Dreaming of gold, dreaming of home : transnationalism and migration between the United States and South China, 1882-1943

This book is a highly original study of transnationalism among immigrants from Taishan, a populous coastal county in south China from which, until 1965, the majority of Chinese in the United States originated.

Drawing creatively on Chinese-language sources such as gazetteers, newspapers, and magazines, supplemented by fieldwork and interviews as well as recent scholarship in Chinese social history, the author presents a much richer depiction than we have had heretofore of the continuing ties between Taishanese remaining in China and their kinsmen seeking their fortune in Gold Mountain.

Long after the gold in California ran out and prejudice confined them to dismal Chinatowns, generations of Chinese mostly men from rural areas of southern China continued to migrate to the United States in hopes of bettering the family s lot by remitting much of the meager sums they earned as laundrymen, cooks, domestic workers, and Chinatown merchants.