On Gold Mountain by Lisa See

On Gold Mountain by Lisa See

In 1867, Lisa See's great-great-grandfather arrived in America, where he prescribed herbal remedies to immigrant laborers who were treated little better than slaves. His son Fong See later built a mercantile empire and married a Caucasian woman, in spite of laws prohibiting interracial marriage. Lisa herself grew up playing in her family's antiques store in Los Angeles's Chinatown, listening to stories of missionaries and prostitutes, movie stars and Chinese baseball teams.
With these stories and her own years of research, Lisa See chronicles the one-hundred-year-odyssey of her Chinese-American family, a history that encompasses racism, romance, secret marriages, entrepreneurial genius, and much more, as two distinctly different cultures meet in a new world.

Shanghai Girls, Peony in Love, Snow Flower and the Hidden Fan, Flower Net (an Edgar Award nominee), The Interior, and Dragon Bones are among Lisa See's New York Times bestselling novels. She penned the libretto for the Los Angeles Opera's production of On Gold Mountain and acted as curator for the Autry Museum of Western Heritage's On Gold Mountain: A Chinese American Experience exhibit, which was also shown at the Smithsonian Institute. She was voted National Woman of the Year in 2001 by the Association of Asian American Women. She currently resides in Los Angeles.