Mott Street

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From the winner of the M.F.K. Fisher Book Prize and a New York Public Library Cullman fellow, comes a sweeping narrative history of the Chinese Exclusion Act through an intimate portrayal of one family's epic journey to lay down roots in AmericaAs the only child of a single mother in Queens, Ava Chin found her family history was shrouded in mystery. She had never met her father, and 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 where generations of both sides of her family lived.Breaking the silence surrounding her family's past meant first confronting the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882-the first federal law to restrict immigration by race and 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 and of the brutal racism of frontier towns, then follows their paths to New York City.In New York's Chinatown she discovers a single building on Mott Street where so many of her ancestors would live, establish businesses, begin families, and craft new identities. Breaking the family silence, she follows ancestors who became merchants, "paper son" refugees, activists, and heads of the Chinese tong, and pieces together how they bore and resisted the weight of the Exclusion laws. She finds exclusion is not simply a political condition but also a deeply personal one.Gorgeously written, deeply researched, and tremendously resonant, Mott Street uncovers a legacy of exclusion and resilience that speaks to the American experience, past and present.