Chinese American Portraits [Hardcover]

Ruthanne Lum McCunn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1988

Provides personal histories of Chinese Americans who have lived through the twentieth century in the United States, including their difficulties during the exclusion era of World War II.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The experience of the Chinese in America offers compelling analogies for U.S. immigrants of all backgrounds. Born in San Francisco's Chinatown, the author of Thousand Pieces of Gold notes the difference between two Chinese-English phrasebooks published in the 19th century. One volume, prepared for students, includes stock-exchange terms, Latin and French expressions and historical sketches, while the other, intended for laborers, teaches sentences for survival: "He cheated me out of my wages" and "The confession was extorted from him by force." Black-and-white photographs from archives and family albums illustrate the simply told stories of Chinese Americansfrom Yung Wing, the first person of Chinese ancestry to graduate from an American college (Yale, 1854), to Ho Yuet Fung, an immigrant from Hong Kong to Columbia, Mo., in the 1970s. Featured here are the genuine accounts of "women and men who have fought against the odds. They have not always won. Nor are they necessarily heroic. Being human, they have flaws. But they have refused to give up the struggleand they have endured." This worthwhile contribution illuminates yet another dimension of the American Dream.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

"Though not a scholarly work, this fine introduction to important aspects of the Chinese-American experience effectively conveys the personal dimensions of that experience" (LJ 8/88). The text here is divided into sections on Pioneers, Generations, and Contemporaries, all of which are buttressed with black-and-white photos.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 174 pages
• Publisher: Chronicle Books; First Edition edition (October 1, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0877015805
• ISBN-13: 978-0877015802
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,554,323 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ruthanne Lum McCunn, an Eurasian of Chinese and Scottish descent, was hailed by the Dallas Times in 1985 as "an American-Chinese author of remarkable talent." Her work, which has won many awards, has been translated into eleven languages, published in twenty-two countries, and adapted for the stage and film.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Up Close, They Look Like Ordinary People!, July 13, 2008

By 

Giordano Bruno (Wherever I am, I am.) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Chinese American Portraits: Personal Histories, 1828-1988 (Paperback)

These are the first-person stories of some fifteen ordinary families - some composed by the subjects and some generated as oral histories - together with oodles of family photos - some in Old World regalia, some in tee-shirts and cut-offs; a cowboy, a NASCAR driver, a decorated Veteran, a Louisiana sheriff, a ballerina, an artist in his studio, a multi-millionaire real estate magnate with her bare feet up on her desk. They, like you and I, are all immigrants or the descendents of immigrants. In this album, the immigrants are Chinese.

In the current malodorous sump of American politics, where Screaming Heads on TV have more influence than face-to-face time with neighbors or books, certain demagogues have done their utmost to foment fear of immigration and loathing of immigrant groups who bring different religious cultures. The Chinese were subject to just such virulent racism during the last decades of the 19th Century. A national law was passed, by the Congress of the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, to exclude the Chinese from immigration. They were branded as unassimilable, in large part because of their religion, or lack of a proper religion from a WASP perspective. They were called morally degenerate, phsyically unappealing, unsanitary, and over-sexed. It was a felony in many states for a "white" person to marry one. Certain writers, including Madison Grant, warned that they would outbreed the "great race" of Northern Europeans, that they had aspirations in fact to do so and to dominate the world.

One chapter in this book, concerning several generations of the Wong Family in Albert Lea, Minnesota, has powerful personal meaning to me. I was born on a farm near Albert Lea. My father was an immigrant and my mother's family were "old world" in all but clothing. There was one Chinese restaurant in the whole county, owned by the one Chinese family in Albert Lea, the Wongs. My mother went to high school with a Wong girl. I'd like to brag that they were friends, but the Wongs of her generation don't remember having friends until they moved away to Chicago and New York. One of the Wong girls married a Haitian in New York, becoming Eleanor Wong Telemaque, a writer. Shawn Wong also became a writer and a race-car driver. Eleanor's daughter Adrienne became a ballerina and married Philip Nash, of Irish and Japanese descent. I'm afraid my mother and her siblings lost a huge opportunity; the Wongs were probably the most interesting neighbors they had in Albert Lea, Minnesota in the 1930s.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting. Lots of variety., May 24, 2007

By 

Wayne (MD USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Chinese American Portraits: Personal Histories, 1828-1988 (Paperback)

I bought this for my wife. She did not read it but I have. The portraits are of people with different experiences. It's a good read.