Reading and Conversation w/ Michael Luo: Strangers in the Land

In Strangers in the Land, award-winning journalist Michael Luo tells the story of a people who, beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century, migrated by the tens of thousands to a distant land they called Gum Shan—Gold Mountain. Americans initially welcomed these Chinese arrivals, but, as their numbers grew, horrific episodes of racial terror erupted on the Pacific coast. Federal lawmakers enacted legislation aimed at excluding Chinese laborers from the country, the first time the United States barred a people based on their race. The Chinese became the country’s earliest undocu­mented immigrants: hounded, counted, suspected, surveilled.

MICHAEL LUO is an executive editor at The New Yorker and writes regularly for the magazine on politics, religion, and Asian American issues. He joined The New Yorker in 2016. Before that, he spent thirteen years at the New York Times, as a metro reporter, national correspondent, and investigative reporter and editor. He is a recipient of a George Polk Award and a Livingston Award for Young Journalists.

KAT CHOW is a journalist, writer and the author of Seeing Ghosts: A Memoir (Grand Central Publishing), named a Notable Book by The New York Times and a finalist for the Connecticut Book Award. She is currently the Newsday/Laventhol Visiting Assistant Professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.