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A review by karnaconverse
Orphan Bachelors by Fae Myenne Ng
4.0
There's no way to fully understand the reasons behind U.S. immigration policies but I believe it prudent to learn about them and the effects they've had on families and the communities in which those families have lived. Ng's memoir does just that.
She was born in the late 1950s to a father who emigrated from China in 1940 and a mother who joined him through the War Brides Act. A father with a paper name who, to appease his wife in the mid-1960s, complied with the government's request to confess his illegal entry.
Ng highlights moments from her life against this backdrop of family secrets that rest quietly within the arms of San Francisco's Chinatown and the generations of families lost to another immigration policy—the Chinese Exclusion Act. That Act, first passed in 1882 and made permanent in 1902, was law until 1943—sixty-one years in which the Chinese, mostly men who had immigrated to work in the gold mines or on the transcontinental railroad, were not eligible for citizenship and could not marry. Bachelors for life.
Her prose paints a vivid picture that is pointed, yet poetic. And offers the reader (this one, anyway) much to ponder.
2023 Des Moines Library Challenge. Recommended by BookChat Librarian.
She was born in the late 1950s to a father who emigrated from China in 1940 and a mother who joined him through the War Brides Act. A father with a paper name who, to appease his wife in the mid-1960s, complied with the government's request to confess his illegal entry.
Ng highlights moments from her life against this backdrop of family secrets that rest quietly within the arms of San Francisco's Chinatown and the generations of families lost to another immigration policy—the Chinese Exclusion Act. That Act, first passed in 1882 and made permanent in 1902, was law until 1943—sixty-one years in which the Chinese, mostly men who had immigrated to work in the gold mines or on the transcontinental railroad, were not eligible for citizenship and could not marry. Bachelors for life.
Her prose paints a vivid picture that is pointed, yet poetic. And offers the reader (this one, anyway) much to ponder.
2023 Des Moines Library Challenge. Recommended by BookChat Librarian.