Chinatown Justice

More than a century ago, organized criminals were intrinsically involved with the political, social, and economic life of the Chinese American community. In the face of virulent racism and substantial linguistic and cultural differences, they also integrated themselves successfully into the extensive underworlds and corrupt urban politics of the Progressive Era United States. The process of organizing crime in Chinese American communities can be attributed in part to the larger politics that created opportunities for professional criminals. For example, the illegal traffic in women, laborers, and opium was an unintended consequence of "yellow peril" laws meant to provide social control over Chinese Americans. Despite this hostile climate, Chinese professional criminals were able to form extensive multiethnic social networks and purchase protection and some semblance of entrepreneurial equality from corrupt politicians, police officers, and bureaucrats. While other Chinese Americans worked diligently to remove racist laws and regulations, Chinatown gangsters saw opportunity for profit and power at the expense of their own community. Academics, the media, and the government have claimed that Chinese organized crime is a new and emerging threat to the United States. Focusing on events and personalities, and drawing on intensive archival research in newspapers, police and court documents, district attorney papers, and municipal reports, as well as from contemporary histories and sociological treatments, this study tests that claim against the historical record.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • From the infinitely inventive author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe comes "one of the funniest books of the year.... A delicious, ambitious Hollywood satire" (The Washington Post). A deeply personal novel about race, pop culture, immigration, assimilation, and escaping the roles we are forced to play. Willis Wu doesn’t perceive himself as the protagonist in his own life: he’s merely Generic Asian Man. Sometimes he gets to be Background Oriental Making a Weird Face or even Disgraced Son, but always he is relegated to a prop. Yet every day, he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He’s a bit player here, too, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy—the most respected role that anyone who looks like him can attain. Or is it? After stumbling into the spotlight, Willis finds himself launched into a wider world than he’s ever known, discovering not only the secret history of Chinatown, but the buried legacy of his own family. Infinitely inventive and deeply personal, exploring the themes of pop culture, assimilation, and immigration—Interior Chinatown is Charles Yu’s most moving, daring, and masterful novel yet.

""This collection of his always insightful writings from the last two decades allows us to trace recent challenges of left movements and to reflect on how we defeat Trump and the ultra right he has emboldened in the years to come."" ---Angela Y. Davis, Distinguished Professor Emerita, History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz. ""Bob Wing's Toward Racial Justice is crucial reading for social justice organizers and movement leaders, especially in this most consequential period of U.S. history."" ---Anthony Thigpenn, President, California Calls. ""In these incisive, original essays Bob Wing applies the hard-won lessons of his five decades in organizing to offer us powerful paths forward."" ÑJeff Chang, author, We GonÕ Be Alright: Notes on Race and Resegregation. ""This book is a critical resource for anyone seeking to make desperately needed change."" ÑAndrea Mercado, Executive Director, New Florida Majority

Situated knowledge and action -- Stuck on repeat : stereotypes and structural oppression of communities of color -- Building women's leadership : interrelationality as feminist praxis -- Organizing strategies : from the streets to the courts -- Housing struggles from Chinatown to the South Bronx -- Identity politics and intersectionalities in social justice praxis.

In Chinatown Gangs, Ko-lin Chin penetrates a closed society and presents a rare portrait of the underworld of New York City's Chinatown. Based on first-hand accounts from gang members, gang victims, community leaders, and law enforcement authorities, this pioneering study reveals the pervasiveness, the muscle, the longevity, and the institutionalization of Chinatown gangs. Chin reveals the fear gangs instill in the Chinese community. At the same time, he shows how the economic viability of the community is sapped, and how gangs encourage lawlessness, making a mockery of law enforcement agencies. Ko-lin Chin makes clear that gang crime is inexorably linked to Chinatown's political economy and social history. He shows how gangs are formed to become "equalizers" within a social environment where individual and group conflicts, whether social, political, or economic, are unlikely to be solved in American courts. Moreover, Chin argues that Chinatown's informal economy provides yet another opportunity for street gangs to become "providers" or "protectors" of illegal services. These gangs, therefore, are the pathological manifestation of a closed community, one whose problems are not easily seen--and less easily understood--by outsiders. Chin's concrete data on gang characteristics, activities, methods of operation and violence make him uniquely qualified to propose ways to restrain gang violence, and Chinatown Gangs closes with his specific policy suggestions. It is the definitive study of gangs in an American Chinatown.

"A Rage for Justice" tells the riveting story of Phillip Burton (1926-1983), one of the most brilliant, driven, and productive legislators in Californian and American politics. A ruthless and unabashed progressive, Burton played a pivotal role in championing welfare and civil rights, labor legislation, environmentalism, and congressional reform. 20 photos.