A Chinaman's Chance : One Family's Journey and the Chinese American Dream

Prologue; Chapter 1; Mr. Robinson; Chapter 2; A Guide to Punctuation; Chapter 3; Lius in the News; Chapter 4; Counterfactual; Chapter 5; The Iron Chink; Chapter 6; Fidelity, Or, the Impossibility of Translating a Poem; Chapter 7; Epilogue; Acknowledgments; For Further Reading; Credits; Index.;From Tony Hsieh to Amy Chua to Jeremy Lin, Chinese Americans are now arriving at the highest levels of American business, civic life, and culture. But what makes this story of immigrant ascent unique is that Chinese Americans are emerging at just the same moment when China has emerged - and indeed may displace America - at the center of the global scene. What does it mean to be Chinese American in this moment? And how does exploring that question alter our notions of just what an American is and will be?In many ways, Chinese Americans today are exemplars of the American Dream: dur. From Tony Hsieh to Amy Chua to Jeremy Lin, Chinese Americans are now arriving at the highest levels of American business, civic life, and culture. But what makes this story of immigrant ascent unique is that Chinese Americans are emerging at just the same moment when China has emerged -- and indeed may displace America -- at the center of the global scene. What does it mean to be Chinese American in this moment? And how does exploring that question alter our notions of just what an American is and will be? In many ways, Chinese Americans today are exemplars of the American Dream: during a crowded century and a half, this community has gone from indentured servitude, second-class status and outright exclusion to economic and social integration and achievement. But this narrative obscures too much: the Chinese Americans still left behind, the erosion of the American Dream in general, the emergence -- perhaps -- of a Chinese Dream, and how other Americans will look at their countrymen of Chinese descent if China and America ever become adversaries. As Chinese Americans reconcile competing beliefs about what constitutes success, virtue, power, and purpose, they hold a mirror up to their country in a time of deep flux. In searching, often personal essays that range from the meaning of Confucius to the role of Chinese Americans in shaping how we read the Constitution to why he hates the hyphen in "Chinese-American," Eric Liu pieces together a sense of the Chinese American identity in these auspicious years for both countries. He considers his own public career in American media and government; his daughter's efforts to hold and release aspects of her Chinese inheritance; and the still-recent history that made anyone Chinese in America seem foreign and disloyal until proven otherwise. Provocative, often playful but always thoughtful, Liu breaks down his vast subject into bite-sized chunks, along the way providing insights into universal matters: identity, nationalism, family, and more. "From Tony Hsieh to Amy Chua to Jeremy Lin, Chinese Americans are now arriving at the highest levels of American business, civic life, and culture. But what makes this story of immigrant ascent unique is that Chinese Americans are emerging at just the same moment when China has emerged - and indeed may displace America - at the center of the global scene. What does it mean to be Chinese American in this moment? And how does exploring that question alter our notions of just what an American is and will be? In many ways, Chinese Americans today are exemplars of the American Dream: during a crowded century and a half, this community has gone from indentured servitude, second-class status and outright exclusion to economic and social integration and achievement. But this narrative obscures too much: the Chinese Americans still left behind, the erosion of the American Dream in general, the emergence--perhaps--of a Chinese Dream, and how other Americans will look at their countrymen of Chinese descent if China and America ever become adversaries. As Chinese Americans reconcile competing beliefs about what constitutes success, virtue, power, and purpose, they hold a mirror up to their country in a time of deep flux. In searching, often personal essays that range from the meaning of Confucius to the role of Chinese Americans in shaping how we read the Constitution to why he hates the hyphen in "Chinese-American," Eric Liu pieces together a sense of the Chinese American identity in these auspicious years for both countries. He considers his own public career in American media and government; his daughter's efforts to hold and release aspects of her Chinese inheritance; and the still-recent history that made anyone Chinese in America seem foreign and disloyal until proven otherwise. Provocative, often playful but always thoughtful, Liu breaks down his vast subject into bite-sized chunks, along the way providing insights into universal matters: identity, nationalism, family, and more. "-- A thought-provoking and sensitive exploration of what Chineseness means. Financial Times"Liu's ability to so neatly capture the complexities of cultural identity on both deeply personal and more global levels is what makes this book shine. . . . [H]e guides us to see just how our everyday views of they' and I' are formed . . . and how they change. Seattle TimesEric Liu brilliantly mines the history and experiences of Chinese Americans to draw insights into the current relationship between China and America, and to chart a course for the future. Whip-smart, enlightening, and always entertaining, Liu blends the personal and the socio-political to explore how we as Americans see the world, and each other. David Henry Hwang, Tony Awardwinning playwright of M. ButterflyWhen Chinese immigrants first came to the United States in large numbers, they were consigned to the most thankless tasks and roles in society. Thus was born the phrase, a Chinaman's chance--meaning no chance at all. But today Chinese Americans embody a more complicated narrative about opportunity. In this searching, wide-ranging book, Eric Liu traces his family's history, culture, and future, and in so doing pieces together a sense of Chinese American identityand, indeed, American identity itself. Provocative, often playful, always thoughtful, Liu considers the meaning of Confucius in modern life; the unseen role of Chinese Americans in shaping how we read the Constitution, and the made-in-the-USA notion of Tiger parenting. This book is deeply personal yet provides insights into universal identity, family, and the fate of the American idea. Weaving history, journalism, and memoir, the author of The Accidental Asian explores the parallel rise of China and the Chinese American, the means by which Chinese immigrants have excelled despite the constraints of racism and xenophobia, and how they are rewriting the American story.