Book
Strangers in the land : exclusion, belonging, and the epic story of the Chinese in America / Michael Luo.
"From New Yorker editor and writer Michael Luo, a vivid, urgent history of two centuries of Chinese exclusion and the birth of anti-Asian feeling in America. In 1889, when the Supreme Court upheld the Chinese Exclusion Act-a measure barring Chinese laborers from entering the United States that remained in effect for more than fifty years -- Justice Stephen Johnson Field characterized the Chinese as a people "residing apart by themselves." They were, Field concluded, "strangers in the land." Today, there are more than twenty-two million people of Asian descent in the United States, yet this label still hovers over Asian Americans. In Strangers in the Land, Luo traces anti-Asian feeling in America to the first wave of immigrants from China in the mid-nineteenth-century: laborers who traveled to California in search of gold and railroad work. Their communities almost immediately faced mobs of white vigilantes who drove them from their workplaces and homes. In his rich, character-driven history, Luo tells stories like that of Denis Kearney, the sandlot demagogue who became the face of the anti-Chinese movement, and of activists who fought back, like Massachusetts Senator George Frisbie Hoar and newspaperman Wong Chin Foo. After the halt on immigration in 1889, the Chinese-American community who remained struggled to survive and thrive on the margins of American life. In 1965, when LBJ's Immigration and Nationality Act forbade discrimination by national origin, America opened its doors wide to families like those of Luo's parents, but he finds that the centuries of exclusion of Chinese-Americans left a legacy: many Asians are still treated, and feel, like outsiders today. Strangers in the Land is a sweeping narrative of a forgotten chapter in American history, and a reminder that America's present reflects its exclusionary past"-- Provided by publisher.
Record details
- ISBN: 9780385548571 (hardcover)
- Physical Description: x, 542 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm
- Edition: First Doubleday hardcover edition.
- Publisher: New York : Doubleday, 2025.
Content descriptions
| Bibliography, etc. Note: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Formatted Contents Note: | Gold Mountain -- Indian, Negro, or Chinaman -- The Great Army and the Iron Road -- Colorblind -- Rope! More rope! -- The cauldron -- Lewd and immoral purposes -- Order of caucasians -- The Chinese must go! -- The mission -- The Chinese question -- Beyond debate -- The gatekeepers -- Transformations -- Wipe out the plague spots -- White men, fall in -- Driven out -- Contagion -- No return -- Native sons -- Ruin and rebirth -- The station -- Becoming Chinese American -- Confession. |
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | United States. Chinese Exclusion Act. Chinese Americans > History. Chinese > United States > History. United States > Emigration and immigration > History. United States > Ethnic relations. |
Available copies
- 1 of 1 copy available at Tsuga Consortium.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 1 total copy.
Show Only Available Copies
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stroud Branch | 305.8951073 Luo | 31681010417038 | NONFIC | Available | - |
- Baker & Taylor
A New Yorker executive editor and writer follows the Chinese in America from the middle of the 19th century as they persisted amidst suspicion and as a native-born population took shape until finally, in 1965, Americaâs gates swung open to people like his parents, immigrants from Taiwan. Illustrations. - Baker & Taylor
"From New Yorker editor and writer Michael Luo, a vivid, urgent history of two centuries of Chinese exclusion and the birth of anti-Asian feeling in America. In 1889, when the Supreme Court upheld the Chinese Exclusion Act--a measure barring Chinese laborers from entering the United States that remained in effect for more than fifty years--Justice Stephen Johnson Field characterized the Chinese as a people "residing apart by themselves." They were, Field concluded, "strangers in the land." Today, there are more than twenty-two million people of Asian descent in the United States, yet this label still hovers over Asian Americans. In Strangers in the Land, Luo traces anti-Asian feeling in America to the first wave of immigrants from China in the mid-nineteenth-century: laborers who traveled to California in search of gold and railroad work. Their communities almost immediately faced mobs of white vigilantes who drove them from their workplaces and homes. In his rich, character-driven history, Luo tells stories like that of Denis Kearney, the sandlot demagogue who became the face of the anti-Chinese movement, and of activists who fought back, like Massachusetts Senator George Frisbie Hoar and newspaperman Wong Chin Foo. After the halt on immigration in 1889, the Chinese-American community who remained struggled to survive and thrive on the margins of American life. In 1965, when LBJ's Immigration and Nationality Act forbade discrimination by national origin, America opened its doors wide to families like those of Luo's parents, but he finds that the centuries of exclusion of Chinese-Americans left a legacy: many Asians are still treated, and feel, like outsiders today. Strangers in the Land is a sweeping narrative of a forgotten chapter in American history,and a reminder that America's present reflects its exclusionary past"-- - Random House, Inc.
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 century-long struggle to belong.
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR:
THE NEW YORKER, THE WASHINGTON POST, TIME, BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK, KIRKUS REVIEWS
"A story about aspiration and belonging that is as universal as it is profound.ââPatrick Radden Keefe, author of Say Nothing
"A gift to anyone interested in American history. I couldn't stop turning pages."âCharles Yu, author of Interior Chinatown
Strangers 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 ShanÂââGold 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 anti-Asian 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 countryâs history; of demagogues like Denis Kearney, a sandlot orator who became the face of the anti-Chinese movement in the late-1870s; 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 bookâs 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 countryâs first undocumented immigrants: hounded, counted, suspected, surveilled.
    In 1889, while upholding Chinese exclusion, Supreme Court Justice Stephen J. Field characterized them as âstrangers in the land.â Only in 1965 did Americaâs gates swing open to people like Luoâs parents, immigrants from Taiwan. Today there are more than twenty-two million people of Asian descent in the United States and yet the âstrangerâ label, Luo writes, remains. Drawing on archives from across the country and written with a New Yorker writerâs style and sweep, Strangers in the Land is revelatory and unforgettable, an essential American story.
