Helen Zia's phenomenal Last Boat Out of Shanghai focuses on the personal stories of four Shanghainese who fled from Mao. Annuo, Benny, Bing, and Ho came from vastly different circumstances - Benny, the scion of a comprador family and WWII collaborator; Ho, the second-son of a land-owning family whose greatest aspiration is an advanced education; Annuo, the disdained daughter of a Nationalist general; and Bing, a spunky orphan who must learn at the knee of Elder Sister how to watch out for herself - and how the game is played.
In the late 40s all were faced with the same decision: stay or go. Their choices would ripple through the years, impacting their lives and the lives of their descendants. All of this Zia presents in eminently readable prose, retelling their lives such that the reader cannot help but root for all of them. More than capturing their personal histories and the logistics of fleeing Mao's army, Zia also draws an astonishing portrait of China through the ages, of the corruption and incompetence of the Nationalist government, of the wavering support of the United States, of Shanghai at a time when it was known as the Paris of the East. (Side note: Shanghai is everything I love about Asia and some of the things I
don't. It is glitz, and grit, and glam, high tech as all get out and
inefficient as hell. It's futuristic skyscrapers along side alleys that
were once opium dens. Laundry hanging from trees next to hotels whose
marble lobbies gleam. Enough neon to turn daylight to night, and the mingling
scents of incense and cigarette smoke. Food that is to die for and water
that will literally kill you. Pollution thick enough to leave a layer
on your tongue, but the sunsets sure are gorgeous. Millions and millions
of people living and laughing and loving and also shouting, frequently
shouting, cheek by jowl. It is awesome in the original sense of the word. My experience in Shanghai is obviously many decades after Benny, Annuo, Bing, and Ho haunted the international concession, but the essence of the city must remain largely unchanged even as the topography dances on, for I recognize in her words this city that is so magical.)
Like The Long Way Home and 97 Orchard, Zia also captures the broader immigrant experience, tinged, of course, with the massive dose of racism that Chinese encountered in the era of McCarthyism and a quote of 105 per year. In doing so, she also brings to life the Embarcadero, Times Square, and points in between (such as Ho's time at Michigan - Go Blue!) circa 1950. Every aspect of this book is top notch, and I cannot recommend it enough.
5 stars.
Showing posts with label immigration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label immigration. Show all posts
Saturday, April 25, 2020
Sunday, August 11, 2019
97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement
97 Orchard simultaneously provides insight into the immigrant experience, eating habits and the evolution of American cuisine (particularly the ways in which ethnic foods first began to influence it), and life in New York circa 1900. Each of these topics could be its own volume, and in the case of, say The Long Way Home or The Food of a Younger Land, this premise has been proven. Yet Jane Ziegelman tackles the challenge deftly, incorporating these aspects like ingredients into a finely mixed dough.
In crafting her narrative, Ziegelman examines the lives and cuisines of five families who lived in the tenement apartments at 97 Orchard Street. First came the German Glockners, with their sauerkraut and heavy stews. The Glockners are an ideal starting point because Mr. Glockner actually built and owned the building and were the first to inhabit their apartment, moving into 97 Orchard Street in 1863, in the midst of the Civil War. (Mr. Glockner's draft card, Ziegelman informs her reader, indicated he was a tailor.) The Glockners were followed by the Irish Moores, whose ethnic foods included little more than the potatoes that had failed them at home and oatcakes. The Irish immigration was largely comprised of teenagers, we learn, and following the brutal policies of the English, the ancient and rich food traditions of the Emerald Isle had been whittled down to potatoes. The Irish was generally happy to adopt and adapt the foods of their new land.
Due to their strict food laws, the Jewish immigrants were much less malleable, and Ziegelman then looks at how the Gumpertz family - German Jews - and the Rogarshevsky family, from Lithuania, lived and ate in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Matzoh, kugel, knish, and carp featured heavily, although immigrants of all religions consumed significant amounts of cabbage, potatoes, and root vegetables. I was personally taken with the history of Jewish poultry farming inside the tenements themselves. While the language of the day was not, well, sensitive, I could certainly understand the horror of the journalists, social workers, and reformers who encountered the sights, sounds, and smells that accompanied this practice.
