Surviving the City: The Chinese Immigrant Experience in New York City, 1890–1970. By Xinyang Wang. [Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001. 157 pp. $17.95. ISBN 0-7425-0891-9.

Abstract

The author, Xinyang Wang, is a social historian who reassesses the history of early Chinese immigrants in New York City, departing from the ethnic-heritage and racism analyses of immigrants' adaptation to America. Instead, he pursues an actor-oriented approach, showing how economic forces played an important part in the decision-making activities of the immigrants, such as the selection of neighbourhoods for settlement, participation in the labour movement, return to China, and intensification of intra-group solidarity.