of national chain stores, and difficulties arising from traditional Chinese methods of business management. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Chinese-owned groceries in California
An excellent contribution to the local history of Northern California and a remarkable insight into the nature of Chinese integration into American society and business, written by an author with personal knowledge of the retail food industry and the scholarly qualifications to do the in-depth research necessary for the book. The author traces the rise and decline of Chinese-owned grocery stores in Northern California - not ethnic grocery stores aimed at the Asian market, but general-purpose stores and supermarkets advertised for everyone. In the 1920's and 30's Chinese entrepreneurs began with local markets in Sacramento, Yuba City, and the Bay Area, then in the 50's and 60's developed these stores into heavily advertised chains such as the Giant Foods of the title, Farmers Markets, Famous Foods, and Bel Air Markets (which still exist under non-Chinese ownership). Using low-cost labor, primarily family members and recent immigrants, these markets were able to undercut their competitors' prices. But the owners' reluctance to modernize and to build for the long term caused these markets, with some exceptions, to lose their competitive status and to eventually be sold to non-Chinese rivals. The author also includes valuable information on the California grocery workers union and on the current state of the retail food industry.
Highly recommended for anyone interested in Northern California history. ... Read more

Product Description
Based largely on interviews from residents of Atlanta's Chinese community, this book provides new insights on the rise of Asian communities in the Southeast United States since the US immigration policy changes in 1965. ... Read more

Product Description
In 1982, twenty thousand Chinese American garment workers - mostly women - went on strike in New York's Chinatown and forced Chinese garment industry employers in the city to sign a union contract. In this pioneering study, Xiaolan Bao penetrates to the heart of Chinese American society to explain how this militancy and organized protest, seemingly so at odds with traditional Chinese female behavior, came about. Blending poignant and dramatic personal stories culled from over a hundred interviews with a detailed history of the garment industry, Chinese immigrant labor, and the Chinese community in New York, Bao shows how the participation of married women in wage-earning labor outside the home profoundly transformed their image and relationships. ... Read more

Product Description
In 1887, more than thirty Chinese gold miners were massacred on the Oregon side of Hells Canyon, the deepest canyon in North America. Massacred for Gold, the first authoritative account of the unsolved crime, unearths the evidence that points to an improbable gang of rustlers and schoolboys, one only fifteen, as the killers.

The crime was discovered weeks after it happened, but no charges were brought for nearly a year, when gang member Frank Vaughan, son of a well-known settler family, confessed and turned state’s evidence. Six men and boys, all from northeastern Oregon’s remote Wallowa county, were charged—but three fled, and the others were found innocent by a jury that a witness admitted had little interest in convicting anyone. A cover-up followed, and the crime was all but forgotten for the next one hundred years, until a county clerk in Wallowa County found hidden records in an unused safe.

Massacred for Gold traces the author’s long personal journey to expose details of the massacre and its aftermath and to understand how one of the worst of the many crimes committed by whites against Chinese laborers in the American West was for so long lost to history. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

A very tragic, sad and shameful piece of history
This is an excellent book if you like history. Gregory Nokes has put a great deal of time into researching this story.Unfortunately the people who may know the truth of this terrible slaughter for gold aren't talking.I have wanted to read this book for a long time and was waiting for it to come to the Kindle since that is the main source of my reading.I finally gave up and just bought the book.I am glad I did.The Chinese who came during the Gold Rush days were treated as sub human and terribly abused.But this terrible tragedy was covered up and hidden to protect some families in the area,some of those families still remain in the area,and it is hard to believe something so terrible could happen and no one be held accountable.
Massacred for Gold: The Chinese in Hells Canyon is well worth your time to read.Well written and hard to put down.

Book - "Massacred for Gold: The Chinese in Hells Canyon"
Sad and disturbing, this book is nonethless an amazing study of the treatment of immigrants in the U.S. (particularly the oriental genre). The base of this story is the gold fever gripping the population, part of the cause (justification) for the massacre.Quick turnaround made the transaction that much better.Thanks!

