Overview

Founded during the Gold Rush years, San Francisco's Chinatown became the largest and most vibrant Chinese community in America, and helped shape white America's view of Asians in general. For those Chinese travelling between the Old World and the New, San Francisco was a port of entry and departure. Many Chinese settled there, forming one of the oldest continuing ethnic communities in urban America. This is a detailed social and cultural history of the Chinese in San Francisco, relating the development of social and cultural institutions, from brothels to the powerful ""Six Companies"". The book aims to recapture not only the community's collective mentalities but also the lives of ordinary people - labourers, theatre-goers, gamblers, and prostitutes. In so doing, the author brings to life individual personalities with their varying human qualities.

Full Product Details

9780804745505

Table of Contents

Reviews

""Chen gives us new insights into the San Francisco community, its inhabitants and their lifestyles, and trans-Pacific connections... Highly recommended."" - Western Historical Quarterly ""A rich and nuanced account of key events in San Francisco Chinatown."" - Choice ""General audiences will enjoy this vivd depiction of Chinatown politics and insider perspectives on tourism. Experts will find this an illuminating ... encounter with a tantalizing new array of sources."" - California History ""This impressively researched study of San Francisco's Chinatown is a valuable contribution to our understanding of the history of the Chinese in America."" - The Journal of American History ""Chin has produced one of the finest first-person narratives available on the Chinese experience in America, and it will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars alike. As K. Scott Wong notes, Paper Son is much more than a story of one man's life in the United States; it ""gives voice to thousands of paper sons."" - Journal of American Ethnic History

Chen gives us new insights into the San Francisco community, its inhabitants and their lifestyles, and trans-Pacific connections... Highly recommended. - Western Historical Quarterly A rich and nuanced account of key events in San Francisco Chinatown. - Choice General audiences will enjoy this vivd depiction of Chinatown politics and insider perspectives on tourism. Experts will find this an illuminating ... encounter with a tantalizing new array of sources. - California History This impressively researched study of San Francisco's Chinatown is a valuable contribution to our understanding of the history of the Chinese in America. - The Journal of American History Chin has produced one of the finest first-person narratives available on the Chinese experience in America, and it will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars alike. As K. Scott Wong notes, Paper Son is much more than a story of one man's life in the United States; it gives voice to thousands of paper sons. - Journal of American Ethnic History

Chen explores the trans-Pacific links between the Chinese immigrants in San Francisco and their ancestral homeland in Guangdong province through Chinese and English language newspapers and magazines, personal diaries and papers, census manuscripts, and many contemporary writings of the period.... Chen gives us new insights into the San Francisco community, its inhabitants and their lifestyles, and trans-Pacific connections.... Highly recommended. - Western Historical Quartely A rich and nuanced account of key events in San Francisco's Chinatown. - Choice

Author Information

Yong Chen is Associate Professor of History and Asian American Studies at the University of California, Irvine.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available