Mott Street A Chinese American Familys Story Of Exclusion And Homecoming Ava Chin by Ava Chin 9780525557371, 0525557377 instant download after payment.

A sweeping narrative history of the Chinese Exclusion Act through an intimate portrayal of one family’s epic journey to lay down roots in America

* A Good Morning America & Book Riot Most-Anticipated Book *
As the only child of a single mother in Queens, Ava Chin found her family’s origins to be shrouded in mystery. She had never met her father, & her grandparents’ stories didn’t match the history she read at school. Mott Street traces Chin’s quest to understand her Chinese American family’s story. Over decades of painstaking research, she finds not only her father but also the building that provided a refuge for them all.
Breaking the silence surrounding her family’s past meant confronting the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882—the first federal law to restrict immigration by race & nationality, barring Chinese immigrants from citizenship for six decades. Chin traces the story of the pioneering family members who emigrated from the Pearl River Delta, crossing an ocean to make their way in the American West of the mid-nineteenth century. She tells of their backbreaking work on the transcontinental railroad & of the brutal racism of frontier towns, then follows their paths to New York City.
In NY’s Chinatown she discovers a single building on Mott Street where so many of her ancestors would live, begin families, & craft new identities.  She follows the men & women who became merchants, “paper son” refugees, activists, & heads of the Chinese tong, piecing together how they bore & resisted the weight of the Exclusion laws. She soon realizes that exclusion is not simply a political condition but also a personal one.
Gorgeously written, deeply researched, & tremendously resonant, Mott Street uncovers a legacy of exclusion & resilience that speaks to the American experience, past & present.
Ava Chin is the author of Eating Wildly,winner of the Les Dames d’Escoffier International M.F.K. Fisher Book Prize