The list goes on and on
MASSACRED FOR GOLD is a "local history" -- better executed and with broader appeal than most local histories.At the center of the book is the tale of one of the lesser-known massacres of minorities by whites during the second half of the 19th Century - this one, the massacre of 34 (or 31) Chinese men at the bottom of Hells Canyon along the Snake River on the Oregon/Idaho border on May 25, 1887.

The names of only eleven of the victims are known; the rest are utterly lost tohistory.All or most of the 34 (or 31 - the precise magnitude of the atrocity also is lost to history) had come to the United States to work on the railroads and then been let loose when their railroad was finished or work was halted due to recession.For six months they had been panning for gold and re-working tailings left by white miners along a sand bar at the mouth of a creek at the bottom of Hells Canyon (which is even deeper, from rim to river, than the Grand Canyon).The crime was discovered in June 1887 after decomposed bodies, some badly mutilated, began floating out of Hells Canyon.The generally accepted theory is that a gang of six ne'er-do-wells and part-time rustlers - all from local ranch families - killed the Chinese for their six-month accumulated horde of gold dust (perhaps $10,000 worth).

The author of MASSACRED FOR GOLD is R. Gregory Nokes, who first came upon the story in his work as a reporter for "The Oregonian".After he left the paper, he continued to research the story for ten years.

Beyond his historical reconstruction of the massacre, Nokes also relates how he went about re-constructing the story:reading (and attempting to reconcile) several other accounts of the story written decades ago; research in the National Archives; visiting the site; and trying to locate official records of a two-day trial that ended up in the acquittal of three of the accused murderers (the others left the area and never were apprehended).This part of the book is instructive on the vicissitudes of historical research.Nokes also discusses at some length the efforts of succeeding generations of whites in the area, including descendants of the families of the accused, to repress or cover-up the massacre.Yet another aspect of the book concerns more generally the role of Chinese laborers in the "settling" (i.e., displacing of Native Americans) of the West and the many instances of odious treatment of them by whites.(For example, in addition to the Hells Canyon massacre, 28 Chinese workers were killed by white coal miners in September 1885 in Rock Springs, Wyoming Territory; in Los Angeles, during the year 1871, nineteen Chinese were murdered, seventeen of them lynched.)

And how many other similar tales of "America the Beautiful" are there?

Not enough substance
Massacred for Gold was a long boring read taking place in the State of Oregon, that could have been written more to the point. The author wastes the readers time by talking about everything except the Massacre. For example, the author pauses to talk about Multnomah Falls; something that did not belong in context of the book. That is just one of many examples. Although the grammar was good, this book severely missed the mark and could have been written completely in a chapter or two. The rest of the paper is a waste of time and is off subject.

The author go on about this being the biggest crime against Chinese from White's in the United States. What he fails to inform the public is that many more Chinese were killed by Indians than the White Man. I have a deep respect for Chinese people, but this book fell short and was under-investigated in the context of the time. Fifty Chinese miners were massacred by a band of Indians on the way to the mines in theOwyhee Mountains not too far south from the setting of this book, yet there was no mention of it in the book.

There was also no mention of Portland being the genesis of the Chinese food industry, because the white man like their food, and got along with them quite well. There is and still is prejudice against all races against each other. It is unfortunate that the past prejudices of White's are focused on, and other races prejudices are overlooked.

History made accessible
"In Massacred for Gold, Gregory Nokes has not only brought to light an historical atrocity that needed the light of day, but has done it with skill and scholarship. Nokes' background as a seasoned journalist makes this book accessible to readers in a manner that is usually reserved for a novel. A tremendous read!" ... Read more

Product Description
This authoritative book shows how the gap between a group's mean IQ and achievement can be precisely measured, and then partitioned between two factors -- an important methodology with potential application for all ethnic groups. In this case, the author shows that Chinese Americans' occupational achievements are generally far beyond their IQ -- as if they had a mean IQ 21 points higher than they actually do. This unique approach to explaining group achievement emphasizes non-IQ factors such as historical origins, family, work ethic, educational tradition, personality traits, and social institutions.
... Read more

Product Description
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which barred practically all Chinese from American shores for ten years, was the first federal law that banned a group of immigrants solely on the basis of race or nationality. By changing America's traditional policy of open immigration, this landmark legislation set a precedent for future restrictions against Asian immigrants in the early 1900s and against Europeans in the 1920s.

