Posts Tagged ‘research’
Remembering Judy Yung
Judy Yung’s death this month marks the passing of a gifted and generous scholar. Her groundbreaking work in the history of Asian American women paved the way for a new generation of thinkers and writers. Along with fellow San Franciscans Him Mark Lai and the Philip P. Choy, Judy Yung made an enormous contribution to…
Read MoreThe local settings of my latest book…
The women who ran the Mission Home in THE WHITE DEVIL’S DAUGHTERS crossed the country for their work. They pursued sex trafficking cases and checked up on former residents in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Seattle, Sacramento, Fresno, Los Angeles, and elsewhere. The charitable organization that supported them, the Occidental Board, was founded in the San…
Read MoreThe Cameron Family’s Gift to the Bancroft Library
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…
Read MoreThe end of the library (as we know it?)
A few months ago, San Francisco’s venerable Mechanics’ Institute hosted a discussion titled “The End of the Library (As We Know It)?” As the oldest library in the city of San Francisco, the Mechanics’ Institute founded in 1854 and opened a year later with a grand total of four books, a chess room, and a…
Read MoreDevotees of the Bancroft Library: “We’re archive rats!”
This past Saturday, I went to the annual meeting of the Friends of the Bancroft Library. I love this University of California campus and especially U.C. Berkeley’s Bancroft Library, which houses some of the most precious and rare manuscripts of the American West. That day, I met other people — historians, authors, and avid readers…
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