On Saturday morning, some friends and I attended a reading by Iris Chang on the occasion of her new book The Chinese in America [booksense,
amazon, LC,
BPL]. The event
turned out to be substantially more than and different from the book readings
I've been used to attending at Cody's Books
(one of the co-sponsors).

As one to two hundred folks crowded in the Oakland Asian Cultural Center (above the Asian Branch of the Oakland Public Library), I felt that I was clearly at a high-octane community gathering/political rally/consciousness-raising
group exercise. My friends and I were impressed with how gracious Iris Chang
was throughout the event. (I can only speculate that her writing of The Rape
of Nanking and the reaction that she received afterwards must have been
a trial by fire.) I was taken aback by how much promotion of varied agendas
were taking place simultaneously. Ms. Chang read from the last chapter of her
book, "An Uncertain Future." It felt that the largely Chinese audience was in
agreement that the position of Chinese-Americans is rather tenuous in this society.
Though a lot of progress has been made in terms of advancement on many fronts
(economic, political, scientific), Americans of Chinese ethnicity are still
viewed, by and large, as foreigners in their own land. Hence, it's not surprising
to me that a book reading by Chang would also serve a real political, rallying
purpose.