Tracing the origins of the Chinese Exclusion Act, Andrew Gyory presents a bold new interpretation of American politics during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age. Rather than directly confront such divisive problems as class conflict, economic depression, and rising unemployment, he contends, politicians sought a safe, nonideological solution to the nation's industrial crisis—and latched onto Chinese exclusion. Ignoring workers' demands for an end simply to imported contract labor, they claimed instead that working people would be better off if there were no Chinese immigrants. By playing the race card, Gyory argues, national politicians—not California, not organized labor, and not a general racist atmosphere—provided the motive force behind the era's most racist legislation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Blaming the Politicians
In this well researched monograph, Andrew Gyory seeks to answer one question:Why did the United States pass the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882?In the past, historians have clung to two arguments to explain the passage of this act; the California and national-racism theses.The former suggests that workers and politicians in California supplied the driving force behind the Exclusion Act while the latter supports the view that a national xenophobia and prejudice towards the Chinese led to the act's passage.Gyory downplays the role that these two factors had in securing the exclusionist legislation.Instead, he argues that politicians played the race card to improve their political standing in hopes of getting elected to office.Gyory asserts, "The single most important force behind the Chinese Exclusion Act was national politicians of both parties who seized, transformed, and manipulated the issue of Chinese immigration in the quest for votes." Throughout the monograph Gyory seeks to illustrate how politicians took up the issue of Chinese immigration in an attempt to reach their political aspirations.

In order to prove his point, Gyory attempts to disprove the long held thesis that workers nationwide supported Chinese exclusion.He stressed that opposition to Chinese immigration east of the Rockies was largely nonexistent.According to his argument, eastern workers were simply opposed to the Chinese coming to the nation under contract.Hence, white workers had no desire to support immigration legislation based upon race.In fact, Gyory believes, "Most workers evinced little interest in Chinese exclusion." Contrary to prior historiography, he suggests that Chinese exclusion gained acceptance because politicians claimed it would benefit the workingman.Many times throughout his work he blames political maneuvering for securing the act.For example, he claims, "To the very end, politics and political advantage remained the chief motivating force behind every stage of the Chinese Exclusion Act." Although his evidence is convincing, the monograph contains a few shortcomings.

Gyory aptly reveals that eastern workers did not advocate restrictions on free Chinese immigration.However, these workers did not rise up to show their disapproval once the Exclusion Act was passed.Does this silence not suggest that workers possibly supported the act, or were at least indifferent to its passage?Furthermore, the reader will find that the dire situation in California only receives limited attention.Riots and violence were a product of Chinese immigration to the state, but Gyory largely fails, or chooses not to, discuss these events.Moreover, it is difficult to ascertain whether the Chinese Exclusion Act was a product of politicians, or if they were simply responding to public opinion.Despite these problems, the monograph adds greatly to the study of Chinese exclusion.

Gyory's monograph is a great contribution to the historiography of the Chinese Exclusion Act and the reasons it came into existence.By evaluating a wide spectrum of sources - speeches, congressional reports, periodicals, labor journals, and political caricatures - Gyory puts Chinese exclusion in a national context.There is no doubt that his work has caused scholars to reevaluate the old assumptions on what led to the exclusion of Chinese immigrants.However, although he minimizes the impact that white laborers had in securing the legislation, it remains difficult to disprove the long held argument that workers were instrumental to this process.

Well researched look at Chinese exclusion
Andrew Gyory's "Closing the Gate: Race, Politics, and the Chinese Exclusion Act" attempts to answer a central question about the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, specifically why the United States government passed this bill. According to the author, current historians who have examined the issue fail to offer a comprehensive explanation for this event. Gyory claims that the act did not arise from nationwide racism or at the behest of national labor leaders even though these elements formed an important aspect in its passage. Instead, he offers an alternative thesis: the Chinese Exclusion Act came into existence largely because national politicians sought votes from western states. Moreover, office seekers falsely claimed that anti-Chinese legislation had tacit support from workers across the nation and further argued that the laboring classes would greatly benefit from such a bill. Gyory finds that far from supporting an exclusion of Asian workers, most workingmen east of the Rocky Mountains had few concerns with Chinese immigration.

