The Chinese in America: A Narrative History is a non-fiction book about the history of Chinese Americans by Iris Chang. The epic and narrative history book was published in 2003 by Viking Penguin. It is Chang's third book after the 1996 Thread of the Silkworm and the 1997 The Rape of Nanking. Chang was inspired to write the book after relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area, where she had conversations with key figures in the Chinese-American community. She spent four years researching and writing the book, having conducted interviews and reviewed diaries, memoirs, oral histories, national archives, and doctoral theses.
The book provides an overview of Chinese immigrants to the United States and their descendants. It covers several waves of migration: the first was triggered by the California gold rush and the first transcontinental railroad in the 1850s, the second after the Chinese Communist Party took power in 1949, and the third after China's reform and opening up after the late 1970s. The book describes the discrimination that the Chinese experienced including the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, the holding of arrivals at Angel Island Immigration Station, and the Wen Ho Lee case. It covers how Chinese Americans engaged in activism against the oppression such as the 1867 Chinese Labor Strike, suing plantation owners who breached agreements, and protesting against the United States' shipping scrap metal to Japan during the Second Sino-Japanese War. She weaves people's stories into the overarching historical narrative including vignettes about the "Siamese twins" Chang and Eng Bunker, the news anchor Connie Chung, the architect Maya Lin, the horticulturalist Lue Gim Gong, the Air Force officer Ted Lieu, the author Amy Tan, the actress Anna May Wong, and the entrepreneur Jerry Yang.
Alongside some negative reviews, the book received mostly positive reviews. Reviewers praised the book for being engaging, well-written, and comprehensive. They liked its numerous anecdotes about Chinese Americans. Some commentators criticized the book for being unbalanced, occasionally lacking depth in certain areas, and with a narrative that could be clearer. An audiobook version was released in 2005.
Biographical background and publication
Iris Shun-Ru Chang was born in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1968 to Shau-Jin and Ying-Ying Chang, two Taiwanese scholars who had received doctorates from Harvard University. When Chang was born, the couple were Princeton University postdoctoral researchers. Mandarin Chinese was Chang's first language, and she learned English in preschool. After skipping a grade, 17-year-old Chang began her studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She initially planned to major in computer science and mathematics. In her third year, she changed her major to journalism. As a student, she reported for The Daily Illini, the Chicago Tribune, and The New York Times and interned at Newsweek. She graduated in 1989 and relocated to Chicago where she reported first for the Associated Press and subsequently for the Chicago Tribune.
Chang resigned from her position at the Chicago Tribune in 1990 to enroll in Johns Hopkins University's science writing master's curriculum. She was 23 years old and several months into the Johns Hopkins courses when the publisher Basic Books gave her a book deal, making her its youngest author. The book was about the scientist Qian Xuesen, who, in the midst of the McCarthy era, was deported back to China, where he established its missile initiative. Chang finished her Johns Hopkins studies in 1991 and published the Qiang book, Thread of the Silkworm, in 1995. Despite receiving favorable reviews, the book was not commercially successful.
Chang was inspired to write her next book, The Rape of Nanking, after attending a Cupertino, California, conference in 1994. The conference was about Japanese war crimes, particularly the 1937 Nanjing Massacre when Japan stormed China during the Second Sino-Japanese War. After seeing horrendous images at the conference, she decided to write about the massacre. Chang spent over two years on investigating and writing the book. She was in Nanjing for a month in 1995 to talk to the victims; she separately talked to the Japanese soldiers who perpetrated the massacre. Researching the war crimes deeply impacted her, causing her to have nightmares and routinely cry. Published in 1997, the book received positive reviews and spent 10 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list. The book catapulted her into the spotlight; she appeared on television shows and President Bill Clinton asked her to be a guest at Renaissance Weekend.
Following her relocation to the San Francisco Bay Area, Chang became drawn to the history of Chinese Americans in the middle of the 1990s through conversations with key figures in the Chinese-American community. She began working on The Chinese in America in 1999 and completed it in four years. Having been emotionally drained from writing The Rape of Nanking, she said working on The Chinese in America was "like a vacation" that allowed her "to recover from the wounds of writing Nanking". Chang was motivated to write the book owing to the American media's propagation of "offensive stereotypes" about Chinese Americans. Chang described how the Chinese were depicted in animations as having pigtails, slanted eyes, and buck teeth. In movies, Chinese men and women were depicted as secret agents and sex workers, respectively. The Chinese were shown in textbook drawings as using "long, claw-like fingernails to consume snails".
While writing The Chinese in America, Chang consulted diaries, memoirs, oral histories, national archives, and community newspapers. She conducted numerous interviews and incorporated the story of her family. Chang relied on newly written doctoral theses, a significant number of which were from students who had been born in China. On multiple computers in her house, she catalogued her research in around 4,000 database items. She described the writing process as not challenging but that determining what to include and what to omit was the challenging part.
