Author Talk: Strangers in the Land: Exclusion, Belonging, and the Epic Story of the Chinese in America

Strangers in the Land: Exclusion, Belonging, and the Epic Story of the Chinese in America

Join us for a book reading by Michael Luo in conversation with Kat Chow, with welcoming remarks by Qin Gao, Acting Director of the Asian American Initiative.

In Strangers in the Land, award-winning journalist Michael Luo tells the story of a people who, beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century, migrated by the tens of thousands to a distant land they called Gum Shan—Gold Mountain. Americans initially welcomed these Chinese arrivals, but, as their numbers grew, horrific episodes of racial terror erupted on the Pacific coast. Federal lawmakers enacted legislation aimed at excluding Chinese laborers from the country, the first time the United States barred a people based on their race. The Chinese became the country’s earliest undocu­mented immigrants: hounded, counted, suspected, surveilled.

Today there are more than twenty-two million people of Asian descent in the United States and yet the “stranger” label, Luo writes, remains. Drawing on archives from across the country and written with style and sweep, Strangers in the Land is a revelatory and unforgettable American story.

MICHAEL LUO is an executive editor at The New Yorker and writes regularly for the magazine on politics, religion, and Asian American issues. He joined The New Yorker in 2016. Before that, he spent thirteen years at the New York Times, as a metro reporter, national correspondent, and investigative reporter and editor. He is a recipient of a George Polk Award and a Livingston Award for Young Journalists.

KAT CHOW is a journalist, writer and the author of Seeing Ghosts: A Memoir (Grand Central Publishing), named a Notable Book by The New York Times and a finalist for the Connecticut Book Award. She is currently the Newsday/Laventhol Visiting Assistant Professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.