On his 12th birthday, Kai learns that he must leave his home in China and journey alone to Gold MountainAmericato live with his father. The year is 1934, and the U.S. does not welcome Chinese immigrants. When Kai arrives he is detained on Angel Island in a crowded barracks, with harsh interrogations and the threat of being returned to China. Will Kai ever be free to join his father?
In this dramatic memoir of early-twentieth century immigration, author Li Keng Wong shares her family's difficult journey from rural China to a new life in California. In 1933, seven-year-old Li Keng's life changed forever when her father decided to bring his family from a small village in southern China to California. Getting to America was not easy, as their family faced America's strict anti-Chinese immigration laws that meant any misstep could mean deportation and disgrace. Life in America during the Great Depression brought many exciting surprises as well as many challenges. Hunger, poverty, police raids, frequent moves, and the occasional sting of racism were a part of everyday life, but slowly Li Keng and her family found stability and a true home in "Gold Mountain." An author's note contains photos and an update on Li Keng Wong's family. This evocative memoir presents the joys and sorrows of pursuing the American Dream during a time of racism and great poverty, but also immense opportunity. The book also contains information on Angel Island and its significance in history as well as an explanation of the Chinese Exclusion Act.
Working on the Transcontinental Railroad promises a fortune—for those who survive. Growing up in 1860s China, Tam Ling Fan has lived a life of comfort. Her father is wealthy enough to provide for his family but unconventional enough to spare Ling Fan from the debilitating foot-binding required of most well-off girls. But Ling Fan’s life is upended when her brother dies of influenza and their father is imprisoned under false accusations. Hoping to earn the money that will secure her father’s release, Ling Fan disguises herself as a boy and takes her brother’s contract to work for the Central Pacific Railroad Company in America. Life on “the Gold Mountain” is grueling and dangerous. To build the railroad that will connect the west coast to the east, Ling Fan and other Chinese laborers lay track and blast tunnels through the treacherous peaks of the Sierra Nevada, facing cave-ins, avalanches, and blizzards—along with hostility from white Americans. When someone threatens to expose Ling Fan’s secret, she must take an even greater risk to save what’s left of her family . . . and to escape the Gold Mountain alive.
When she was a girl, Lisa See spent summers in the cool, dark recesses of her family`s antiques store in Los Angeles' Chinatown. There, her grandmother and great-aunt told her intriguing, colourful stories about their family`s past - stories of missionaries, concubines, tong wars, glamorous nightclubs, and the determined struggle to triumph over racist laws and discrimination. They spoke of how Lisa`s great-great-grandfather emigrated from his Chinese village to the United States, and how his son followed him. As an adult, See spent fives years collecting the details of her family`s remarkable history. She interviewd nearly one hundred relatives and pored over documents at the National Archives, the immigration office, and in countless attics, basements, and closets for the initmate nuances of her ancestors` lives. The result is a vivid, sweeping family portriat that is att once particular and universal, telling the story not only of one family, but of the Chinese people in America - and of America itself, a country that both welcomes and reviles its immigrants like no other culture in the world.
"My Journey to the West was inspired by my father, uncles and grandfather’s ventures to the Gold Mountain at a very young age. I had already made up my mind that I would follow their paths and embark on this adventurous journey when I grew up and searched for my own fortune." ——Brian Wong 黄荣富 From a small village to the west. From a fish pond to Hong Kong. Across the ocean to the port city of Liverpool... The story of searching for Gold Mountain started with a little boy, Brian Wong, who was living in Kaiping City, a small village in China. Brian Wong knew that one day he would embark on this perilous journey—language difficulties, prejudice—but owing to his endurance and hardworking spirit, he overcame. Follow the steps of his ancestors to achieve his dream of a golden mountain. It is a story about Brian Wong and all the overseas Chinese. See how they built Chinese culture in a foreign land with the Chinese spirit. Over 200 years ago the Wuyi people (Note 1) consisted of five counties: Jiangmen (Xin Hui), Kaiping (my county), Tai Shan, Enping and He Shan, many of them went overseas in search of fame and fortune. They went to San Francisco and later Barkerville, Canada in search of fortune which actually they worked as coolies in laundries or chefs or grocery keepers. Like my grandfather, he left his wife and the extended families behind and embarked on such treacherous journeys, facing racial discrimination, language barriers, harsh and dangerous working conditions. Some of them returned home in triumph. They became financially rich and spent huge sums of money to build the famous ‘Diaolou’ (under the World Heritage Conservation-a fusion of west and east architectural designed mansion called Diaolou) in Wuyi County, Guangdong Province, China. In the 17th century, most of the Chinese went to the West because of the weakness of China, which was still under imperial rule, and was plagued by wars, occupations by great powers, Japanese invasions, famines, floods, and warlordism. Domestically, it was faced with rebellions, Opium Wars and banditry, especially in rural areas. These were the turbulent times in Wuyi County, with many Wuyi people went to Southeast Asia and lost their lives in rubber plantations due to harsh working conditions. My journey will highlight our Wuyi people’s spirit and perseverance across the globe, where the ‘see Yap Dialect’ still exists and is widely spoken in San Francisco today. Features It records the struggle of overseas Chinese, who traveled around the west and developed Chinese culture in a foreign country.
Marlon Hom has selected and translated 220 rhymes from two collections of Chinatown songs published in 1911 and 1915. The songs are outspoken and personal, addressing subjects as diverse as sex, frustrations with the American bureaucracy, poverty and alienation, and the loose morals of the younger generation of Americans. Hom has arranged the songs thematically and gives an overview of early Chinese American literature.
Golden Mountain is a series of locations that fit together to allow you to make the lost mines the goal or easily create additional plots or missions for players utilizing one or all five locations. A dwarf trading town, a fay forest, a hobgoblin realm, a dragon's lair, and dwarf mines, each location is fully developed with NPC's, player resources, hazards and rewards, as standalone locations or an integrated realm.
The United States is truly a nation of immigrants, or as the poet Walt Whitman once said, a nation of nations. Spanning the time from when the Europeans first came to the New World to the present day, the new Immigration to the United States set conveys the excitement of these stories to young people. Beginning with a brief preface to the set written by general editor Robert Asher that discusses some of the broad reasons why people came to the New World, both as explorers and settlers, each book's narrative highlights the themes, people, places, and events that were important to each immigrant group. In an engaging, informative manner, each volume describes what members of a particular group found when they arrived in the United States as well as where they settled. Historical information and background on the various communities present life as it was lived at the time they arrived. The books then trace the group's history and current status in the United States. Each volume includes photographs and illustrations such as passports and other artifacts of immigration, as well as quotes from original source materials. Box features highlight special topics or people, and each book is rounded out with a glossary, timeline, further reading list, and index.
A historical narrative of Lee, John Steinbeck's Chinese cook in East of Eden; and Chinatown, San Francisco in the 19th century. The tale traverses both China and America in their most turbulent centuries; each wrestling with a national identity against the appearance of 'foreigners' on their shores. You will be reading about the life of an 'English-speaking Chinaman'; his travails within an infant but violent Chinatown, his survival in a hostile land with bilingualism as his only weapon, and a torrid forbidden love affair. Lee was a man whose time was not ready for him. This site is dedicated to his story
