Mott Street

Informationen zum Autor Ava Chin Klappentext "Mott Street follows Chinese American writer Ava Chin, who grew up estranged from her father, as she seeks the truth about her family history-and uncovers a legacy of exclusion and resilience that speaks to the American experience past and present. Chin's ancestors became lovers, classmates, sworn enemies, and, eventually, through her birth, kin-all while converging at a single Chinatown address"-- Leseprobe 1 The Elbow of Mott Street Chinatown, New York City As I walk past the restaurants, vegetable stands, and open-air shop fronts that line Mott Street-the main artery that pulses through the heart of Chinatown-the sights and smells here are as familiar to me as my grandparents' kitchen. Roast duck and slabs of salted pork. Vast bins of varying grades of dried shiitakes, baby shrimp, flower teas wrapped in cellophane packages. Plump dried oysters-plucked from their shells and naked, but for some black bearding and a spray of salt-so provocatively laid out that it almost hurts to look at them. When I was a kid growing up in Flushing, Queens, before it became the "new" Chinatown, we used to come here nearly every week. Sometimes it was to see my grandmother Rose's family, or to go shopping for roast pork or Chinese beef jerky, items difficult to make at home. It always involved good food. Giant, elaborate meals of long, pan-fried egg noodles with sliced beef, chicken, pork, and verdant gai lan vegetables as long as my chopsticks. Lobster Cantonese with minced pork and lacy egg whites. A whole flounder steamed from head to tail-topped with a medley of ginger, scallions, and soy sauce-right before we devoured it down to the delicate skeleton, when it was time to flip it over and start again. Chinatown was where my maternal grandfather, Gene Wong, went on his days off to visit friends, place horse-racing bets at the local off-track betting office, and purchase in-season crabs or lobster. The smaller, younger female crustaceans were our favorite: tender, succulent, and if we were lucky, packed with rich, unctuous eggs. I didn't know, on any of the innumerable weekend excursions we took here, that a whole other side of my family, one that I had never met, was just around the corner from our favorite Cantonese restaurant. They were there, even as we marveled at the tiny turtles or Mexican jumping beans, or sucked on sweet hawthorn berry candies or preserved plums from the Hong Kong sweets shop with the Japanese name, or tossed white gunpowder-filled pellets to make snapping noises against the pavement. If I had looked up, perhaps I would have seen them, residing right there in the elbow of Mott Street-37 Mott Street-an apartment building that had been the epicenter of the Chinese community for almost seventy-five years. Built in 1915 after a fire destroyed a funeral parlor and a stable, the red brick building that locals called Sun Lau, or New Building, was considered the height of luxury when it rose from the ashes. The most prominent families of Chinatown flocked to live there, including members of both my maternal and paternal sides. There, they occupied the choicest apartments with views of the cross section of Mott and Pell Streets. It's a bustling three-pronged, panoramic view here at the intersection of Mott Street and Pell, and this is where our family's story in New York begins. So many generations of my family have lived in this building-great-grandparents, grandparents and their siblings, parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, and now, me. When I last counted, I tallied forty-nine Chins and Ng-Doshims in total, many of whom took their first breaths as wailing newborns here. Each wing of the family can trace its lineage back to an ancestor born and raised in the same fertile Pearl River Delta, an ocean and a continent away. Although each of them had lived out west collectively through the eras...

Autorentext

Ava Chin

Klappentext

*“Essential reading for understanding not just Chinese American history but American history—and the American present.” —Celeste Ng, #1 bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere*

 TIME 100 Must-Read Books of 2023  San Francisco Chronicle's Favorite Nonfiction  Kirkus Best Nonfiction of 2023 Winner of the Chinese American Librarians Association Best Non-Fiction Book Prize Library Journal Best Memoir and Biography of 2023 One of Elle's Best Memoirs of 2023 (So Far)  An ALA Notable Book

“The Angela’s Ashes for Chinese Americans.” —Miwa Messer, Poured Over podcast**

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, 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 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 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, begin families, and craft new identities. She follows the men and women who became merchants, “paper son” refugees, activists, and heads of the Chinese tong, piecing together how they bore and 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, and tremendously resonant, Mott Street uncovers a legacy of exclusion and resilience that speaks to the American experience, past and present.

Leseprobe
1

The Elbow of Mott Street

Chinatown, New York City

As I walk past the restaurants, vegetable stands, and open-air shop fronts that line Mott Street-the main artery that pulses through the heart of Chinatown-the sights and smells here are as familiar to me as my grandparents' kitchen. Roast duck and slabs of salted pork. Vast bins of varying grades of dried shiitakes, baby shrimp, flower teas wrapped in cellophane packages. Plump dried oysters-plucked from their shells and naked, but for some black bearding and a spray of salt-so provocatively laid out that it almost hurts to look at them.

When I was a kid growing up in Flushing, Queens, before it became the "new" Chinatown, we used to come here nearly every week. Sometimes it was to see my grandmother Rose's family, or to go shopping for roast pork or Chinese beef jerky, items difficult to make at home. It always involved good food. Giant, elaborate meals of long, pan-fried egg noodles with sliced beef, chicken, pork, and verdant gai lan vegetables as long as my chopsticks. Lobster Cantonese with minced pork and lacy egg whites. A whole flounder steamed from head to tail-topped with a medley of ginger, scallions, and soy sauce-right before we devoured it down to the delicate skeleton, when it was time to flip it over and start again. Chinatown was where my maternal grandfather, Gene Wong, went on his days off to visit friends, place horse-racing bets at the local off-track betting office, and purch…