Parts of it are very graphic and hope that doesn't offend anyone, but I think it's an important historical perspective about the Chinese female immigrant experience in the U.S.-Carole
Travel to China―literally speaking, that is. In this haunting novel, Lisa See, author of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, follows two sisters―tall and bookish Pearl and beautiful and flirty May―as they move from Shanghai to Los Angeles in the 1930s. -Sharon Tanenbaum, Real Simple Magazine
May and Pearl, two sisters living in Shanghai in the mid-1930s, are beautiful, sophisticated, and well-educated, but their family is on the verge of bankruptcy. Hoping to improve their social standing, May and Pearl’s parents arrange for their daughters to marry “Gold Mountain men” who have come from Los Angeles to find brides.
But when the sisters leave China and arrive at Angel’s Island (the Ellis Island of the West)--where they are detained, interrogated, and humiliated for months--they feel the harsh reality of leaving home. And when May discovers she’s pregnant the situation becomes even more desperate. The sisters make a pact that no one can ever know. (Amazon.com)
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