approaches to Asian-American studies could bring
more attention to her work. Her literary treatment
of U.S.–Southeast Asia relations and how they link
to current interests in transnationalism and global-
ization are areas warranting further investigation.
Bibliography
Hashim, Ruzy Suliza, and Faridah Abdul Manaf. “Ties
That Bind: A Comparative Study of Two Asian
Women Memoirists.” Feminist Studies in English
Literature 10, no. 2 (Winter 2002): 189–208.
Lim, Shirley Geok-lin. Review of Paper Boats by Hil-
ary Tham. CALYX (1990): 93–94.
Xiaojing, Zhou. “Hilary Tham.” Asian American Au-
tobiographers: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook,
edited by Guiyou Huang. Westport, Conn.: Green-
wood Press, 2001.
Marguerite Nguyen
Thousand Pieces of Gold
Ruthanne Lum McCunn (1981)
Based on the life story of the courageous Lalu Na-
thoy (1853–1933), later known as Polly Bemis, the
novel examines the double marginalization faced
by women of color as the protagonist Lalu/Polly
is subjected to oppression because of her gender
and race.
As northern China suffers a two-year drought,
bandit raids have surged in Lalu’s village. During
one bandit attack, Lalu’s father reluctantly sells
Lalu for two bags of seed. The bandit leader then
sells Lalu to a brothel, which turns out to be a cover
for a slave trade operation between a Chinese gov-
ernment official and American slave merchants.
Lalu soon finds herself on a ship bound to San
Francisco; only the dream of returning home with
gold to support her family sustains her spirit.
Once in San Francisco, Lalu learns the harsh
reality of her fate. The promise of gold has been
fabricated by her buyer; instead, she finds herself
stripped naked for a slave auction. Lalu is pur-
chased by Hong King, who runs a saloon in the
mining town of Warrens in Idaho. Hong King has
hired a Chinese packer named Jim to bring Lalu
back to the mining camp. Lalu learns from Jim
that she has been bought for the purpose of at-
tracting customers. Jim promises Lalu that he will
buy her freedom.
Lalu, renamed Polly by Hong King, once again
has her dream of freedom dashed when another
tragedy hits—Jim has been killed in an accident.
Jim’s death brings Polly and Charlie, Jim’s friend,
closer as he is now her only friend. Charlie devises
a plan and wins Polly from Hong King in a poker
game. Polly expresses to Charlie her desire to be-
come an independent woman by establishing her
own boardinghouse, but Charlie informs her that
Chinese cannot own land in America. Charlie con-
fesses his love for Polly and offers to help her by
building a house for her under his name.
Having experienced many difficulties together,
Polly, at age 31, and Charlie finally agree to marry.
They build a ranch in Salmon Canyon and name
it Polly Place. However, after a couple of peace-
ful decades in Salmon Canyon, another disaster
strikes when Polly Place burns down and Charlie
succumbs to his already weakened health. After
Charlie’s death, Polly moves back to Warrens for
a short period of time, but she finally decides that
her life belongs to the ranch that she and Char-
lie built. Polly moves back to Salmon Canyon and
lives there until her death in 1933.
RUTHANNE LUM MCCUNN skillfully juxtaposes
Polly’s experiences with those of other marginal-
ized subjects to articulate the many forms of so-
cial injustice. For example, McCunn compares the
Western custom of corseting to the Chinese prac-
tice of foot binding, exposing both as the tools of
patriarchy to exert control over a woman’s body.
McCunn also shows Polly traversing between
cultures while questioning both. For instance, Polly
uses the gardening techniques that she learned as
a child from her father to plant her own garden
in Salmon Canyon and uses herbal medicine to
cure the children of Warrens. However, Polly also
discards the Chinese traditional belief in luck and
adopts the philosophy of American individual-
ism. By combining the cultural beliefs and prac-
tices of both China and America, Polly has created
a Chinese-American identity for herself despite284 Thousand Pieces of Gold