The first few chapters define an issue that repeatedly appears throughout the book: labor in the West supported Chinese exclusion while workers in the East did not. The distinction between the two camps hinged on the issue of importation versus exclusion. Starting in 1869 and reappearing throughout the 1870s, eastern capitalists threatened to import Chinese to break strikes. The fear that these Asian laborers would work longer hours for a lower wage presented a serious threat to emerging efforts at unionization. Most attempts to bring in Asian workers never materialized, despite the hysteria regarding an 1870 incident in North Adams, Massachusetts where a factory owner did bring in Chinese labor to break a strike. It was the implied threat of such a widespread influx of cheap, non-unionized labor that terrified the average eastern workingman. Gyory argues that even when workers thought such a danger loomed on the horizon, they still did not embrace exclusionary policies. The picture that emerges is instead one of eastern workers welcoming the Chinese with open arms as long as they came to the United States of their own freewill and not under contract with factory owners.

The stance of eastern labor did not find a reciprocal attitude in California and the West Coast. These regions supported a ban on Chinese immigration from the highest echelons of society down to the lowest ranks of the working class. Westerners persistently sought legislation at the federal level to end the Asian influx, with men like Denis Kearney embarking on widely touted tours of the East to promote an exclusionist agenda. These efforts either completely failed or achieved only limited results until the national election of 1880 when presidential hopeful Senator James G. Blaine realized that promoting a ban on Chinese immigration could sweep western votes into the pockets of the Republican Party. Blaine failed to secure the presidential nomination, but both parties soon adopted his race baiting tactics in the hope of winning a presidential election in an era of razor thin vote margins. After several intricate political maneuvers in Congress, President Chester A. Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act into law in 1882. Eastern unions, which had ardently opposed immigration bans for so many years, eventually supported exclusion when it became apparent that this measure was the best labor legislation they would likely get from the federal government.

Gyory's research on this issue is exhaustive. By scouring through mounds of newspapers and related documents, he successfully constructs an argument that eastern unions opposed importation while supporting Chinese immigration. His presentation of the political machinations centering on Chinese exclusion shows the author's mastery at negotiating the immense source material concerning congressional debates and election politics. Moreover, the section of the book outlining Denis Kearney's excursion East illustrates the level of hostility westerners had for Asians while revealing the character of this flamboyant orator. Historians, like the public, enjoy reading about such vibrant individuals.

The author's central premise that eastern workers opposed exclusion runs into a major difficulty when one realizes that the book deals almost exclusively with unions or pro-union laborers. Labor unions during the 1870s never came close to representing a majority of workers nationwide, so drawing an overarching conclusion that "workers" opposed exclusion is arguably still up for debate. Moreover, Gyory often fails to make the critical distinction between organized labor and "workers," and would probably have found firmer ground if he had argued that UNIONS in the East opposed exclusion. Of course union members supported Chinese workers; they could build stronger unions if they could convince Asian laborers to join their ranks. Accomplishing this feat would be more difficult if Chinese laborers could only work through restrictive contracts with capitalist owners.

A further problem with this book lies in the hysterical tones westerners used when referring to Asian immigrants. Why did every level of society in the West reach near consensus about the undesirability of the Chinese? Other than a vague reference to westerners living in an area where the Chinese formed a measurable minority of the population, Gyory never examines the reasons for this overwhelming hatred. Defining the causes of this western repugnance would not necessarily translate into a justification of anti-Asian hatred, but rather would provide an explanation for the unanimous calls for exclusion in this area. Several western figures quoted in the book make vague references to vices and prostitution in their arguments for an immigration ban, so certainly there were specific issues on the West Coast that excited public opinion against the Chinese. What were they and why do they not appear in this book?

bringing the state back in
This is the hot new book on the Chinese Exclusion Act.Dare I spoil the plot?Previous literature on the act falls under (1) the California thesis (proposed first by Coolidge in 1909), and (2) the national racist thesis (which includes famous labor theorists like David Roediger and Gwendolyn Mink).Gyory suggests the California thesis is correct, but it needs to be pitched differently: the Republican party becomes a mere electoral apparatus (after abolitionism) and uses the Chinese question to win over the west, rather than chosing a more controversial issue.The reason why I like this book: This was the heyday of courts and parties--he's right and easy to read.

