Review by Choice Review
It is an unfortunate fact of history that despite ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1865, human trafficking and slavery continued unabated in various locales in the US well into the 20th century. One such locale was San Francisco, Chinatown in particular. Siler (an award-winning journalist) explores the city's underworld of sex slavery and other kinds of forced servitude of Chinese women, shining a light on those who helped rescue thousands of women from their plight. Spanning the later half of the 19th century and first half of the 20th century, the book focuses on Donaldina Cameron, Tien Fuh Wu, and the Occidental Mission Home for Girls they helped found. Located in Chinatown, the Mission Home for decades served as a refuge for women rescued from bondage. In addition to the Mission and the woman who founded it, the author investigates the lives of rescued women and slavers and looks at societal reactions and legal cases surrounding the Mission's abolitionist efforts. The 60-plus photographs scattered throughout bring to life the people and their surroundings. A helpful timeline of events is also provided. The author is not an academic but her book is well researched, her documentation scrupulous. A quick read despite the challenging subject matter. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers. --Brent D. Singleton, California State University--San Bernardino
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by New York Times Review
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Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [June 30, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review
At the turn of the twentieth century, Chinese and Chinese-American human traffickers in San Francisco gave the name White Devil to Donaldina Cameron, an activist who fought trafficking and enslavement and helped to rescue hundreds of women. In this incisive history, journalist Siler (Lost Kingdom, 2011) uses the biographies of Cameron and her longtime assistant, former domestic slave Tien Fuh Wu, to tell the story of San Francisco's Presbyterian Mission Home and its role in the fight against these forms of exploitation during the era of the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882-1943). Their campaigns included literal rescues from sexual or household slavery as well as providing protection and a home to women and girls fleeing enslavement, forced marriages, and other forms of exploitation. Cameron also participated in public antislavery campaigns and fought against stereotypes that portrayed the Chinese as inherently vice-prone, while Wu oversaw and chaperoned the Home's residents towards productive, conventionally American lives. Through their stories, Siler offers a fascinating example of the urgency and ambiguity of turn-of-the-century social reform movements and reformers.--Sara Jorgensen Copyright 2019 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Siler (Lost Kingdom) vividly recounts a shocking episode from America's past in this gripping history. In the latter half of the 19th century, criminal syndicates in China purchased girls and young women from poor families and brought them to California, forcing them to work as domestic servants or prostitutes. From the 1870s through the early decades of the 1900s, white American women organized through their Protestant churches to stop it. They "rescued" Chinese female slaves in San Francisco, offering them shelter, education, job training, and Christian conversion. It wasn't easy work; Silber chillingly describes a city riven by anti-immigrant sentiment and racism (even upstanding Protestant ladies referred to Chinese women as "depraved" or "barbarians") and plagued with political corruption. The criminal syndicates, meanwhile, used lawsuits and violence to retrieve their "property." Still, some of the rescued women found respectable occupations and even married. Donaldina "Dolly" Cameron, who began working at the Presbyterian Mission Home in 1895, sits at the heart of the story. Empathetic and indomitable, Cameron pulled her institution through the 1906 earthquake and expanded its services to provide community child care. Siler narrowly avoids an overfocus on the contributions of white women by weaving in those of women such as Cameron's assistant Tien Fuh Wu. This strong story will fascinate readers interested in the history of women, immigration, and racism. Illus. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Starting in the mid-19th century, Chinese immigrants arrived in California to participate in the Gold Rush and work on the Transcontinental Railroad. The vast majority were men, and thus a lucrative human trafficking operation developed that smuggled Chinese women and girls to the United States, forcing them to work in brothels or as domestic servants. Journalist Siler (The Lost Kingdom) tells the story of the Occidental Mission Home, established in San Francisco in 1874, that worked to free these women. The staff and clients confronted many challenges: dangerous escapes, threats from organized crime, court battles, the 1906 earthquake, and more. Siler highlights a variety of individuals involved, but the most prominently mentioned are Donaldina Cameron, who started at the home in 1895 and later served as director for more than 30 years, and her long-serving aide Tien Fuh Wu. In 1942, the mission was renamed Cameron House and continues to operate today. VERDICT This thoroughly researched work is highly recommended for those interested in the Chinese American experience or the history of San Francisco. [See Prepub Alert, 11/12/18.]--Joshua Wallace, Tarleton State Univ. Lib. Stephenville, TX
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
An eye-opening account of the valiant work of a handful of Christian women against the enslavement of Asian girls in San Francisco's Chinatown from the mid-1870s well into the next century.In her latest impressive work of research and storytelling, San Francisco-based journalist and author Siler (Lost Kingdom: Hawaii's Last Queen, the Sugar Kings and America's First Imperial Adventure, 2012, etc.) delves vigorously into a shocking story of racism and oppression. Well past California's ratification of the 13th Amendment, the white male authorities largely looked the other way when boatloads of Chinese girls and vulnerable other women arrived as cargo from overseas and were quickly corralled into work as prostitutes and indentured servants. Most were tricked by unscrupulous relatives and agents into voyaging to America. They were valuable fodder to feed the "pent-up demand for sex" by the solitary male Chinese workers who had been lured in great numbers by the gold rush of 1848 as well as those who fled the turmoil in South China's Pearl River delta region in the 1860s. The notorious brothels of Chinatown also attracted a considerable white clientele. Rising first to meet the need of girls and women who managed to escape their horrific fates were the wives of Presbyterian missionaries, part of the surge of Christian evangelism at the time known as the Great Awakening. From their modest Presbyterian Mission House on Sacramento Street, on the edge of Chinatown, these brave women, especially the house's superintendent, Margaret Culbertson, sheltered the refugees, defying their gangster handlers; taught them skills such as reading and sewing; served as their advocates and translators in court; and often arranged for them respectable marriages to Chinese men, one of their few options in America. Siler vividly portrays both the vibrant, violent milieu of Chinatown of the eraamid the fear and hatred of the Chinese by whites and the effects of laws such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882and the lives and dedication of the extraordinary women of the Mission House.An accessible, well-written, riveting tale of a dismal, little-known corner of American history. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.