Strangers in the land Exclusion, belonging, and the epic story of the Chinese in America

Review by Booklist Review

Luo's history of the Chinese American immigrant experience emphasizes pockets of belonging amidst a vast landscape of racially motivated exclusion. Beginning in the 1840s, the first major wave of Chinese immigrants entered through San Francisco en route to the gold mines, where they "patiently scratched out earnings" from claims abandoned by white miners. Chinese immigrant labor built the transcontinental railroad, and Chinese entrepreneurs grew the commercial infrastructure of the American West. But, despite the increasingly diverse population and its ideals of liberty and equality in the U.S., Chinese Americans found themselves at the bottom of a racial hierarchy, the victims of both casual violence and legally sanctioned cruelty. In 1882, decades-long efforts to restrict Chinese immigration through "miner's taxes," housing restrictions, and other discriminatory tactics would culminate in the so-called Chinese Exclusion Act, the first significant U.S. legislation to target members of a specific nation of origin. Inspired in part by his own unsettling experience of modern-day anti-Asian racism, award-winning New Yorker editor and writer Luo celebrates the vitality and persistence of Chinese Americans while lamenting feelings of precariousness that pervade even today. His chronicle adds a much-needed Asian and Pacific voice to primarily Eurocentric narratives of nineteenth-century immigration.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Library Journal Review

When gold was discovered in California in 1848, the news spread even to China, where many decided to make the long journey to the States in search of riches. New Yorker reporter Luo tells the story of early Chinese immigrants to the United States from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century. Most of the first arrivals didn't strike it rich and looked for other opportunities, such as working on the transcontinental railroad. White American reactions to their presence ranged from welcoming to hostile. Over time, the hostility grew and was expressed in lynchings and violence that targeted the Chinese community. Political leaders reacted by passing laws such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882; Luo clearly explains the bureaucratic processes used to enforce them. As he traces this history of immigration, readers will appreciate learning about the experiences of individuals such as Yung Wing, a Chinese student who played football while a student at Yale in the 1850s, and Wong Kim Ark, whose Supreme Court case established birthright citizenship in the U.S. VERDICT Highly recommended for anyone interested in the history of Chinese Americans or immigration law in the United States.--Joshua Wallace

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Giving voice to the first Asian Americans. An editor at theNew Yorker, Luo says that the impetus for writing this book was a random encounter on Manhattan's Upper East Side in the fall of 2016, a few weeks before the presidential election. While he was standing outside a restaurant with his family, a woman passed them, then turned around, yelling, "Go back to China!" That incident prompted Luo to write "An Open Letter to the Woman Who Told My Family to Go Back to China," which appeared on the front page of theNew York Times, generating an outpouring of reader response. When anti-Asian violence surged across the country in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, Luo finally decided to write a narrative history of the Chinese experience in America. Such books of history are, of course, legion, and Luo relies on many of these, in addition to original archival research, to craft his own narrative. What distinguishes it from the others, however, is that Luo's book, though sweeping in scope, is also microscopic when it comes to stories. He writes about, for instance, not only Yung Wing, the first Chinese student to graduate from an American university (Yale, class of 1854) and later a prominent diplomat, but also many minor characters who have hitherto remained anonymous in the annals of history. Whether it is the 1871 Chinese massacre in Los Angeles or the brutal killing of Chinese in Rock Springs, Wyoming, in 1885, we now know, thanks to Luo's meticulous digging, the names and stories of some of the survivors of these infamous race riots. Readers interested in American history, not only Chinese American history, will savor these pages. An estimable and vital work of history that honors the Chinese American experience. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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