Author：Jean Lau Chin

Publisher：Teachers College Press

Publishing Year：2005

Call Number：E184.C5C539f

Introduction：This fascinating book takes a new and different look at the immigrant experience of Asian Americans and shows how themes of separation, loss, guilt, and bicultural identity are pervasive in the lives of immigrant families. In Part I, the author introduces the reader to a wealth of old and new myths, symbols, and legends that have shaped the lives of these families for generations. She then shows how these powerful stories and images have worked to both sustain and oppress Chinese Americans as they’ve struggled to build new lives here.

In Part II, the author captures the immigrant experience of many Chinese American families through the voice of her mother, Fung Gor Lee, who arrived in America in 1939 from Hong Kong. Grounded in the trials and tests of forbearance faced by many Asian immigrants in their journey to the west——from the Gild Rush in California during the 1850s, to the Japanese invasion of China, through World War II, communism and McCarthyism, and Finally the civil rights and the women’s movements of the 1960s——this moving account will resonate with all Americans who have immigrant roots.