Mott Street

November 1, 2022

The only child of a single mother who knew nothing about her forebears, Chin spent decades reconstructing her family history. Here, she traces their emigration from China's Pearl River delta, their work on the transcontinental railroad while facing the racism of frontier towns, and their arrival in New York's Chinatown, all the while exploring the brutal consequences of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Chin's LJ best-booked Eating Wildly won the M.F.K. Fisher Award; with a 50,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2023
This richly narrated family history starts in Chinatown, then amplifies the broader experience of Chinese Americans across two centuries of hardship and opportunity. The fifth-generation daughter of Chinese immigrants, Chin (Eating Wildly, 2014) traces her genealogy back to laborers on the transcontinental railroad. But it was in a tenement, at the elbow of Mott and Pell Streets in New York City, that both sides of Chin's sprawling family converged. Greatgrandmother Yulan spent a month crossing the Pacific, heavily pregnant. Kai Fei, detained for months as a teenager, toiled in a laundry to save enough money to meet his new "paper father." Rose Mai Doshim graduated from Hunter College but was rejected by racist workplaces and Chinese suitors who thought she was "too American." Their tenacity was profound but vital, as the Chinese Exclusion Act, among other laws, hard-wired anti-Chinese discrimination into U.S. society. Chin draws upon oral narratives, archival research, photographs, location visits, and intuition to convey her ancestors' feelings. Chin expresses familial affection and reveals an ugly anti-Chinese sentiment that unfortunately "has made a roaring comeback in our time."

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Starred review from April 3, 2023
Chin (Eating Wildly) traces her ancestors’ journey from China to New York City in this stunning memoir. Raised by a single mother in 1970s Queens, Chin knew close to nothing about the father who walked out on her. Driven by a need to fill the holes in her personal narrative, she painstakingly pieced together the beats of her family’s migration, coming up against a discrepancy that distorts many families like hers—the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which forced migrants to craft new identities to get past immigration officials, scrambling the paper trail for their offspring. For Chinese Americans, Chin writes, “it is the historical record that is a fabulous fabrication.” Eventually, Chin zeroed in on a single building in New York’s Chinatown that she learned housed multiple generations from both sides of her family. She enriches her search with startling personal reflections, including the moment she burst into tears when she realized the medical examiner who supervised demeaning immigration screenings on her paternal great-grandmother was a prominent eugenicist, and one in which she wonders whether her maternal great-grandmother, a midwife, assisted in the difficult birth of her father. Deeply researched and superbly told, this sweeping saga is sure to become required reading for those seeking to understand America’s past and present. Readers will be rapt. Agent: Frances Cody, Aragi, Inc.

May 1, 2023

A wonderful snapshot of a history at once unique to Chin and also likely representative of so many families who made the United States their home through trials and tribulations. Though this nonfiction piece takes on a memoir vibe, it is very much a family history that beautifully brings together Chin's family members from similar geographic origins to an even more similar geographic present. Chin tells the tale of her family's journey from Guangdong Province, China, to Mott Street, New York City, in four chronologically grouped parts that include photos of her family and documents sprinkled throughout. Though the content of Chin's family history is not always easy to reckon with, her writing can transport readers in ways not common for nonfiction books. Complete with chapter-by-chapter bibliography and researcher memos, this title is recommended for high school collections that are looking to amplify their American history collections, as well as those that have readers interested in family history as it relates to the American immigrant experience. An authentic history of the Chinese Exclusion Act and historical practices of foot binding are also included. VERDICT Chin's thoughtful research and careful diction renders a wonderful window into her family and likely a mirror for many others. -Samantha Hull

Copyright 2023 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2023

This is a beautifully written ode to Chin's (Eating Wildly) immigrant family that explores the history of a nation through the eyes of those whose stories of strength, rage, and passion were often suppressed from the historical record. It begins when Chin learns that both sides of her family once occupied the same building on Manhattan's Mott Street, inspiring her to dive deep into her family's past. She discovers that her family's turbulent and exciting history only scratched the surface of what was occurring in the United States during their initial immigration. Her research, on display in this book, shows that the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which restricted immigration by race and nationality, ultimately barred her Chinese family from U.S. citizenship for six decades, even as their labor in the States was welcomed. The book also draws parallels between Chin's family history and present-day discrimination against Chinese Americans, especially during the COVID pandemic. VERDICT Chin's family stories are important and relevant, and her memoir gives readers a better understanding of immigrants' pasts and presents in the U.S. and an idea of how to move forward.--Leah Fitzgerald

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 15, 2023
A Chinese American writer searches for roots not easily uncovered. "My family is a noisy, bothersome bunch--bursting through the walls and hallways as I tried to doze; talking to me through the memories of old friends, eyes brimming with recollection like a teacup about to overflow; egging me on to continue...." So writes Chin, a fifth-generation Chinese American and lifelong New Yorker at the center of whose universe stands the street of her title. Lower Mott Street is a wonderland of food and culture, defined by "giant, elaborate meals of long, pan-fried egg noodles with sliced beef, chicken, pork, and verdant gai lan vegetables as long as my chopsticks," among other delicacies. But life was not always so abundant. As Chin writes, her ancestors had to endure an extraordinary regime of racist laws that made clear they were not wanted. Coloring this past were official documents that were often misleading or indifferent, such that oral history proved to be much more trustworthy than "the historical record that is a fabulist fabrication." An initial challenge was finding the father who effectively abandoned her family and learning why. From there, Chin explores ancestors who arrived more than a century and a half ago to build the transcontinental railroad, excluded from ordinary society by, among other things, being barred from testifying against Whites in court cases. Some ancestors were prosperous, some forced into indentured servitude, but all reduced by those racist laws to "paper people--flat, two-dimensional sheets of biographical fiction." In this elegantly written, probing narrative, Chin adds weight and substance to those near caricatures, an act of filial homage that ends with the arresting image of "the mothers of Mott Street" revivified. A lively memoir that limns a long family history and helps us understand the troubled history of our nation.

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