
Strangers in the Land
Exclusion, Belonging, and the Epic Story of the Chinese in America
Michael Luo(Author)
Random House Large Print (Publisher)
Published on 29. April 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
928 pages
979-8-217-07011-4 (ISBN)
Description
From New Yorker editor and writer Michael Luo, a vivid, urgent history of two centuries of Chinese exclusion and the birth of anti-Asian feeling in America.
In 1889, when the Supreme Court upheld the Chinese Exclusion Act—a measure barring Chinese laborers from entering the United States that remained in effect for more than fifty years—Justice Stephen Johnson Field characterized the Chinese as a people “residing apart by themselves.” They were, Field concluded, “strangers in the land.” Today, there are more than twenty-two million people of Asian descent in the United States, yet this label still hovers over Asian Americans.
In Strangers in the Land, Luo traces anti-Asian feeling in America to the first wave of immigrants from China in the mid-nineteenth-century: laborers who traveled to California in search of gold and railroad work. Their communities almost immediately faced mobs of white vigilantes who drove them from their workplaces and homes. In his rich, character-driven history, Luo tells stories like that of Denis Kearney, the sandlot demagogue who became the face of the anti-Chinese movement, and of activists who fought back, like Massachusetts Senator George Frisbie Hoar and newspaperman Wong Chin Foo.
After the halt on immigration in 1889, the Chinese-American community who remained struggled to survive and thrive on the margins of American life. In 1965, when LBJ's Immigration and Nationality Act forbade discrimination by national origin, America opened its doors wide to families like those of Luo's parents, but he finds that the centuries of exclusion of Chinese-Americans left a legacy: many Asians are still treated, and feel, like outsiders today.
Strangers in the Land is a sweeping narrative of a forgotten chapter in American history, and a reminder that America’s present reflects its exclusionary past.
In 1889, when the Supreme Court upheld the Chinese Exclusion Act—a measure barring Chinese laborers from entering the United States that remained in effect for more than fifty years—Justice Stephen Johnson Field characterized the Chinese as a people “residing apart by themselves.” They were, Field concluded, “strangers in the land.” Today, there are more than twenty-two million people of Asian descent in the United States, yet this label still hovers over Asian Americans.
In Strangers in the Land, Luo traces anti-Asian feeling in America to the first wave of immigrants from China in the mid-nineteenth-century: laborers who traveled to California in search of gold and railroad work. Their communities almost immediately faced mobs of white vigilantes who drove them from their workplaces and homes. In his rich, character-driven history, Luo tells stories like that of Denis Kearney, the sandlot demagogue who became the face of the anti-Chinese movement, and of activists who fought back, like Massachusetts Senator George Frisbie Hoar and newspaperman Wong Chin Foo.
After the halt on immigration in 1889, the Chinese-American community who remained struggled to survive and thrive on the margins of American life. In 1965, when LBJ's Immigration and Nationality Act forbade discrimination by national origin, America opened its doors wide to families like those of Luo's parents, but he finds that the centuries of exclusion of Chinese-Americans left a legacy: many Asians are still treated, and feel, like outsiders today.
Strangers in the Land is a sweeping narrative of a forgotten chapter in American history, and a reminder that America’s present reflects its exclusionary past.
More details
Edition
Large type / large print edition
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Publishing group
Diversified Publishing
Edition type
Large type / large print edition
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 155 mm
Thickness: 45 mm
Weight
906 gr
ISBN-13
979-8-217-07011-4 (9798217070114)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
04/2025
Vintage
€5.49
Available for download
Person
MICHAEL LUO is the editor of newyorker.com and writes regularly for the magazine on politics, media, and religion. He joined The New Yorker in 2016 as an investigations editor. Before that, he spent thirteen years at The New York Times, where he led a team of investigative reporters and was an editor on the newspaper’s race team. He is a recipient of a George Polk Award and a Livingston Award for Young Journalists. He is the son of Chinese-American immigrants.