Making It New: 1900–1945 469immigration was mainly to California, where Chinese immigrants joined the “Forty-
Niners” during the gold rush. The initial surge of movement resulted in the Chinese
term for the United States, “Gold Mountain,” a name that is still in use today, despite
the fact that immigrants soon turned to many other kinds of work: helping to build
the transcontinental railroad in the 1860s, then turning to various, mainly low-
paid jobs in the service industries, manufacturing, and agriculture. These early
immigrants were mostly male. And, owing, to the difficult conditions and prejudice
they encountered, many considered themselves huagiao, “overseas Chinese,” who
intended to return to China. Early Chinese-American literary production was
mainly limited to a few autobiographies and oral testimonies. Much of this literature
was influenced by Chinese literary traditions, which incorporated elements from
oral culture, and was often imitative of Chinese literary forms. An example of such
writing is the poetry, originally written in Chinese, which was carved on the walls of
the immigration station on Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, through which all
new immigrants to the United States had to pass between 1910 and 1940. This
poetry, composed by some of those 175,000 Chinese who came during this period,
while they awaited interrogation and, in some cases, deportation, is variable in
quality. But it vividly documents the despair and difficulties of the newly arrived
immigrants; and, at its best, it has that quality of fiercely understated emotion that
Pound so admired in Chinese poetry. “I boarded the steamship for America. / Time
flew like a shooting arrow. /” declares one. “Already, a cool autumn has passed.” “Still
I am at the beginning of the road. / I have yet to be interrogated. / My heart is
nervous with anticipation.” Some anticipate revenge, recalling that “The dragon of
water is humiliated by ants; / The fierce tiger who is caged is baited by the child.”
Others compare themselves to famous literary or heroic figures in Chinese legend
and history who have faced similar adversity. Still others, simply, quietly lament
their fate: “Leaving behind my brush and removing my sword, I came to America /,”
begins one. “Who was to know two streams of tears would flow upon arriving here?”
“There are tens of thousands of poems composed on these walls, /” comments one
anonymous contributor to this rich gallery of immigrant experience. “They are all
cries of complaint and sadness.” “The day I am rid of this prison and attain success /,”
he or she goes on, “I must remember that this chapter once existed.” Storing up
memories for themselves, and for fellow detainees who followed after them, these
composers of mostly unsigned and undated pieces were also, however unawares,
bringing a new note into immigrant writing. Using China as their formal source and
America as their subject, they were introducing a new sensibility into the American
literary tradition, that of the Chinese-American.
Of course, something of that sensibility had already been registered in the
published writing of Sui Sin Far. Something more of it was caught in the work of
Jade Snow Wong (1922–2006). In her autobiographical Fifth Chinese Daughter
(1945) she described her experience of growing up in America as the daughter of
traditional and strict Chinese parents. What her parents wanted, Wong recalls, was
filial obedience, piety, and adherence to the Chinese understanding of the female
role. And, while Wong herself was not totally resistant to these expectations, she didGGray_c04.indd 469ray_c 04 .indd 469 8 8/1/2011 7:54:02 AM/ 1 / 2011 7 : 54 : 02 AM