Author : Roger Daniels

Publisher : University of Washington Press

Year : 1988

Call Number : E184.O6D186

Introduction : In this important and masterful synthesis of the Chinese and Japanese experience in America, historian Roger Daniels provides a new perspective on the significance of Asian immigration to the United States. Examining the period from the mid-nineteenth century to the early 1980s, Daniels presents a basic history comprising the political and socioeconomic background of Chinese and Japanese but between Asian and European immigration experiences, clarifying the integral role of Asians in American history. The book is orgarnized topically and chronologically, beginning with the emigration of each ethnic group and concluding with an epilogue that looks to the future from the perspective of the last two decades of Chinese and Japanese American history. Included in this survey are discussions of the reasons for emigration; the fate of the first-generation immigrants; the reception of immigrants by United States goverment and its people;the growth of immigrant communities; the effects of discriminatory legislation the impact of WWII and the succeeding Cold War era on Chinese and Japanese Americans during the last twenty years.

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.

Author：Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler

Publisher：Oxford University Press

Publishing Year：1994

Call Number：E184.C5H776

Introduction：Turn the pages of your family scrap book or picture album and faces and memories leap out at you. Even if you never knew or don’t remember some of your relatives, the snapshots and keepsakes make them familiar, and the old family stories never fail to bring a laugh and a warm memory. Now turn through the albums of other families——many other families——and see their grandfathers’ and great-grand -mothers’ faces and read their stories. Why did they leave the old country? How did they got here? Why did they live the way they did? What did other people think about them? How did they get along? The family album holds some of the answers.

The Chinese American Family Album is a scrapbook of family letters and diary entries, official documents, newspaper articles, and excerpts from literature of the past and present——a personal remembrance of an extended family of Chinese immigrants and their descendants. As we read, we begin to know this family almost as well as our own. The letters written by the new immigrants to the folks left behind in China allow us to feel the ache of leaving home and family behind. Clippings from newspapers and personal memories tell of the pain of fear and prejudice in the new country. We learn about the building of the transcontinental railroad and how Chinese immigrants were the backbone of the work force, toiling long hours under the worst conditions. We see Chinatown spring up wherever the immigrants landed, and we see how the traditions and culture of China were both preserved and altered as the immigrants became Americanized.

Author：K. Scott Wong and Sucheng Chan

Publisher：Temple University Press

Publishing Year：1998

Call Number：E184.C5C585

Introduction：This collection of essays centers on the formation of an ethnic identity among Chinese Americans during the period when immigration was halted. The first section emphasizes the attempts by immigrant Chinese to assert their intention of becoming Americans and to defend the few rights they had as resident aliens. Highlighting such individuals as Yung Wing, and ardent advocate of American social and political ideals, and Wong Chin Foo, one of the first activists for Chinese citizenship and voting rights, these essays speak eloquently about the early struggles in the Americanization movement.

The second section shows how children of the immigrants developed a sense of themselves as having a distinct identity as Chinese Americans. For this generation, many of the opportunities available to other immigrants’children were simply inaccessible. In some districts explicit policies kept Chinese children in segregated schools;in many workplaces discriminatory practices kept them from being hired or from advancing beyond the lowest positions. In the 1930s, in fact, some Chinese Americans felt their only option was to emigrate to China, where they could find jobs better matched to their abilities. Many young Chinese women who were eager to take advantage of the educational and work options opening to women in the wider U.S. society had to overcome first their family’s opposition and then racism. As the personal testimonies and historical biographies eloquently attest, these young people deeply felt the contradictions between Chinese and American ways; but they also saw themselves as having to balance the demands of the two cultures rather than as having to choose between them.

Author：Peter Kwong

Publisher：Hill and Wang

Publishing Year：1996

Call Number：F128.68.C47K98 1996

Introduction：Newspaper today are filled with stories of corruption and strife in America’s Chinatown, reversing the popular view of Chinese Americans as a model minority of law-abiding, hard-working people whose diligent children end up in high-tech jobs. In The New Chinatown, Peter Kwong goes beyond the headlines in a compelling and detailed account of the political and cultural isolation of Chinese-American communities. This new edition offers a revised and updated text as well as a new chapter on Chinatown in the 1990s.