When she was a girl, Lisa See spent summers in the cool, dark recesses of her fa
mily's antiques store in Los Angeles's Chinatown. There, her grand-mother and gr
eat-aunt told her intriguing, colorful stories about their family's past - stori
es of missionaries, concubines, tong wars, glamorous nightclubs, and the determi
ned struggle to triumph over racist laws and discrimination. They spoke of how L
isa's great-great-grandfather emigrated from his Chinese village to the United S
tates; how his son followed him, married a Caucasian woman, and despite great od
ds, went on to become one of the most prominent Chinese on "Gold Mountain" (the
Chinese name for the United States). As an adult, See spent five years collectin
g the details of her family's remarkable history. She interviewed nearly one hun
dred relatives - both Chinese and Caucasian, rich and poor - and pored over docu
ments at the National Archives, the immigration office, and in countless attics,
basements, and closets for the intimate nuances of her ancestors' lives.
