Introduction

Welcome to Los Angeles, California in the 1870s.  Journey into a violent burgeoning town, formed by Westerners seeking gold and immigrants who traveled to Gold Mountain (California) in search of better lives.  In a time of rampant anti-Chinese sentiment, learn how a town of relatively few Chinese lived beside an unwelcoming larger population of Anglos and Latinos. And how that post-Civil War town was seized one night by racist-driven brutality and unprecedented aggression that led to the long-forgotten 1871 Massacre that saw a mob of 500 take the lives of 18 Chinese immigrants, including a 15-year-old boy.  Read about each of the victims and their horrible fate. And learn about Los Angeles’s current plans to at long last properly memorialize the tragedy of that night.

Meet the rival Tong gangs whose fight for dominance led to the four-hour Night of Horrors. Meet the man whose family created the first subdivision of L.A.  Meet the lawyers and judges who oversaw the trials of accused in the massacre. Meet the Chinese doctor who tried to reason with the mobsters, only to be humiliated and murdered.

See the places that the immigrants called their homeland. And learn about the Flowery Flag Union that enticed them with its promises of gold and riches. Uncover actual photos from 19^th-century Los Angeles, the dusty pueblo that was the site of this country’s largest race-driven lynching in history. 

Explore the culture of Chinese immigrants transplanted to an unknown land in a search to better their lives. Discover their legend-based festivals that continue to this day. Learn about the Four Great Beauties who have been exemplars of beauty and grace throughout time.  Delve into the world of traditional Chinese medicine – the healing herbs, the Four Examinations, and Moxibustion. Enjoy the varieties of tea that graced their tables. And journey into the parlors that housed centuries-old games of chance.   

And learn about the dark history that followed the massacre: the immigration acts that first made it impossible for more Chinese to enter the country to the enduring laws that targeted them for over a century. 

Through Lisa See’s hallmark thorough research, Step Inside Daughters of the Sun and Moon shares information and articles that invite the reader even further into the Chinese experience in America in the 1870s.  Prepare to learn more about an extraordinarily dark era in the history of Chinese immigration to the United States.