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A People's History of Five Neighborhoods
Free Press
August 2009
On Sale: August 11, 2009
272 pages
ISBN: 1416557237
EAN: 9781416557234
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
CHINATOWN, U.S.A.: a state of mind, a world within a world,
a neighborhood that exists in more cities than you might
imagine. Every day, Americans find "something different" in
Chinatown's narrow lanes and overflowing markets, tasting
exotic delicacies from a world apart or bartering for a
trinket on the street -- all without ever leaving the
country. It's a place that's foreign yet familiar, by now
quite well known on the Western cultural radar, but
splitting the difference still gives many visitors to
Chinatown the sense, above all, that things are not what
they seem -- something everyone in popular culture, from
Charlie Chan to Jack Nicholson, has been telling us for
decades. And it's true that few visitors realize just how
much goes on beneath the surface of this vibrant microcosm,
a place with its own deeply felt history and stories of
national cultural significance.
But Chinatown is not a place that needs solving; it's a
place that needs a more specific telling. In American
Chinatown, acclaimed travel writer Bonnie Tsui takes an
affectionate and attentive look at the neighborhood that
has bewitched her since childhood, when she eagerly awaited
her grandfather's return from the fortune-cookie factory.
Tsui visits the country's four most famous Chinatowns --
San Francisco (the oldest), New York (the biggest), Los
Angeles (the film icon), Honolulu (the crossroads) -- and
makes her final, fascinating stop in Las Vegas (the newest;
this Chinatown began as a mall); in her explorations, she
focuses on the remarkable experiences of ordinary people,
everyone from first-to fifth-generation Chinese Americans.
American Chinatown breaks down the enigma of Chinatown by
offering narrative glimpses: intriguing characters who
reveal the realities and the unexpected details of
Chinatown life that American audiences haven't heard. There
are beauty queens, celebrity chefs, immigrant garment
workers; there are high school kids who are changing inner-
city life in San Francisco, Chinese extras who played key
roles in 1940s Hollywood, new arrivals who go straight to
dealer school in Las Vegas hoping to find their fortunes in
their own vision of "gold mountain." Tsui's investigations
run everywhere, from mom-and-pop fortune-cookie factories
to the mall, leaving no stone unturned. By interweaving her personal impressions with the
experiences of those living in these unique communities,
Tsui beautifully captures their vivid stories, giving
readers a deeper look into what "Chinatown" means to its
inhabitants, what each community takes on from its American
home, and what their experience means to America at large.
For anyone who has ever wandered through Chinatown and
wondered what it was all about, and for Americans wanting
to understand the changing face of their own country,
American Chinatown is an all-access pass.
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