Anthony Day reviews a uniquely California story, The Chinese in America by Iris Chang:

It is a great story: With the 1849 Gold Rush, about 100,000 Chinese men came to what they called Gum San, “Gold Mountain,” in the California gold fields. They stayed on, to build the western part of the intercontinental railroad, as Irish immigrants built the eastern part.

More Chinese came. They manned the developing agricultural fields of California’s great Central Valley. More Chinese came. They created the Chinatowns of San Francisco, Los Angeles and smaller cities. Jammed in their officially enforced ghettos, they took up the laundry business and introduced Canton–style food to America. Crimped by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, they nevertheless endured and in their thrifty way mostly prospered… Iris Chang’s book tells one important part of the American story comprehensively. Read more in today’s LAT.