literature of the Lower Manhattan melting pot

May 30, 2010 6:45 PM

Bookhelp: I'm looking for memoirs or fictional works that are set in Chinatown or Little Italy, NYC, and deal with cultural exchange between Chinese and Italian immigrants.

The one work I know of is Lin Yutang's Chinatown Family (1948), which depicts an interracial and intercultural marriage between Loy, a Chinese-American laundry worker, and Flora, his Italian-American neighbor. Anyone know of similar books?

posted by ms.codex to Media & Arts (2 answers total)

I know you're most likely looking for adult fiction, but this is a wonderful children's book on the subject:

http://www.amazon.com/Dragon-Excellence-Childrens-Literature-Awards/dp/0399237275/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275270681&sr=8-1

Kindergarten-Grade 4–Henry Chu lives in New York City's Chinatown in the 1920s. He loves everything about it, from eating tasty dumplings to making and flying kites with his neighbor, Grandfather Chin. One day when Grandfather's spectacular butterfly kite is chasing a pigeon, Tony Guglione and his friends from Little Italy throw rocks at it and destroy it. Then they ruin his magnificent caterpillar. When they attack Grandfather's dragon kite, Henry and his companions confront them. The children almost come to blows, but when the dragon appears in the sky, again chasing a pigeon, the root of the discord comes to light. Tony and his pals raise homing pigeons, and the kites are frightening their pets. A compromise is reached–kites fly in the morning, birds in the afternoon–and new friendships are formed. Hall's story includes descriptions and details that ground it firmly in time and place, and the plot serves as an excellent vehicle for discussing how seeing things from someone else's perspective is essential for peaceful relations. Low's heavily textured and brilliantly colored kites soar across the pages with energy and grace. This gentle and satisfying tale, which is particularly effective for group sharing, will be widely appreciated.–Grace Oliff, Ann Blanche Smith School, Hillsdale, NJ
posted by mazienh at 6:53 PM on May 30, 2010

Donald Duk by Frank Chin, 1991.
posted by brina at 10:53 AM on May 31, 2010