Bitter Melon: Stories from the Last Rural Chinese Town in America

Relates the history and experiences of Chinese Americans living in the rural community of Locke, California

YA These oral histories reveal the strong traditional ties of the people who grew up in the all-Chinese town of Locke, Calif. Family values and a work ethic were central to this culture. A historical essay gives a broad overview of the Chinese immigrant experience. Superb photographs of the people and the town complete this first-hand picture of Asians adjusting to life in America in the 19th and early 20th Centuries.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

In their own words, the mostly elderly residents of formerly all-Chinese Locke, Calif., tell their life stories. Situated in the fertile Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, Locke is the lone survivor of what was once a range of Chinese towns along the West Coast and in the Rocky Mountain statesmost of which were destroyed at various times by Caucasian rioters. The well-researched introduction gives compelling information about Chinese-American history. Many readers will be surprised to learn that not only the West's railroad system, but also much of its agriculture, was made possible through the low-paid labor of Chinese men. Even more shocking, in this year of celebration of the Constitution, is the list of anti-Chinese laws enacted, some of which bear an eerie resemblance to the anti-Jewish ones of Hitler's Germany. Motlow's black-and-white photographs capture his subjects' steadfast dignity as well as the soft light of the delta region.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Locke, California in the Sacramento delta was established in 1915 and remained exclusively a Chinese community into the late 1960s. Thus it was the last rural Chinese town in the United States, according to the National Register of Historic Places. Bitter Melon is its story. Though Sucheng Chan, who wrote the book's introduction, discusses the Chinese in California agriculture in The Bittersweet Soil ( LJ 4/1/87), Bitter Mellon is distinctively oral history. For most academic and larger public libraries. Boyd Childress, Auburn Univ. Lib., Ala.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.