Songs of Gold Mountain

Disciplines Anthropology Cultural Anthropology American & Canadian

About the Book

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.

About the Author

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

Acknowledgments
Translator's Note
An Introduction to Cantonese Vernacular
Rhymes from San Francisco Chinatown

THE SONGS OF GOLD MOUNTAIN
I. Immigration Blues
2. Lamentations of Stranded Sojourners
3· Lamentations of Estranged Wives
4· Nostalgic Blues
s. Rhapsodies on Gold
6. Songs of Western Influence and the American-barns
7· Nuptial Rhapsodies
8. Ballads of the Libertines
9· Songs of the Young at Heart
IO. Songs of Prodigals and Addicts
II. Songs of the Hundred Men's Wife