Michael Luo — Strangers in the Land- with with Jia Lynn Yang

Watch author Michael Luo's book talk and reading at Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C.

PURCHASE BOOK HERE

This event is in partnership with the 1882 Foundation’s Talk Story program. The 1882 Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to raising public awareness about Asian American history and the continuing impact of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act–the only piece of legislation to bar a specific group from entering the United States. Since 2013, the Talk Story Series has been one of the 1882 Foundation’s staple programs. Through Talk Story events, the Foundation provides space for people to share the history, culture, and personal experiences of Asian American individuals and communities.

In 1889, while upholding the latest in a series of exclusionary laws targeting Chinese immigrants, the Supreme Court Justice Stephen Johnson Field characterized the Chinese as "impossible to assimilate with our people" and "strangers in the land." Today, there are twenty-four million people of Asian descent in the United States, and yet, as Luo observes in his riveting, sorrowful narrative, the question of belonging still trails them.

Strangers in the Land 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 the Chinese arrivals, but as their numbers grew on the Pacific coast, sentiment shifted and horrific episodes of racial violence erupted. A prolonged economic downturn that commenced in the mid-eighteen-seventies and idled legions of white working men helped create the conditions for what came next: federal legislation aimed at excluding Chinese laborers from the country. It marked the first time the United States barred a people from immigrating based on their race. Violence soon crested. Luo documents the driving out of Chinese residents from towns across the American West, a shameful and little-known chapter of American history.

Luo follows the Chinese in America as they persisted amidst suspicion and as a native-born population took shape. Finally, in 1965, America's gates swung open to people like his parents, immigrants from Taiwan. Strangers in the Land is an epic history of exclusion, belonging, and the complications of America's multiracial democracy.

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.

Luo is in conversation with Jia Lynn Yang, the National editor at The New York Times, where she has worked since 2017. She is also the author of One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924-1965, a political history of the landmark immigration law that allowed her family to settle in this country. The book was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal in Excellence for Nonfiction in 2021.

Be Sure To Click SUBSCRIBE

@politicsprose

Visit us online at

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on instagram

Like us on Facebook

Follow us on Threads

Follow Us On TikTok

Subscribe to our e-mail newsletter:

Become a store member and save

Audio Archive

Founded by Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade in 1984, Politics and Prose Bookstore is Washington, D.C.'s premier independent bookstore and cultural hub, a gathering place for people interested in reading and discussing books. Politics and Prose offers superior service, unusual book choices, and a haven for book lovers in the store and online.

#books #booktube