THE MOYS OF NEW YORK AND SHANGHAI

Chinese and U.S. relations viewed through the lens of a single family.

Historian Brooks (Between Mao and McCarthy, 2015) follows the members of a little-known but fascinating Chinese American family from the late-19th century through the years following World War II. In 1883, patriarch Moy Sing emigrated first to San Francisco, then to Chicago, where he set up a gambling parlor. In 1892, he was able to bring his wife to America, and the two finally settled in New York. They eventually had 12 children, six of whom survived to adulthood, and it’s around the lives of these six that Brooks builds her story. The author structures the history in snappy chapters, most only a few pages long, each focusing on a year or two in the life of one family member or another. The result is a soap opera in the best sense of the term. These lives contain more than their share of drama, with divorce, suicide, betrayal, illegal activities, political divisions, business successes, and failures all playing a role. Any one of the siblings would be worthy of their own book, and together they reveal the intriguing complexity of family and second-generation immigrant life. All six attended public school, with most graduating from college, took American names, and preceded to move up, down and sideways economically. Two stayed in the New York area, while the others moved back and forth between New York and Shanghai, hoping to better themselves in China but brought home by political changes there. Brooks thoroughly examines the impact of war and the Great Depression, the growth of Communism, and the American prejudice against the Chinese, without neglecting the effects of personality and family dynamics on persistent Kay, idealistic Ernest, flighty Alice, and all the rest.

A perceptive peek at an upwardly mobile immigrant family.