This memoir conveys the experiences, first of my parents and subsequently of our family, the only Chinese people living in Macon, Georgia between 1928 and 1956. It describes our family's isolated existence running a laundry, enduring loneliness as well as racial prejudice for over 20 years and discusses why and how we moved to San Francisco to live in a Chinese community, and how each family member adjusted to the challenges and opportunities of their new lives.
Southern Fried Rice is a memoir that conveys the experiences, first of my parents and subsequently of our family, the only Chinese people living in Macon, Georgia between 1928 and 1956 during the Jim Crow era of segregation. It describes our family's isolated existence running a laundry, enduring loneliness as well as racial prejudice for over 20 years, why and how it moved to San Francisco to live in a Chinese community, and how each family member adjusted to the challenges and opportunities of their new lives.
Praise from Some Scholars
Krishan Saxena, Kensington, Ca.
Your book is the one that I had promised myself that I would write one day, but you went ahead and wrote it. You did a wonderful job!
Henry Tom, Frederick, Maryland
Thank you for telling your story in such an engaging manner. While your story is personal it is also universal because of its working class foundation laced with layers of Chinese ethnicity, family structure and dynamics, and the specificity of the South.
Flo Oy Wong, Artist, Sunnyvale, California
Enjoyed very much reading your family history revealing a unique experience yet sharing many of the same problems of families in Chinese laundries. Yours is one of the few written accounts of the many family-run laundries in the U. S. Thank you for the careful documentation of this history, which would be otherwise forgotten.
Tunney Lee, Boston, Massachusetts
"Southern Fried Rice" is a well-written and factually documented memoir that gave me insight into the lives of Chinese in the South, especially those living where there were no other Chinese, as you did in Macon. Your move to San Francisco must have been as much of a cultural shock for you as it was for me, an African American moving to the Bay Area from Memphis.