Mott Street: A Chinese American Family's Story of Exclusion and Homecoming

Gorgeously written, deeply researched, and tremendously resonant, Mott Street follows Chinese American writer Ava Chin, who grew up estranged from her father, as she seeks the truth about her family history--and uncovers a legacy of exclusion and resilience that speaks to the American experience past and present. Chin's ancestors became lovers, classmates, sworn enemies, and, eventually, through her birth, kin--all while converging at a single Chinatown address.

The first members of the family came from the fertile Pearl River delta and crossed an ocean to make their way in the American west of the mid-nineteenth century. Chin tells of journeys through the backbreaking work of the transcontinental railroad and brutal racism of frontier towns, then tracks their paths to New York City. There her ancestors established businesses, began families, and crafted new identities all under the shadow of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the first major federal law to restrict immigration by race and nationality, and which barred Chinese immigrants from citizenship for six decades.

As an only child growing up with a single mother in Flushing, Chin found much of her family history was hidden. In these pages, she breaks through that silence, following the men and women who became merchants, "paper son" refugees, activists, and heads of the Chinese tong--piecing together how they navigated the weight and scrutiny of the Exclusion laws. Chin finds exclusion is not simply a political condition but also a deeply personal one. While she discovers both her own home on Mott Street and her lost father over the course of her search, the difficult puzzle of belonging haunts both past and present.