American Heritage

A Walk Through Chinatown with My Grandfather

Bruce Edward Hall awarded Gold Medal from the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation for American Heritage A Walk Through Chinatown with My Great Grandfather

"New York's Chinatown is the stage for a personal historical tour of "the last foreign country in New York City." Writer Hall shares his search for family roots in much the same way that Alex Haley did years ago. The theme here traces the trail of oppressed Chinese immigrants from California to New York City as the author discovers that Chinatown had a visible history that 'seemed to be fast running down some drain that I couldn't plug.' Here is a highly personalized account of locating stacks of fragile onionskin carbon copies of government interviews with Hall's relatives in the 1930s. Tracking down his great-grandfather could only be located in an ancient Ancestors' Hall in a village in China. Meticulous research had to be conducted by this journalist long before the storytelling could begin for Hall's readers. The journey Hall leads departs the National Archives and numerous libraries and takes us into colorful Chinatown, including the Museum of Chinese in the Americas, where he discovers 'a history that begged to be traced on foot.' Readers are in for a special treat with this vicarious foot tour of New York's Chinatown with Bruce Edward Hall."

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I Thought My Father Was God; and Other True Tales from NPR's National Story Project, $1,380 Per Night, Double Occupancy 

Tea That Burns : A Family Memoir of Chinatown 

Diamond Street: The Story of the Little Town with the Big Red Light District 

TimeOut The Forbidden City

Also by Bruce Edward Hall

curriculum vitae

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