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bourquesbookshelf's review
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
4.0
obsessivelybookishjojo's review
5.0
Mott Street, a namesake of the famous street in New York’s Chinatown, is a gorgeous and extensively researched memoir of Ava Chin’s family. Seeking to understand her family’s history, she discovered the weighty impact of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 that was in effect for six decades on the lives of her family members.
I love how the nation’s history is intertwined with her family history in this book, because I’m one who believes that they are the same. We can learn much about our country’s history by learning about our family history, because the subject of history–policies, wars, and laws–are lived out in the flesh and bodies of people–people who become our grandmothers and grandfathers. I also love the coverage of Asian American history here that is very rarely part of contemporary conversations. I would have never known about the Chinese Exclusion Act if not for books like these!
I love how the nation’s history is intertwined with her family history in this book, because I’m one who believes that they are the same. We can learn much about our country’s history by learning about our family history, because the subject of history–policies, wars, and laws–are lived out in the flesh and bodies of people–people who become our grandmothers and grandfathers. I also love the coverage of Asian American history here that is very rarely part of contemporary conversations. I would have never known about the Chinese Exclusion Act if not for books like these!
finnthehuman217's review against another edition
5.0
I’ve never felt so much pressure writing a Goodreads review!! lol I have a love of stories about people who are different. Ava Chin’s family is different. She is a 5th generation Chinese American. She is a professor at CSI and she grew up with a single mother. This is a perfect story because it is an attempt to track down her family via records and archives, doing a full genealogy and weaving a story of uncles who are in business together, a great grandfather who was a gambler and into all the vices, an interracial marriage with her uncle Dek and aunt elva (who is harboring a secret that was the demise of her first marriage) This book reminds me that the teachers we have are full people who have history and they don’t just get there through luck, sometimes their families have a hard time. Ava, whose class I took twice during the pandemic, has taught me to write about trauma I’ve faced and taught me that sometimes even if it’s boring, research about family history can be a story all on it’s own. The amount of time her Ng-Doshim family met with her Chin family while living in the same building (that not being how mom and dad met) reminded me that our world is smaller than we think it is, even with how many people are here. The history of Chinese folks in America is a sordid one. With laws excluding their immigration and making it hard to live life in safety. This book is important for not only these two families but the history of America and the fact that Chinese exclusion continues in certain ways to this day but with different types of people. I am in awe of Ava!!
karnaconverse's review against another edition
4.0
A deep dive into ancestry as affected by—and as a result of—the Chinese Exclusion Act
Ava Chin, a fifth-generation Chinese American New Yorker, was raised by a single mother and her grandparents. She grew up with a variety of family stories but knew nothing about her father's side of the family. When she begins searching for her paternal ancestry, she also discovers the history of a six-floor tenement building and unravels the intricate relationships formed between its tenants. This unraveling includes stories about an 1860s-era railroad worker, an interracial marriage, a paper son, Angel Island detainees, Hong Kongers, Hakka, and the Chinese Tong—and all which she discusses in context of the nearly six decades the Chinese Exclusion Act was enforced (1882-1943).
I appreciate that Chin included a family tree in her opening pages and, had I been reading Mott Street in print form, I would have referred to it often. Unfortunately, the graphic does not reproduce well in Kindle form. She introduces readers to a lot of people—sometimes by name, sometimes by familial relationship—and I often found it difficult to remember the branches of each family tree.
At its core, however, is the overarching theme of "otherness" and the questioning of who is an American and who is not. She notes the effect of the Chinese Exclusion Act—from 1880 to 1920, the Chinese American population dropped by twenty-five percent while the U.S. population more than doubled—and offers personal commentary about how questions like "Where are you from? No, where are you really from?" are divisive and threatening.
Ava Chin, a fifth-generation Chinese American New Yorker, was raised by a single mother and her grandparents. She grew up with a variety of family stories but knew nothing about her father's side of the family. When she begins searching for her paternal ancestry, she also discovers the history of a six-floor tenement building and unravels the intricate relationships formed between its tenants. This unraveling includes stories about an 1860s-era railroad worker, an interracial marriage, a paper son, Angel Island detainees, Hong Kongers, Hakka, and the Chinese Tong—and all which she discusses in context of the nearly six decades the Chinese Exclusion Act was enforced (1882-1943).
I appreciate that Chin included a family tree in her opening pages and, had I been reading Mott Street in print form, I would have referred to it often. Unfortunately, the graphic does not reproduce well in Kindle form. She introduces readers to a lot of people—sometimes by name, sometimes by familial relationship—and I often found it difficult to remember the branches of each family tree.
At its core, however, is the overarching theme of "otherness" and the questioning of who is an American and who is not. She notes the effect of the Chinese Exclusion Act—from 1880 to 1920, the Chinese American population dropped by twenty-five percent while the U.S. population more than doubled—and offers personal commentary about how questions like "Where are you from? No, where are you really from?" are divisive and threatening.
courtraemck's review
3.0
Definitely needs to be accounted as a genealogy record, when I think I was expecting closer to a memoir style. Some extremely interesting struggles of Chinese Americans that get easily erased.