foreigner” to them. As McCunn’s life became in-
creasingly isolated, she turned to reading and writ-
ing for solace.
McCunn’s father passed away when McCunn
was 15, the same year she graduated from high
school. Because prejudice against Amerasians was
widespread in Hong Kong at the time, and because
it was expensive to attend college there, at age 16
McCunn decided to attend college in the United
States. McCunn first moved to Boise, Idaho, to live
with her paternal grandmother. Feeling isolated
and out of place in an area with only one Chi-
nese family, McCunn moved to San Francisco to
live with her mother’s American friends in Walnut
Creek. McCunn worked odd jobs as she attended
Diablo Valley College. After two years, she trans-
ferred to the University of California at Berkeley.
In 1964, at the end of her junior year, McCunn
married Don McCunn in New York, one of the few
states that permitted interracial marriage. Today,
McCunn credits her mother and her husband
as her biggest supporters. To honor her Chinese
background, she has kept her mother’s maiden
name “Lum,” acknowledging that everything she
writes originates from that source.
By the time McCunn and her husband finally
decided to settle in San Francisco for good in 1974,
McCunn had been teaching as an English and bi-
lingual teacher in public schools. After working as
a teacher for another four years, McCunn left her
teaching career and turned to writing full time.
Since then she has taught Asian-American litera-
ture at Cornell University and the University of
California at Santa Cruz for a few terms, but for
the most part has dedicated her time to writing.
Writing has been a way for McCunn to channel
into her creative works her experiences and feel-
ings of living between two cultures. Although at
first she did not intend to write about the Asian-
American experience, her own experiences of liv-
ing with racial prejudice and between two cultures
motivated her to explore the themes of Asian-
American immigration and survival. Another
reason that inspired McCunn to write about the
Chinese-American experience in particular was
the lack of literature in this genre. McCunn re-
called that it was not until she was in her late 20s
that she read any books about Chinese-Americans.
McCunn decided to write her first book, An Illus-
trated History of the Chinese, when she was work-
ing as a bilingual teacher at a San Francisco junior
high school. She wanted to write the book for her
students because there was no textbook on Chi-
nese Americans at the time. Since then, the book
has been used as a college textbook, which Mc-
Cunn finds “alarming” because it was intended for
readers at a fifth-grade level.
Published in 1981, McCunn’s second book,
THOUSAND PIECES OF GOLD, was praised by MAXINE
HONG KINGSTON, the Chinese-American author
who wrote the critically acclaimed The WOMAN
WARRIOR, as “a valuable book that gives Chinese
Americans another true heroine.” McCunn’s book
was adapted into a movie by independent film-
makers Nancy Kelly and Kenji Yamamoto.
McCunn’s other published works include
Pie-Biter (1983), Sole Survivor (1985), Chinese
American Portraits: Personal Histories 1828–1988
(1988), Chinese Proverbs (1991), WOODEN FISH
SONGS (1995), and The Moon Pearl (2000). While
most of these books are historical fictions with
the exceptions of Chinese American Portraits and
Chinese Proverbs, Pie-Biter is believed to be the
first children’s book that has a Chinese-American
folk hero.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Mc-
Cunn said: “Writing forces you to stop and think.
It has brought out all sorts of things I have re-
pressed. I have a larger understanding of myself.”
McCunn’s works not only allow her to explore
and express her personal feelings but also to serve
the Chinese-American community at large. Her
books expose an English-speaking audience to the
unsung tales and unrecognized contributions of
Chinese/Chinese-American heroes and heroines
in China and in the United States.Bibliography
Hong, Terry. “Ruthanne Lum McCunn: Write,
Teacher.” In Notable Asian Americans, edited by
Zia Helen and Susan B. Gall, 244–246. Detroit:
Gale Research, 1995.Nan Ma188 McCunn, Ruthanne Lum