Strangers in the Land: Exclusion, Belonging, and the Epic Story of the Chinese in America

前《紐約客》記者羅明瀚（Michael Luo）追溯19世紀華人在美的悲痛歷程，揭示了他們超過一世紀的掙扎與歸屬。

2025年最受期待的書籍——《時代雜誌》
《紐約時報》春季必讀非小說書籍

「這是一本關於理想與歸屬的故事，既普遍又深刻。」—帕特里克·雷登‧基夫（Patrick Radden Keefe），《Say Nothing》一書的作者

「一本送給所有對美國歷史有興趣的讀者的禮物。我一旦開始翻頁，就無法停下來。」—游朝凱（Charles Yu），《Interior Chinatown》一書的作者

「歷史該有的樣子——詳盡豐富、權威且引人入勝。」—大衛‧格蘭（David Grann），《The Wager》和《Killers of the Flower Moon》一書的作者

Strangers in the Land講述了一個人群的故事，這些人從19世紀中期開始，成千上萬地移居到這片他們稱之為金山（Gum Shan）的遙遠土地。起初，美國人歡迎這些中國移民，但隨著他們的數量增加，太平洋沿岸爆發了可怕的種族恐怖事件。隨著經濟衰退，成群的白人工人失業，為接下來的發展創造了條件：一系列日益苛刻的聯邦法律，旨在將中國勞工排除在國外，這標誌著美國第一次因種族原因排斥一個族群。在這本引人入勝的首部作品中，麥可·羅跟隨華人從這些早期的歷史到現代，揭示了他們在偏見和迫害面前的堅持，再次揭示了我們多種族民主制度中的複雜性。

羅寫了早期反亞裔暴力的受害者，例如洛杉磯的草藥師基恩‧湯（Gene Tong），他在國史上最慘烈的集體私刑之一中被暴徒從公寓拖出並絞死；也寫了像丹尼斯‧基爾尼（Denis Kearney）這樣的民粹主義者，基爾尼是1870年代末反華運動的代言人；以及先鋒活動家黃金福（Wong Chin Foo）等華人社區的領袖，他們不斷向新國土爭取生活於其所宣揚的理想的機會。本書的核心部分講述了美國歷史中一個令人蒙羞的篇章：驅逐華人居民出美國西部各城鎮。華人成為了美國的第一批非法移民：他們被追捕、統計、懷疑、監視。

1889年，當最高法院裁定維持華人排斥法時，史蒂芬‧J‧菲爾德大法官將他們描述為「異鄉人」。直到1965年，美國的門才對像羅的父母這樣的移民敞開。如今，美國有超過2200萬亞裔後裔，然而「異鄉人」這個標籤依舊存在，羅在書中寫道。Strangers in the Land通過來自全國各地的檔案資料，並以《紐約客》作家的風格和視野撰寫，不僅是啟示性的，也讓人難以忘懷，這是一個關鍵的美國故事。

From New Yorker writer Michael Luo comes a masterful narrative history of the Chinese in America that traces the sorrowful theme of exclusion and documents their more than century-long struggle to belong.

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2025 (Time)

"A story about aspiration and belonging that is as universal as it is profound.”—Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Say Nothing

"A gift to anyone interested in American history. I couldn't stop turning pages."—Charles Yu, author of Interior Chinatown

"What history should be--richly detailed, authoritative, and compelling."—David Grann, author of The Wager and Killers of the Flower Moon

Strangers in the Land tells the story of a people who, beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century, migrated by the tens of thousands to a distant land they called Gum Shan­––Gold Mountain. Americans initially welcomed these Chinese arrivals, but, as their numbers grew, horrific episodes of racial terror erupted on the Pacific coast. A prolonged economic downturn that idled legions of white workingmen helped create the conditions for what came next: a series of progressively more onerous federal laws aimed at excluding Chinese laborers from the country, marking the first time the United States barred a people based on their race. In a captivating debut, Michael Luo follows the Chinese from these early years to modern times, as they persisted in the face of bigotry and persecution, revealing anew the complications of our multiracial democracy.

    Luo writes of early victims of anti-Asian violence, like Gene Tong, a Los Angeles herbalist who was dragged from his apartment and hanged by a mob during one of the worst mass lynchings in the country’s history; of demagogues like Denis Kearney, a sandlot orator who became the face of the anti-Chinese movement in the late-1870s; of the pioneering activist Wong Chin Foo and other leaders of the Chinese community, who pressed their new homeland to live up to its stated ideals.  At the book’s heart is a shameful chapter of American history: the brutal driving out of Chinese residents from towns across the American West. The Chinese became the country’s first undocumented immigrants: hounded, counted, suspected, surveilled.

    In 1889, while upholding Chinese exclusion, Supreme Court Justice Stephen J. Field characterized them as “strangers in the land.” Only in 1965 did America’s gates swing open to people like Luo’s parents, immigrants from Taiwan. Today there are more than twenty-two million people of Asian descent in the United States and yet the “stranger” label, Luo writes, remains. Drawing on archives from across the country and written with a New Yorker writer’s style and sweep, Strangers in the Land is revelatory and unforgettable, an essential American story.