Who caused the Chinese Exclusion Act?
America had become the typical chosen destination of immigrants for its image of a land of plenty, a non-stratified society, and its democracy.This ideal of allowing immigrants to take advantage of these opportunities regardless of their ethnicity ended with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.The rationalization for this law was first hypothesized by Mary Coolidge on the basis of California racist atmosphere and political pull in Washington.Later it was suggested by Stuart Miller that it was workers that encouraged Chinese exclusion.Gyory suggests neither one of these theses are correct, but the catalyst for the prohibition of Chinese immigration was national politicians who seized and manipulated the issue in an effort to gain votes, while arguing that workers had long demanded Chinese exclusion and would benefit from it. Gyory's main intention was to exonerate the workingman as being the contingency that caused the Chinese exclusion.This is stated by including union newspapers and labor proceedings stating their opposition to imported contract labor, but not exclusion.The emergence of a nation-wide railroad strike bared the clear social divisions of the Gilded Age. Demanding `bread or blood,' railroad workers instigated speculation of a possible social revolution and the first red scare of a communist putsch.Upon the perceived anti-Chinese rhetoric and Dennis Kearney's urging Chinese exclusion, politicians were prompted to pick a non-ideological issue to appease these workers' demands.This study does demonstrate a new perspective on the instruments that enacted the Chinese Exclusion Act, but fails to give evidence why the masses accepted the politician's racist platforms.

Great history on the Chinese Exclusion Act!
I throughly enjoyed this well written book. Mr. Gyory documents the relatively unknown treatment of Chinese workers atempting to enter the United States. He illustrates the profound impact which this movement hadon US immigration. Highly recomended. ... Read more

Product Description

This volume explores commercial relations between the United States and China from the eighteenth century until 1949, fleshing out with facts the romantic and shadowy image of "the China trade." These nine chapters by specialists in the field have developed from papers they presented at a conference supported by the national Committee on American-East Asian Relations.

The work begins with an Introduction by John K. Fairbank, then moves on to analysis of the old China trade up to the American Civil War, centering on traditional Chinese exports of tea and silk. A second section deals with American imports into China--cotton textiles and textile-related goods, cigarettes, kerosene. Finally, the impact of the trade on both countries is assessed and the operations of American-owned and multinational companies in China are examined. For both the United States and China, the economic importance of the trade proves to have been less than the legend might suggest.

Product Description
The naming practices of Chinese Americans are the focus of this work. Since Chinese immigration began in the mid-19th century, names of immigrants and their descendants have been influenced by both Chinese and American name customs. This detailed study first describes the naming traditions of China, providing a base for understanding how personal names may change in the interaction between cultures. One discovers that surnames are clues to Chinese dialect sounds, that many have been Americanized, that new surnames were created and that, in more recent decades as the Chinese American population has grown, new names practices developed and surnames have proliferated. Included are ideographs to surnames and an overview of their preservation by Americans of Chinese descent. ... Read more

Product Description
Claiming Diaspora addresses the increasingly plural nature of American cultural identity through a study of the thriving contemporary music culture of Chinese America, ranging from traditional opera to Cantonese pop and from storytelling songs about the immigrant experience to the work of academically trained composers. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Amy Tan: Weavre of Asian-American Tales
Books from this "Authors Teens Love" series are both informative and appealing for youth, because they include authors that teens really like and read, like the one on Amy Tan. The text is simple and straight-forward and includes many photographs from her life growing up. Her humanitarian work will be of interest to young adults, as well as,the section, In Her Own Words, a personal interview with Amy. The chronoloygy, awards, chapter notes and further reading & internet sites will enable readers to discover even more about Amy Tan. Recommended ... Read more