Review
Lisa See's latest novel,
Shanghai Girls, follows two sisters' lives
from 1937 to 1957, a time of rapid change for China and for those of Chinese
descent living in the USA. In 1937, the Japanese invaded China, temporarily
halting a civil war that had begun in 1927 and didn't end until the founding of
The People's Republic of China in 1950. During this period, many Chinese fled to the United States
where they were met with draconian immigration procedures, hostility and
discrimination in their neighborhoods, and the suspicion of being Communist
spies (most notably during the McCarthy era of the early 1950s). The
author creates a rich sense of time and place, from the descriptions of the terror of being in
Shanghai as the first bombs fell, to life in San Francisco's Chinese neighborhoods. Pearl Chin is the Chinese "everywoman" who narrates the story,...
Beyond the Book
The Angel Island Immigration Station
In
Shanghai Girls, Pearl and May are incarcerated at the
Angel Island
Immigration Station after fleeing war-torn China. Angel Island was the first
stop for most Chinese entering the United States during this period; 175,000 were processed there
during its thirty years of operation.
Chinese immigration to the United States began in the mid-1800s as a result of
the California Gold Rush. Although initially welcomed, or at least tolerated, an economic downturn in the 1870s
created resentment as the immigrants willingness to work for low wages was viewed
as depriving others of gainful employment. This led to a series of
immigration laws targeting Asians, beginning with the Chinese Exclusion Act
of...
