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A Place Called Chinese America

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"A Place Called Chinese America" summarizes the immigration of young, adventurous Chinese immigrants to the gold fields of the Sierra Nevadas following the news of the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in 1848. The numbers are estimated at 20,000 by 1855 and my great-grandfather at age 17 years old was amongst the sojourners. After three arduous years following the miners into the mountains, he hid his cache of two leather pouches of gold flakes and small nuggets from the miners, and returned to his village in Toison, China, to settle down and become a rice-farmer.

My grandfather came to America in 1882 and faced the discrimination to Chinese immigrants from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 which attempted to force the immigrants to be excluded from employment, property rights, and fundamental civil rights.

Grandfather survived these negative experiences and slowly integrated into the white community with his humble nature and personality to earn a small saving to return to Toison for marriage.

Father came to America in 1902, was educated in Seattle and Chicago, and returned to Toison for marriage,returning to Seattle in 1923, to start the fourth generation of our family in America.

Diane Mark is a member of our family, and from three years of research, travel, and interviews with several generations of early immigrants and Chinese Americans born in the United States, has encompassed an absorbing story of how life in Gim Sahn America turned out and their transcontinental trips back and forth to start families throughout our country from the West Coast to the East Coast.

Our family is into the seventh generation now, and indeed, we are experiencing the American Dream, from the hard-work and sacrifices of our forebears.