 |
||
 |
|
|
Inside The Oy Quong Laundry
Kathleen Kong Wing
with Carolyn Wing Greenlee
These are autobiographical memories -- eight pound irons and endless baskets of other people's laundry, gorgeous iridescent roosters, slobbering ghostly visitations, fires, stars, the search for worth, the struggle for acceptance, the awkwardness of growing into womanhood, and a gracious acceptance of those ugly aspects of life that can transform us into people of dignity, character, and grace.
- Review Quotes -
..Penetrating and unique.
In this poignant and refreshingly authentic journal, a daughter chronicles her parents, her siblings and herself in a multicultural life that reveals America through Chinese eyes. The story is Kathleen's, but daughter Carolyn helps tell it for American eyes. And it brings both a wink and a tear. The family operated a hand laundry in Merced, Calif., and kept chickens on hand for meals. They had escaped San Francisco with its white hooliganism and Chinese fighting Chinese. Work was hard, especially in torrid Merced summers, and generational gaps created arguments. The children in this adopted city of an adopted nation make dolls of clothes pins. But the cultural clash remained.
"Chinese mothers were seldom kind. Never any warmth. And girls are worthless."
Sentimental memories haunt these sometimes caustic stories, which detail individual rooms in the houses, neighbors, picnics, Chinatown, a lumber yard fire, the Lincoln Market. And shameful medical care of a Chinese elder.
—Jay Bail, Editor
The Book Reader
•
"Inside the Oy Quong Laundry" is a gem of a book! Kathleen Wing has generously shared a wondrous memoir of her girlhood and a priceless portion of California's emigrant history. We are all the richer for it.
—JoAnn Levy, Author
For California's Gold
Related Material:
Secure checkout and credit card processing
• Price: $17.95
• Softcover
• 176 Pages
• 6"x 9"
• with illustrations and photos
• ISBN# 1-887400-13-3
• Item# EVB-1015
Earthen Vessel Productions
Book & Music Publishing