Author：Victor G. and Brett de Bary Nee

Publisher：Stanford University Press

Publishing Year：1986

Call Number：F869.S39N372

Introduction：This book is about a community and a people whose roots extend deep into the American past. Most Americans know of San Francisco’s Chinatown, yet few can claim an understanding of this community, the role which its people played in the making of the American West, and the rich tradition and culture which it spawned in its one hundred and twenty year history. In a very real sense Chinatown has been a blind spot of American interest and concern, its people too small in number to pose a serious threat, and the reality of their history in America too painful an experience to remember. This book attempts to bring to the surface the past of Chinatown which has for so long been ignored as well as the present-day life of the people who make up the community. What forces created Chinatown and continue to perpetuate its existence? What has been the source of its exceptional cohesiveness and resilience as an American ethnic community? What is the consciousness of its people? Against the background of the historic process of Chinese immigration as that of the broadest questions with which this book attempts to deal.