Viking Penguin published The Chinese in America in April 2003.Evans, Will (2003-06-19). "Iris Chang's new epic seeks to set the record straight" (pages 1 and 2). The Sacramento Bee. Archived from the original (pages 1 and 2) on 2024-06-30. Retrieved 2024-06-30 – via Newspapers.com. Like her two previous books, The Chinese in America discusses efforts by the Chinese people to secure their human rights. Unlike her two previous books which concentrated on particular people and events, The Chinese in America presents a unified storyline of a comprehensive historical period. To promote the work, over the course of 31 days Chang visited 20 cities for her book tour. While visiting Louisville, Kentucky, during a tour for the book, she had a mental health emergency and needed to be admitted to the hospital. According to her literary agent Susan Rabiner, Chang at the time of her death from suicide in 2004 was writing a The Chinese in America book for children.
Style
The Chinese in America is an epic and narrative history. The book interweaves individual narratives into the overarching historical patterns.Nishimura, Scott (2003-06-22). "An American Story: The history of Chinese emigration is a powerful, moving tale" (pages 1 and 2). Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Archived from the original (pages 1 and 2) on 2024-06-30. Retrieved 2024-06-30 – via Newspapers.com. Sian Wu of International Examiner said Chang provides "a diverse, varying portrait" of Chinese people in the United States. Chang profiles both men and women, and the narratives span a diversity of time periods and economic classes. According to the San Jose Mercury Newss Nora Villagran, the book has "a fascinating passage of places and people". She cited Chang's stories about the news anchor Connie Chung, the scientist Wen Ho Lee, the architect Maya Lin, the Air Force officer Ted Lieu, the author Amy Tan, the actress Anna May Wong, and the entrepreneur Jerry Yang.
According to The Christian Science Monitor reviewer Terry Hong, the book is filled with obscure tidbits and thought-provoking ideas that would benefit even academics who were experts in Asian American history. She cited how Chang chronicles that since there were insufficient laundry services in their area, Chinese and white gold rush prospectors mailed their clothes to Hong Kong. Capitalizing on the situation, Chinese entrepreneurs founded local laundromats as they were willing to do the "women's work" white people were averse to doing. A second example, Hong said, was Chang's discussion of "Gold Mountain families", who were particularly prevalent in the relatives in Taishan, Guangdong. These family members no longer possessed employment capability because they enjoyed a high quality of life through remittances from their relatives who were working in the United States. According to Hong, a third example is Chang's inclusion of obscure narratives about Chinese American residents of the Deep South. Chang describes their extensive record of interracial marriages while they negotiated the stresses of not fitting neatly into the black or white racial categories.
Reviewers had different opinions about the book's prose. Kimberly B. Marlowe of The Seattle Times said there is "a curious monotone to her prose in places", while Jill Wolfson of the San Jose Mercury News called it "clear, rich prose". The Willamette Weeks Steffen Silvis found the prose to be a "strong, engaging style", while Wisconsin State Journals William R. Wineke called it "an easy dialogue that carries the reader along". Silvis liked the book's numerous "interesting asides". He cited Chang's discussion of how chop suey was created and how Chang and Eng Bunker, the well-known "Siamese twins", bought slaves and settled in North Carolina. The Los Angeles Times reviewer Anthony Day cited her story about Lue Gim Gong who invented several strains of fruit like that bore his name such as an orange and a grapefruit. His orange could endure freezing temperatures and long-distance transport.Tan, Cheryl Lu-Tien (2003-05-06). "Helping us all understand: Iris Chang's book tries to shed new light on Chinese-Americans" (pages 1 and 2). The Baltimore Sun. Archived from the original (pages 1 and 2) on 2024-06-30. Retrieved 2024-06-30 – via Newspapers.com. Repps Hudson, a book critic for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, said a "fascinating moment" in the book was Chang's chronicling of the Guangdong gold miners who sought to become rich during the California gold rush.
Day of the Los Angeles Times said Chang's style is "straightforward and without grace" and that she narrates the tale "thoroughly and with confidence". He said she discusses but does not furnish the story's intense, poignant matter. She instead leaves it to those who review her book to reflect on the provided information. The National Post columnist John Fraser formed a different view, calling the author a "retroactive emotionalist". He said the book has an "atmosphere of victimology" and a "tone of complaint" that frequently is "inappropriate and ahistorical". Fraser took issue with the tone because he said while it was difficult for transplants in 19th century America, being a resident of China in the 19th and 20th centuries was "infinitely rougher". According to The Sacramento Bees Will Evans, Chang describes "historical details or current events as if reporting on them—but there's an underlying pointed critique, a sense of injustice". Evans interviewed University of California, Berkeley Asian American studies professor Ling-Chi Wang who said, "When you read this book, you can feel her emotion, her feelings about the Chinese American experience."
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