Julia Flynn Siler

 Twitter
Join Mailing List
  • HOME
  • AUTHOR
  • BOOKS
  • ARTICLES
  • BOOK CLUBS
  • NEWS
  • EVENTS
  • BLOG
  • SPEAKING
  • MEDIA
  • CONTACT
Follow Us on RSS

Recent Posts

  • California Book Awards
  • History Written by the Victors….
  • United Nations and Human Trafficking
  • The Safe Place That Became Unsafe
  • Remembering Judy Yung

Recent Comments

  • Christopher Phillips on “Auntie” Tye and one degree of separation….
  • Cynthia Tom on The Safe Place That Became Unsafe
  • Online Tributes – Judy Yung on Remembering Judy Yung
  • Online Tributes – Judy Yung on Remembering Judy Yung
  • Stephen M Stirling on “Are you wearing a mask…?”

Archives

“Auntie” Tye and one degree of separation….

November 14, 2019 by Julia Flynn Siler 1 Comment

One of the unexpected pleasures of my book tour has been meeting readers whose own life stories overlap with the characters I write about in The White Devil’s Daughters.

After a recent talk I gave at the San Francisco Theological Seminary , a  retired Chinese American woman named May Lynne Lim came up to introduce herself to me. We chatted briefly and she handed me a sealed envelope with my name inked onto it in careful handwritten script.

Tye Leung Schulze, courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library

Continue Reading...

Filed Under: Asian Americans, Bay Area Book Scene, Speaking, The Writing Life Tagged With: "donaldina cameron", 1906 earthquake, asian american history, book tour, cameron house, Chinese American History, earthquake refugees, tye leung schulze, Writing

Five Generations at Cameron House

September 16, 2019 by Julia Flynn Siler Leave a Comment

The Rev. Harry Chuck can trace his family’s history at 920 Sacramento Street back to the late 19th century.

That’s when his grandmother was sold into slavery by her impoverished family in China. Her owners sent her to San Francisco but she was intercepted by immigration officials before she reached one of Chinatown’s many brothels. They brought her instead to the Presbyterian Mission Home on 920 Sacramento Street, which was established in San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1874 as a refuge for vulnerable women.

The Rev. Harry Chuck at Cameron House, photo by author.

Continue Reading...

Filed Under: Asian Americans, Human Trafficking, The Writing Life Tagged With: Chinese American History, family history, History

The Cameron Family’s Gift to the Bancroft Library

December 19, 2018 by Julia Flynn Siler Leave a Comment

One morning, in June of 2016, an e-mail popped into my inbox from the grandniece of Donaldina Cameron, one of the main characters in The White Devil’s Daughters, my nonfiction account of the women who fought slavery in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

I’d already been researching and writing my book for more than three years by that time. Ann told me that while cleaning out her brother’s home for a move, she’d discovered a box filled with photos, letters, and other genealogical material about her great aunt Dolly, as Donaldina was known.

Cameron family materials dating to the 1840s Family

Continue Reading...

Filed Under: Bay Area Book Scene, History, Research, The Writing Life Tagged With: Bancroft Library, Chinatown, Chinese American History, Libraries, Presbyterian Church in Chinatown, research

Copyright © 2023 Julia Flynn Siler
Terms of Service & Privacy Policy | Data Access Request