Jean Pfaelzer

This is an extremely well-written book about horrible things. I really had to push myself through the last hundred pages because I felt the increasing need to go back in time and punch people for being so ignorant and cruel. I have been reading a great deal about the experiences of Chinese in America at the turn of the 20th century, but this is by far the most graphic, the most detailed, when it comes to the matter of the pogroms and massacres that occurred throughout California and north to Washington.

It's a hard read. It made me angry and frustrated. I'm a native Californian. The more I research, the more I realize how poorly educated I was about real history. In my hometown of Hanford, we were taught to celebrate our pioneer heritage and be proud of China Alley, and history books pretty much said "Chinese were treated badly." That was it. I didn't know that 30 minutes away, Tulare's Chinatown was razed, repeatedly, and the Chinese run out of town. That the same happened in nearby Fresno and Visalia, with Chinese murdered in vineyards as they worked. I called up my mom, who was born and raised in the heart of the state. She had never heard of those incidents, either. I bet 99% of people born and raised in Central California don't know.

Pfaelzer did an excellent job on this book. At times, the details felt a bit too exhaustive--I wanted to know more about incidents outside of Truckee and Humboldt county--but that may have been because of my own emotional exhaustion at reading about inexcusable brutality.

If you want to know about a hidden history of California and the west, seek out this book. Just be sure to pause in reading to go hug kittens or seek out pleasant things, though. I definitely need a lighter read after this.… (más)

This book chronicles the racial conflicts in California from 1849 and the beginning of the Gold Rush to the turn of the century. During that time America's economy was in persistent depression, and white males took off for California, desperate for work and filled with dreams of a golden future. After the Civil War, veterans from both North and South came west, accustomed to using force to accomplish their goals. It wasn't called the "Wild Wild West" for nothing. The native Indian population was moved out, Congress gave away millions of acres of land to railroad barons and the Chinese Six Companies imported male Chinese for indentured service and women for prostitution. Especially after the Civil War, city, county and state government and law enforcement cooperated with vigilante groups to force the Chinese out. The book meticulously documents hundreds of public burnings of Chinatowns and individual atrocities. The author evaluates these events from a modern, politically correct, point of view and sensibility, as evidenced by use of the terms "ethnic cleansing," "racism," "homophobia," and the like. She usually attributes causes to economic forces, and is quick (and correct) to point out the inconsistency and hypocrisy of white objections to the Chinese presence. She does not take into account, however, two factors. First is that of language. When people from two very different cultures cannot communicate, then differences of dress, food and social customs cannot be discussed and one cannot come to an understanding of those differences. Conflict is inevitable. Second, the tale this book tells is also about the innate depravity of man: not just the whites, but the Chinese who exploited their own countrymen and profited from Chinese immigration also are culpable. As a native Californian who grew up in Northern California, it was disturbing to read about places I knew well where so much violence took place. I doubt very much that California was a pleasant or comfortable place even for whites in that era.… (más)