Details

ISBN-10: 0307950395
ISBN-13: 9780307950390
Publisher: Vintage
Publish Date: 02/07/2012
Dimensions: 8.01" L, 5.19" W, 1.06" H

On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family

Paperback

Price: $17.95

Overview

When she was a girl, Lisa See spent summers in the cool, dark recesses of her family’s antiques store in Los Angeles’s Chinatown. There, her grand-mother and great-aunt told her intriguing, colorful stories about their family’s past – stories of missionaries, concubines, tong wars, glamorous nightclubs, and the determined struggle to triumph over racist laws and discrimination. They spoke of how Lisa’s great-great-grandfather emigrated from his Chinese village to the United States; how his son followed him, married a Caucasian woman, and despite great odds, went on to become one of the most prominent Chinese on “Gold Mountain” (the Chinese name for the United States). As an adult, See spent five years collecting the details of her family’s remarkable history. She interviewed nearly one hundred relatives – both Chinese and Caucasian, rich and poor – and pored over documents at the National Archives, the immigration office, and in countless attics, basements, and closets for the intimate nuances of her ancestors’ lives.

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Reviews
"Lovingly rendered.... A vivid tableau of a family and an era." –People

"Terrific stuff.... The See family's adventures would be incredible if On Gold Mountain were fiction." –The New York Times Book Review

"Weaves together fascinating family anecdotes, imaginative details, and the historical details of immigrant life.... Enviably entertaining." –Amy Tan

"Astonishing...as engagingly readable as any novel...comprehensive and exhaustively researched." –Los Angeles Times Book Review

More Reviews

Details

ISBN-10: 0307950395
ISBN-13: 9780307950390
Publisher: Vintage
Publish Date: 02/07/2012
Dimensions: 8.01" L, 5.19" W, 1.06" H
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