Books About The Chinese Exclusion Act

This one is just out today.

In this memoir, Ng writes of the consequences of the Exclusion Act, under which her Chinese family was suffocated. Ng came of age as the child of a seamstress mother, a sailor father, and the Orphan Bachelors of San Francisco’s Chinatown — men who were the walking embodiments of the Exclusion act. As a result of the legislation, they were unable to wed or have children, and so Ng and her siblings, and other children, became their adopted progeny. In Orphan Bachelors, Ng returns home to write the story of her ancestors who sacrificed so much.

Daiyu’s name carries with it the tragic story of a heroine who is beautiful but cursed to be heartbroken. She starts to inhabit this narrative once her parents disappear from their small, quiet village in China, and Daiyu must flee to a calligraphy school where she is safe, for a time. She ends up becoming a victim of human trafficking and smuggled to a brothel in San Francisco, CA. She escapes and makes it to Idaho, where she begins work at a Chinese owned general store. Throughout, Daiyu always seems to narrowly escape a dark fate that seems to be chasing her, until it must be faced head on. The Exclusion Act and its anti Chinese sentiments looms over the entirety of this novel, which culminates in terrible violence.

It’s 1890 in Atlanta, GA and Jo Kuan is 17 trying her best to survive. She gets paid a measly .50 cents a day as a milliner’s assistant, which isn’t enough to buy her guardian, Old Gin, needed medicine. On top of that, she and Old Gin live in the basement of a print shop, a place that used to be a spot for abolitionists to hide. Well, bad goes to worse when she’s fired by her boss for being too “saucy” according to customers — I’m paraphrasing here, but essentially customers were complaining because she’s Chinese. In desperation, she takes back her old job as a lady’s maid to the wealthy and cruel Caroline. One day she gets the idea to write a column as an “agony aunt,” and goes by the name Miss Sweetie. As Sweetie, she voices her thoughts on society’s many cruelties and injustices, which grows the newspaper’s subscriptions her column is being printed in, but also makes many question her true identity. As she continues writing her column, she learns more about her parents but also crosses paths with one of the city’s most well-known criminals.