Strangers In The Land: Exclusion, Belonging, And The Epic Story Of The Chinese In America

From New Yorker Writer Michael Luo Comes A Masterful Narrative History Of The Chinese In America That Traces The Sorrowful Theme Of Exclusion And Documents Their More Than CenturyLong Struggle To Belong.One Of The Best Books Of The Year:The Washington Post, Time, Bloomberg Businessweek, Kirkus ReviewsA Story About Aspiration And Belonging That Is As Universal As It Is Profound.Patrick Radden Keefe, Author Of Say NothingA Gift To Anyone Interested In American History. I CouldnT Stop Turning Pages.Charles Yu, Author Of Interior Chinatownstrangers In The Land Tells The Story Of A People Who, Beginning In The Middle Of The Nineteenth Century, Migrated By The Tens Of Thousands To A Distant Land They Called Gum ShanGold Mountain. Americans Initially Welcomed These Chinese Arrivals, But, As Their Numbers Grew, Horrific Episodes Of Racial Terror Erupted On The Pacific Coast. A Prolonged Economic Downturn That Idled Legions Of White Workingmen Helped Create The Conditions For What Came Next: A Series Of Progressively More Onerous Federal Laws Aimed At Excluding Chinese Laborers From The Country, Marking The First Time The United States Barred A People Based On Their Race. In A Captivating Debut, Michael Luo Follows The Chinese From These Early Years To Modern Times, As They Persisted In The Face Of Bigotry And Persecution, Revealing Anew The Complications Of Our Multiracial Democracy.Luo Writes Of Early Victims Of AntiAsian Violence, Like Gene Tong, A Los Angeles Herbalist Who Was Dragged From His Apartment And Hanged By A Mob During One Of The Worst Mass Lynchings In The CountryS History; Of Demagogues Like Denis Kearney, A Sandlot Orator Who Became The Face Of The AntiChinese Movement In The Late1870S; Of The Pioneering Activist Wong Chin Foo And Other Leaders Of The Chinese Community, Who Pressed Their New Homeland To Live Up To Its Stated Ideals. At The BookS Heart Is A Shameful Chapter Of American History: The Brutal Driving Out Of Chinese Residents From Towns Across The American West. The Chinese Became The CountryS First Undocumented Immigrants: Hounded, Counted, Suspected, Surveilled.In 1889, While Upholding Chinese Exclusion, Supreme Court Justice Stephen J. Field Characterized Them As Strangers In The Land. Only In 1965 Did AmericaS Gates Swing Open To People Like LuoS Parents, Immigrants From Taiwan. Today There Are More Than TwentyTwo Million People Of Asian Descent In The United States And Yet The Stranger Label, Luo Writes, Remains. Drawing On Archives From Across The Country And Written With A New Yorker WriterS Style And Sweep, Strangers In The Land Is Revelatory And Unforgettable, An Essential American Story.