The Chinese in America (71 page)

392
“American beats Kwan”:
Joanne Lee, “Mistaken Headline Underscores Racial Assumptions,”
Editor & Publisher,
April 25, 1998, p. 64.

393
“American outshines Kwan”:
Seattle Times,
February 22, 2002;
ESPN The Magazine,
May 1, 2002.

393
which country he would support:
Los Angeles Times,
March 2, 2000;
Time,
September 25, 2000, p. 40.

393
“There is a subtle stereotyping”:
Time,
September 25, 2000.

393
“Most strikingly I was asked a couple of times”:
Al Kamen, “DOE Trips on Security Blanket,”
Washington Post,
May 25, 2001; Sam Chu Lin, “Rep. Wu Refused Entry to Energy Department,” article provided by Lin during correspondence with author. (“I just find that incredibly ironic,” David Wu said of the incident, “because I was going down there at their invitation to try to help them with their Asian Pacific American Heritage celebration.”)

393
“subtle racism”:
Roxanne Roberts, “An Asian American Gala, with the Emphasis on American,”
Washington Post,
May 11, 2001.

395
“the ability to threaten our homes with long-range nuclear warheads”:
Leslie Wayne, “Infamous Political Commercial Is Turned on Gore,”
New York Times,
October 27, 2000.

395
Patrick Oliphant:
Cartoon on April 9, 2001, syndicated by Andrews McMeel Universal. Letter of complaint from Victor Panichkul, national president of Asian American Journalists Association, to John P. McMeel, chairman of Andrews McMeel Universal, April 11, 2001.

395
“put MSG in everything”:
Jonah Goldberg, “Back to Realpolitik; Out with Hysterics,”
National Review,
April 4, 2001.

395
“Why don’t you go to China”:
Correspondence from Theresa Ma to author, September 22, 2001.

396
In Springfield, Illinois:
William Wong, “A Great Wall of Unease; In Spy Plane’s Wake, Crude Jokes and Racist Stereotypes Make Chinese Americans Queasy,”
San Francisco Chronicle,
April 18, 2001.

396
Fox News host:
Statement by George M. Ong, president of the Organization of Chinese Americans, April 11, 2001.

396
interned by the federal government:
Statement by Larry Golden, professor of Political Studies and Legal Studies, University of Illinois at Springfield.

396
“The official sported a black wig”:
Amy Leang, “Walk, Not Just Talk the Talk,”
ASNE Reporter,
April 2001; Lloyd Grove, “Regrets, No Apology,”
Washington Post,
April 13, 2001.

396 80 percent of Americans viewed the PRC as “dangerous”:
Business Week
, April 16, 2001.

396 national telephone survey:
Sonya Hepinstall, “Survey: Chinese Americans Still Have a Long Way to Go,” Reuters, April 25, 2001. (The study, commissioned by the Committee of One Hundred in collaboration with the Anti-Defamation League, was conducted by Marttila Communications Group and Yankelovich in 2001.)

398
David Ho’s quote:
Time,
September 25, 2000, p. 40.

400
Information about Cy Wong:
Author interview with Cy Wong.

400
“From time to time”:
Cy Wong, “East Meets South: Cy Wong, the Great-Grandson of a Chinese Immigrant, Traveled to Louisiana to Research His Colorful History,”
Los Angeles Times,
September 26, 1993.

400
“Many of the Chinese people I interviewed”:
Lisa See,
On Gold
Mountain (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995; Vintage, 1996), p. xx.

401
number of children born to Chinese-Caucasian couples more than tripled:
Joyce Nishioka, “U.C. Berkeley Hosts Hapa Conference,”
Asian Week,
May 26, 1999, p. 8.

401
some 750,000 to 1 million multiracial Asian Americans in the United
States: Janet Dang and Jason Ma, “HAPAmerica: The Coming of Age of Hapas Sets the Stage for a New Agenda,”
Asian Week,
April 19, 2000.

401
Information on Hapa movement:
Asian Week,
June 10, 1998, and April 19, 2000.

402
drew arrows to three boxes:
Author interview with Cy Wong.

Only when a book is finally finished—when one is left staring at towers of banker’s boxes stuffed with thousands of documents—does an author truly comprehend the degree to which she is indebted to others. I was blessed to have the cooperation of many wonderful people during this long and fascinating journey.

