Chinese Immigrants In Milwaukee

The history of Chinese Milwaukee begins in April 1874, with the opening by Wing Wau of a Chinese laundry at 86 Mason Street. Other Chinese soon followed, and by 1888, there were at least 30 Chinese laundries operating in the city. Charlie Toy moved to Milwaukee in 1904 and within two decades had built both one of the largest Chinese trading businesses in the United States and a six-story Chinese-style building in downtown Milwaukee described as the largest and most luxurious Chinese restaurant building in the world. An example of the community's influence as a whole is the period 1937 to 1940, when the community of less than 300 residents contributed more money to the Chinese war effort against Japan than any other Chinese community in the United States except San Francisco.

Chinese immigrants first reached the shores of California in the mid 1800s. Since then, they have made significant contributions to the American economy through their work in mines, on railroads, and on farms as they earned money to send home. However, many saw them as job-stealing freeloaders. They contributed to American culture too, even as discrimination forced them to build their own communities from the ground up. The Chinese American community had no choice but to take on these stereotypes in order to survive. Written by a Chinese immigrant, readers will discover that even the xenophobia that exists today can be defeated and one's culture celebrated in the United States.

"Sherri Gerbert Fuller provides us with a rare look at Chinese immigrant lives and aspirations in Minnesota, proudly reclaiming their voices as part of our great American heritage. I was delighted to read this book."--Iris Chang, author of "The Chinese in America " Minnesota's first Chinese settlers, fleeing racial violence in California, established scores of businesses after they arrived in the late 1870s. Newspapers eagerly published reports of their activities, including New Year's festivities, marriages, and restaurant and laundry openings. Beginning in 1882 federal laws banning Chinese immigration and denying citizenship put particular pressure on the community. Sherri Gebert Fuller relates the story of the Chinese from these early days to the 1960s when a new wave of immigrants, including students, businessmen, and professionals from China and Taiwan, began to bring new energy and issues to the community and a flourishing of ties between Minnesota and China.

The progress of America after the Industrial Revolution came at the cost of many unnamed lives, and there's no story more indicative of this than the plight of the Chinese men who built the Transcontinental Railroad. Young readers will be transported through first-person accounts, and even a Western Union telegram, into the Central Pacific camp, learning how track was laid, how perilous the job was, and how deeply racism affected these men who thanklessly connected the coasts. Black-and-white photography brings historical details into sharp focus, while a table of powerful statistics exposes the incredible reality of the epic project.

Although most historians of Chinese immigration to the United States focus on California, Coming Home in Gold Brocade delves into the contributions, trials, and daily lives of the Chinese living in the Pacific Northwest and adjoining Canadian provinces between 1788 and 1911. Coming Home in Gold Brocade is a detailed, comprehensive, and wonderfully illustrated history of the early Chinese in the Pacific Northwest. Through extensive use of historic images and documents in both English and Chinese, this book offers new insights into potentially controversial topics such as opium use, secret societies, Chinese women's rights, and interethnic relations, as well as economic life, community structures, and the private lives of Chinese American citizens. While this book does not shy away from addressing the vile anti-Chinese laws, racist attitudes, and horrifying violence experienced by many immigrants, it avoids adding another victim narrative to the Chinese American story. Instead, Coming Home in Gold Brocade presents the early generations of Chinese immigrants as people to be admired for the strength, courage, and intelligence they showed in adapting to a rich but often hostile foreign land.

Exploring the multifaceted Chinese experience in New York City, Xinyang Wang persuasively illustrates that economic forces more than racism influenced immigrantsO life decisions.