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Available From UC Press
The Moys of New York and Shanghai
The most extraordinary family you’ve never heard of.
Born to Chinese immigrant parents, the Moy siblings grew up in an America that questioned their citizenship and denied their equality. Sophisticated and self-consciously modern, they challenged limitations and stereotypes in the United States and sought new opportunities in China’s tumultuous republic. Sometimes the risks they took paid off, but their occasional recklessness also led to infidelity, divorce, bankruptcy, and worse. Those in China faced pressure to collaborate with Japanese occupiers, making choices that had serious consequences for their siblings in America.
Charlotte Brooks’s gripping tale follows the family back and forth across the Pacific and through two world wars, China’s nationalist and communist revolutions, and the Cold War—events that the siblings and their spouses helped shape. The Moys’ incredible story offers a kaleidoscopic view of an entire generation’s struggle for acceptance and belonging.
"The Moys of New York and Shanghai is an extraordinary family saga of the twentieth century. Six middle-class Chinese American siblings defied stereotypes but in different ways—in business and in politics, on both sides of the Pacific, and on both sides of World War II and the Chinese revolution. Brooks brings this family to life with an engaging narrative based on deep research in Chinese- and English-language sources. This is Chinese American history never before told."—Mae Ngai, author of The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes and Global Politics “Meticulously researched, well-written, and illuminating. Brooks's use of archival collections, oral histories, interviews, Chinese-language sources, and other pertinent sources all contribute to her unique ability to tell histories that few others can. Brooks is one of the best historians of the trans-Pacific Chinese American experience."—K. Scott Wong, author of Americans First: Chinese Americans and the Second World War