Last but not least, Ziegelman introduces the Baldizzis, Sicilians who immigrated illegally (he as a stowaway, she on a doctored passport) in the early-1920s. The Italians, Ziegelman notes, understood better than any other group that they were not wanted in America, and that they were here to do the hard and dirty jobs (digging subway tunnels, erecting skycrapers, building roads) that the natives did not want. Sound familiar? They bore their lot stoically - In questa vita si fa uva - but their food was their comfort, and the Italians were the least interested in adopting or adapting the foods of the new country. Italian grocers imported pastas, tomato sauces, and olive oils that not only tasted like home, but came from home. Americans were suspicious. Pretty much no one in 1925 would have believed that spaghetti and meatballs would one day be as quintessentially American as apple pie. (Pie, I learned, is pretty much the one truly American dish. Americans were known almost universally as "pie eaters" to wave after wave of immigrants.)
Through the decades, Ziegelman describes the evolution of the city's geographical and political landscape evolves, the food, and the perception of various immigrant groups (German in 1900 = model immigrant; German in 1914 = terror of the Hun). I enjoyed the tour, if you will immensely.
Five stars.
In crafting her narrative, Ziegelman examines the lives and cuisines of five families who lived in the tenement apartments at 97 Orchard Street. First came the German Glockners, with their sauerkraut and heavy stews. The Glockners are an ideal starting point because Mr. Glockner actually built and owned the building and were the first to inhabit their apartment, moving into 97 Orchard Street in 1863, in the midst of the Civil War. (Mr. Glockner's draft card, Ziegelman informs her reader, indicated he was a tailor.) The Glockners were followed by the Irish Moores, whose ethnic foods included little more than the potatoes that had failed them at home and oatcakes. The Irish immigration was largely comprised of teenagers, we learn, and following the brutal policies of the English, the ancient and rich food traditions of the Emerald Isle had been whittled down to potatoes. The Irish was generally happy to adopt and adapt the foods of their new land.
Due to their strict food laws, the Jewish immigrants were much less malleable, and Ziegelman then looks at how the Gumpertz family - German Jews - and the Rogarshevsky family, from Lithuania, lived and ate in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Matzoh, kugel, knish, and carp featured heavily, although immigrants of all religions consumed significant amounts of cabbage, potatoes, and root vegetables. I was personally taken with the history of Jewish poultry farming inside the tenements themselves. While the language of the day was not, well, sensitive, I could certainly understand the horror of the journalists, social workers, and reformers who encountered the sights, sounds, and smells that accompanied this practice.
Last but not least, Ziegelman introduces the Baldizzis, Sicilians who immigrated illegally (he as a stowaway, she on a doctored passport) in the early-1920s. The Italians, Ziegelman notes, understood better than any other group that they were not wanted in America, and that they were here to do the hard and dirty jobs (digging subway tunnels, erecting skycrapers, building roads) that the natives did not want. Sound familiar? They bore their lot stoically - In questa vita si fa uva - but their food was their comfort, and the Italians were the least interested in adopting or adapting the foods of the new country. Italian grocers imported pastas, tomato sauces, and olive oils that not only tasted like home, but came from home. Americans were suspicious. Pretty much no one in 1925 would have believed that spaghetti and meatballs would one day be as quintessentially American as apple pie. (Pie, I learned, is pretty much the one truly American dish. Americans were known almost universally as "pie eaters" to wave after wave of immigrants.)
Through the decades, Ziegelman describes the evolution of the city's geographical and political landscape evolves, the food, and the perception of various immigrant groups (German in 1900 = model immigrant; German in 1914 = terror of the Hun). I enjoyed the tour, if you will immensely.
Five stars.
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