Beth Lew-Williams is Professor of History and Director of the Program in Asian American Studies at Princeton University. She is the author of The Chinese Must Go: Violence, Exclusion, and the Making of the Alien in America.
Her latest book is John Doe Chinaman: A Forgotten History of Chinese Life under American Racial Law.
At Lit Hub Lew-Williams suggest five books if "you want to know more about the history of Chinese Americans, Asian Americans, and the discriminatory laws their presence inspired." One title on the list:
Gordon Chang, Ghosts of Gold Mountain: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental RailroadRead about the other books on the list at Lit Hub.
Chinese workers played an important role in America’s westward expansion in the nineteenth century. Most famously, they helped to build the transcontinental railroad, which connected California to the eastern states. Gordon Chang captures the scale of this awesome feat, as well as the sacrifices made in attaining it. He carefully mines the scant historical record to find the stories of Chinese railroad workers who laid track through the Sierra Nevada Mountains and across the Utah desert.
--Marshal Zeringue
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