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Reviewed by:
  • Landed
  • Elizabeth Bush
Lee, Milly Landed; illus. by Yangsook Choi. Foster/Farrar, 200640p ISBN 0-374-34314-4$16.00 R Gr. 2-5

Lee Sun Chor is now twelve, and he is expected to accompany his merchant father on an extended trip to the United States. Although he is qualified for admission to the country under exemptions to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 (Sun's story probably takes place around 1910), entry won't be easy. A rigorous screening [End Page 408] process weeds "true" sons like Sun from "paper" sons conveniently claiming kinship to a legal immigrant, and Sun must memorize a copious amount of information regarding his relatives, his household, and his village to verify that he really is the merchant's offspring. Lee bases her story on the experiences of her father-in-law, and readers are escorted into the recesses of Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, where new arrivals were examined for disease and then detained in prison-like dormitories until rounds of questioning—a process that could take weeks or even years—were completed. With the help of a smuggled compass, Sun is finally able to answer satisfactorily the interrogators' questions about the layout of his house and village, and he rejoins his father and older brothers at the dock. An author's note detailing more of the processing at Angel Island suggest, though, that he was one of the lucky ones. Mixed-media pictures with their gently stippled texture soften somewhat the uncomfortable conditions at the detention center, but they nonetheless convey the chilly formality of the dehumanizing protocols. Ellis Island may be well known to most schoolchildren, but its West Coast cousin is finally getting the attention it deserves.

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