Abandoned Chinatowns: Northern California

by Margaret LaPlante

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1634993616
• ISBN13: 9781634993616
• Release Date: October 2021
• Publisher: America Through Time
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.4" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Some forgotten N California Chinatowns

It is a fun picture book down to memory lane in Chinese in America history. Margaret did a good job in collecting the different now abandoned Chinatowns with chapters description for readers for 19th century background. However, as she is not Chinese with a little more information on Chinese culture than average people, she made some assumption based on malicious rumor such as page 10 on dog meat and goat milk. No record of Chinese eating America dog in America, as Cantonese prefer chow dog for winter and the square made of goat milk. It was made from soy bean after fermentation. Glad she accepted the preserved duck egg. She started from San Francisco, the oldest and still booming in California, contrary to the book title. She covered many small mining, farming and fishing towns with Chinese labor contributions to make California great. In this book, she has her limitation in covering all as she did not cover Monterey, Santa Barbara Napa, Yountville and Columbia. On the pages 68-73, she covered Locke which was a town built by the Chinese for the Chinese which virtually no change since 1910. The gift shop owner turned the town over to become a state park. She did not include the Tai Loy Gambling House with the original casino type setting in a museum. She did not snap a picture of the tong building of 1938 in Walnut Grove. Isleton was another town with some Chinese history. These Delta towns are frequent hot visitor sites. On page 81, she talked about Geary Act demanding a photo id but she failed to follow that the Six Companies organized the largest civil disobedience in American history. So di the Chinese boycotted American goods in 1905 and American business loss about thirty five million dollars in trade. Chapter Six was on Angele Island without a Chinatown only Chinese detention Center where Chinese arrived at the land of the free and immediately lost their freedom! On p.92 she mentioned Chinese came to America to collect the bones to return for China burial in peace. It is the Six Company tradition to make the shipping procedure. She makes this book for discrimination memory history and helps readers to prevent the resurrection of Chinese Must Go hysteria made by the previous president.