Dr. Arthur Chung, a member of one of Ventura County’s oldest Chinese pioneer families, has written a long awaited history of his grandfather and grandmother’s journey to America. Dr. Chung’s intimate novel allows us to step back in time and hear the voices and experience the struggles of early settlers in Ventura’s Chinese community.
At last, their story has been written.
BITTER ROOTS: A Gum Saan Odyssey
From the laundries and chop suey joints of San Francisco to the brutal heat of the Mojave desert where Yee Hay dynamites mountains for borax wagons and railroads, he and his wife Chan See “eat the bitterness” of hostility and heartbreak, disappointment and discrimination. They finally put down roots in developing San Buena Ventura, as they give up a newborn child, raise four others, and later move to the booming town of Los Angeles, to acculturate and blend their emerging history with that of California.
In January of 2005, excavation for the MTA Gold Line encountered human remains in the Chinese section of Los Angeles County’s potter’s field and Yee Hay’s descendants race against time and politics to find their ancestor’s grave.
92-year-old Chung weaves a vivid, compelling tale, richly colorful in historical and cultural detail that is both a poignant love story as well as an encompassing family epic about his grandparents. He traveled with family friend Earl Stanley Gardner to China to pursue his medical studies, returning to the U.S. to continue at Harvard Medical University, New York’s Bellevue Hospital and later became the Assistant Director of the World Health Organization in Geneva. In retirement, Chung wrote his first book at age 82.
“Bitter Roots is an important addition to the insightful and culturally accurate genre that includes Amy Tan’s Joy Luck Club… Gus Lee’s China Boy… and Lisa See’s On Gold Mountain… focuses on the family while giving much more…wondrously rich prose about aspects of immigrant life not often given…” -From the Foreword by Thomas McDannold, Ph.D., Professor emeritus, Ventura College & Past President, Chinese Historical Society of So. California
ISBN: 1-928753-25-6 ISBN-13: 978-1-928753-25-4
USD$18.00 + S &H 1-310-541-8818 1-888-810-9891
Fax: 310-791-9069 Hardcover 6x9 157 pages
PHBooks, Box 998, Palos Verdes Estates, CA 90274-0998
Ages: Young adult and up
http://www.pacificheritagebooks.com/bitterroots.html