Marlon Hom has selected and translated 220 rhymes from two collections of Chinatown songs published in 1911 and 1915. The songs are outspoken and personal, addressing subjects as diverse as sex, frustrations with the American bureaucracy, poverty and alienation, and the loose morals of the younger generation of Americans. Hom has arranged the songs thematically and gives an overview of early Chinese American literature.

Marlon K. Hom is Professor of Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University.

"A good introduction to the Chinese American experience and literature through the songs of a particular area. . . . It would make an exciting text."—David R. Mayer, Asian Folklore Studies

"Dispels once and for all stereotypes of Chinese immigrants as the 'heathen Chinese'—the foreign, docile, illiterate, and sexless character popularized in American literature of the nineteenth and early twentieth century."—Judy Young, Amerasia Journal

"An enjoyable and informative work which will be of value to anyone studying the Chinese experience in America."—Jeannette L. Faurot, Journal of the American Oriental Society

1988 American Book Award, Before Columbus Foundation