My deep gratitude goes to Susan Rabiner, my literary agent, for her superb judgment and her firm, unwavering confidence in this book right from the very beginning. She brought this project to Viking Penguin, where Caroline White and Wendy Wolf refined the narrative with their brilliant editing and meticulous attention to detail. I want to thank not only these two editors but other members of the Viking Penguin staff for their consummate professionalism: Yen Cheong, Carolyn Coleburn, Clifford Corcoran, Kate Griggs, Claire Hunsaker, Hilary Redmon, Nancy Resnick, Kim Taylor, and Grace Veras, among others. Carol Shookhoff, a line editor who carefully scrutinized the manuscript, also deserves special mention.

Within the historical profession, it was a great privilege to know Him Mark Lai, a scholar of rare and admirable spirit, a man whom I consider to be the father of Chinese American studies. Like many others, I stand in complete awe of his encyclopedic knowledge and tireless dedication to his life’s work. His mastery of both Chinese- and English-language sources has enabled him to pioneer this field as a historical discipline, and this book, largely a synthesis of previous research, rests on the foundation of his knowledge. Him Mark Lai spent several hours with me to discuss the broad outlines and themes of Chinese American history, and I treasured our conversations immensely.

L. Ling-chi Wang, head of the ethnic studies department at the University of California at Berkeley, veteran activist, and a spokesman for the Rape of Nanking Redress Coalition, steered me to his excellent research on Chinese American history in the Asian American Collection of Berkeley’s Ethnic Studies Library. At various academic conferences over the years, I learned much from his discussions of Chinese America in the context of the political struggle for American civil liberties. Always at these forums, I was both inspired by him and honored to be associated with him, because of his passionate commitment to Asian American scholarship and the future of human rights.

In Washington, D.C., John Taylor, a friend and cherished fixture at the National Archives for more than half a century, was one of the best allies an author could hope for. Compassionate and knowledgeable, profoundly wise and endlessly helpful, John Taylor played a special role in helping me research this book, just as he did for my first two books, and my research benefited from his vast experience.

I was lucky to have the help of other important experts as I gathered source materials. Roger Daniels e-mailed me his extensive bibliography of references. Suellen Cheng and her husband, Munson Kwok, at the Museum of Chinese American History (now renamed the Chinese American Museum of Los Angeles) assisted me in countless ways as I conducted research in the museum archives and oral history collection. Peggy Spitzer Christoff graciously showed me her database of case files from the National Archives in Chicago, which traced the lives of Chinese immigrants in the Midwest. Douglas Knox generously shared with me his unpublished paper based on research conducted at the University of Chicago. Neil Thomsen, formerly with the National Archives Records Administration at San Bruno, gave me copies of the most intriguing historical documents he had found during his long career there. Wei Chi Poon, the Asian American Studies Collection specialist at Berkeley’s Ethnic Studies Library, helped me immeasurably in the early stages of my research and handled all of my inquiries with her cheerful and efficient manner. Bruce Nichols at the Immigration and Naturalization Service opened his voluminous files for my review. My friend Marian Smith, a historian for the INS, not only offered insightful commentary as this book evolved, but deciphered for me the mysteries of outdated immigration indexing systems, which gave me access to records at the National Archives that had not been ordered for decades. Victor Mar of the Chinese Historical Society of Greater San Diego sent me a short biography of Ah Quin—a nineteenth-century merchant—and photocopies of Ah Quin’s handwritten diary, which exceed 1,500 pages. Lack of space prevented inclusion of Ah Quin in this book, but it was stunning for me to see, in the pages of this diary, Ah Quin’s remarkable transformation, first from cook to servant, and then from labor recruiter to capitalist.

The perspective of other writers and journalists also strengthened this book. Amy Tan and Connie Chung were generous with their time when I interviewed them. Novelist May-lee Chai, whom I had befriended during our days at the Associated Press, shared her beautifully written editorials and heartfelt opinions on Chinese America, ethnic profiling, and the mixed-race experience. Sam Chu Lin, a broadcast pioneer in the Chinese American community, made copies for me of the audiotape and film interviews he had conducted with his family, which greatly enriched this book as well as my understanding of the Chinese in the South. I will always remember our spirited discussions on Chinese American history, along with his bittersweet and often humorous reminiscences of his youth in Mississippi. Best-selling author Edward Epstein offered memorable conversations and wise counsel as I launched into this project. Helen Zia, civil rights activist and author of
Asian American Dreams,
provided an insider’s perspective on the gradual evolution of the Chinese American community as a modern political force. As the co-author of
My Country Versus Me,
an autobiography of Wen Ho Lee, Helen Zia also gave me the rare opportunity to sit down with Dr. Lee at a private dinner, to learn more about his ordeal in the hands of the U.S. government.

