This narrative history of Chinese Americans is fascinating. Why did Chinese citizens leave China? Why did they come to America? How did their experience with Anglo-Americans differ from that of other minorities? Did you know that many Chinese men married Irish women? I didn’t. Ms. Chang covers a lot of territory in this book. The newest Chinese immigrants—boys and girls adopted from China—got short shrift, only six pages for thirty plus years of history, while Wen Ho Lee got six pages for his two years in the news. I would have liked as much depth with the adoption issue as we got with the Wen Ho Lee issue. I liked that Ms. Chang went into quite a bit of depth regarding the attitudes and conflicting cultures of Chinese American children and teen-agers. Ms. Chang also addresses the racial limbo of Chinese Americans—in some instances regarded as white, in other instances regarded as people of color. Americans have a history of discriminating against people of color because of the conduct of the citizens in their country of origin. Japanese Americans were imprisoned in WWII while German Americans remained free. Chinese American citizens and immigrants have at different times in American history been imprisoned or sent to China depending on the whim of our government. I see the same thing happening with Hispanic and Arab Americans. Ms. Chang also discusses racism among different ethnicities in China. Four out of four bookworms.
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