Book Recommendations

Chinese Americans and Their Immigrant Parents: Conflict, Identity, and Values May Pao-May Tung

I picked up this book in paperback at the Chinese Historical Society in S.F. The author is a therapist and specializes in Asian-American parent-child issues, especially the immigrant parents and American-born offsprings. I think it's one of the first publications that deals with this topic. It's a not too academic and the author referes to her own difficulties with racism.

If you are interested in the story of Chinese in America, you must not miss The Chinese in America byIris Chang. She helps to bring together all members of the diaspora in a coherent whole beginning with the sojourners from Canton in the 19th Century to the those who came in larger numbers after the Hart-Cellar Act of 1965 was signed into law, (doing away with discrimination in immigration law) to the Mainland Chinese who came to America after China and the US normalized relations in 1976.

Before reading this book, I considered the early Chinese experience separate from mine, but now I see we are all connected like a strand of pearls. We came to America because of an unstable, undemocratic China.

Sons of the Yellow Emperor by Lynn Pan should not be missed. It's about the Chinese diaspora throughout the world.

Hmm, some very appealing recommendations here. I will definitely check out the Iris Chang book as well as the May Tung title.

There's a good reference book I've enjoyed browsing through from time to time, The Encyclopedia of Chinese Overseas. It's quite comprehensive though entries are necessarily summary--especially for my own Canada.

Another neat find, though not a book, is the 15-part documentary series Chinese Restaurants (Tissa Films, Canada, 2005). "Not a travelogue, not a cooking show. It is an original, fascinating, charming and sensitive examination of human tenacity and decency at its best," is the review by June Callwood, Canadian writer and activist.

In it the director, Cheuk Kwan, is on pilgrimmage to countries far and wide in search of that quintessential hearth of Chineseness, the Chinese restaurant of the title. Owners, often also the cooks are invited to talk about their experiences of migration, integration and settlement in their new home countries. More on www.tissafilms.com.

>4 betterthanchocolate: Wow. That's a film I'd love to see. I remember in 1981, I was backpacking through Europe as a college student, and wound up in a teeny little town in Portugal's Algarve. There it was, a Chinese restaurant. I was too callow at that age to visit and ask questions of how the family ended there. As I walked past, a Chinese man stared after me. It was so rare to see a Chinese in those days, that everyone on a street would turn to look at me and mutter, "Chinese."

Cool, Belle, you've done some traveling, then. What compelled you to go? Did you go solo? Was it a "load everything on your backpack and go" kind of trip? (Did you bring a hair dryer?!)

I traveled around Italy with my high school Classics class, but I felt very much the tourist, well you know, a little out of place there. Maybe it'll be different now that I'm older and, well, care less about what people think (but not entirely!!) Anyway, I like my hair better now *smile* That always helps.

>6 betterthanchocolate: Nope, no hair dryer then, no hair dryer now;) I loaded a physics book and thought I'd study for the MCAT (to get into med school), but the tome got too heavy and I tossed it before I crossed the Strait of Gibralter.