From Library Journal
This is a long-overdue publication of a 1953 doctoral dissertation. Concentrating on Chicago, Siu illuminates in exceptional detail important aspects of the life of the Chinese in America. The volume is much more than a specialist's monograph. It is a significant primary source, being the product of a participant-observer and replete with stories, letters, and interviews. In addition, Siu's analysis yields useful insights, particularly about the persistence of Old World traditions and the Chinese laundryman as "sojourner." This excellent study should be of interest to those in ethnic and immigration history and in urban and labor history as well. Highly recommended for academic and large public libraries. Roy H. Tryon, Delaware State Archives, Dover
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Relié .
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à l'édition Relié .
Book Description
Chinese hand laundries have been a fixture of America's urban landscape for over one hundred years. Yet little is publicly known about the workings of this familiar institution which originated shortly after Chinese immigrants had started to arrive in some numbers in California in the 1850s. At that time the Chinese worked in a wide range of occupations, hand laundries being one of them.
With the faltering of the Western economy and as European immigration to the United States mounted, the tide of anti-Chinese sentiment swelled, which culminated in violent evictions of the Chinese from West Coast cities and in the imposition of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. The laundry became one of the few occupations in which Chinese were able to continue to work. This book is the definitive scholarly study of Chinese laundries and of those who worked in them in the United States.