Certain individuals and institutions deserve special thanks for their timely response to requests for information: the Arizona Historical Society; Kevin O’Sullivan at AP Wide World News; the California State Library; Ellen Halteman, librarian at the California State Railroad Museum; the Chinese Historical Society; Clarence Chu of the Dai Loy Museum in Locke, California; Valerie Zars at Getty Images/Hulton Archive; Sally Stassi at the Historic New Orleans Collection; Elena S. Danielson and Ronald M. Butaloff at the Hoover Institution Library and Archives; the Idaho State Historical Society; Michael Shulman at Magnum Photos; the Museum of Chinese in the Americas (MoCA); the Oregon Historical Society; Murray Lee, curator of Chinese American history in the San Diego Chinese Historical Museum; the University of Washington archive; and Robert Fisher, collections manager of the Wing Luke Asian Museum.

Closer to home, my part-time assistants, Connie Amarel and Carol Lagorio, typed thousands of facts into my database and transcribed my taped interviews during the research phase of this book. I can never thank them enough for their hard work.

Other people offered invaluable suggestions, or assisted in ways too numerous to recount here: Steven Aftergood, Shirley Awana, Bob Barde, Ralph Ben-nett, Ronnie Chan, Gilbert Chang, Kuo-hou Chang, Morris Chang, Pamela Chang, Wen-hsuan Chang, Rosalind Chao, Anna Chennault, William Chew, Ko-lin Chin, Christine Choy, Frank Cowsert, Kent Dedrick, Ignatius Ding, Stella Dong, Phoebe Eng, Bernadine Chuck Fong, Kenneth Fong, Scott Forsythe, Dina Gan, Gloria Hom, Genevieve Hom-Franzen, Tony Hsieh, Carl Hsu, Chih-ming Hu, Kaimeng Huang, Liberty Huang, Liwen Huang, Susana Huang, Victor Hwang, Kay Johnson, Herb and Diana Kai, Joseph M. Kamen, Paula Kamen, Amy Orfield Kohler, George Koo, Stewart Kwoh, Peter Kwong, Ann Lau, Amy Leang, Corky Lee, C. Y. Lee, Robert Lee, Jennie F. Lew, Ronald Lew, Marvin Lewis, Christina Li, Dick Ling, Sara Lippincott, Haiming Liu, Dale Louie, Steve Louie, Sonia Mak, Barbara Masin, Barbara Morgenroth, James Motlow, Willard H. Myers, Franklin Ng, Patrick O’Connor, Ron Osajima, Ching Peng, Wena Poon, Richard Rongstad, Lisa See, Jean H. Seeley, Charles Shao, Charlie Sie, Lillian Sing, Betty Lee Sung, C. B. Sung, Julie Tang, Douglas Wachter, Anna Wang, David Wang, Dorothy Wang, Tow Wang, Jim Weaver, Priscella Wegers, Eugene Wei, Ben Wong, Cy Wong, Joel Wong, Jeannie Woo, S. B. Woo, Carolyn Wu, Judy Wu, Stephen Wunrow, Noelle Xi, Swallow Yan, Jeff Yang, Linda Tsao Yang, John Yee, Alice Young, Renqiu Yu, Frank Yung, Karen Yung, Richard Yung, and Nancy Zhang.

Without the support and encouragement of my family, this book would not have been possible. My husband, Brett, gave me his wisdom, patience, and love—the hallmarks of his character that have nurtured and sustained me for more than a decade. My brother, Michael Chang, read a portion of the manuscript before publication and offered his unique perspective. Many thanks go to my uncle Shau-yen Chang, for narrating in vivid detail the story of my family’s escape from mainland China during the 1949 Communist revolution; my uncle Cheng-cheng Chang, for his recollections of immigrant student life in the United States during the 1960s; and my uncle S. G. Tyan, for kindly lending me Chinese-language literature on the subject of high-tech development in Taiwan. Finally, I owe a debt of gratitude to my parents, whom I can never repay. They were the ones who first made me proud to be Chinese American.

activism of Chinese Americans .
See also
legal action by Chinese

actors

adoption

African Americans: Chinese Americans and; civil rights movement ; life expectancy; racism against. See racism, anti-African American; slavery of

agents, theatrical

Ah Lum