Sweet Bamboo: A Memoir of a Chinese American Family

by Louise Leung Larson, Shirley Hune

Sweet Bamboo is the vivid and absorbing memoir of a Chinese American family who lived in Los Angeles since the first years of the twentieth century. Lovingly recounted by the second daughter, who went on to become the first Asian American reporter for a major American newspaper, this account illuminates the many changes that occurred in the family as members increasingly became integrated into American society. While much of the attention given to Chinese immigrants has focused on the struggles of working class people, this book sheds new light on a different kind of immigrant experience—that of privileged Chinese parents and their children living in relative affluence in a predominantly white neighborhood.

The family saga begins in China's Kwangtung Province, in the village of Gum Jook (Sweet Bamboo), about 31 miles south of Canton. It follows Louise Leung Larson's parents through their arranged marriage in 1898, to their arrival in Los Angeles, the birth of three daughters and five sons (named after American presidents), and her father's development of a successful herbalist business. Larson's intimate portrait of her family, her lively depiction of Los Angeles at the turn of the century, and her engaging descriptions of meals eaten, holidays celebrated, school events, visits from relatives, and much more make this a richly textured excursion into the dreams and disappointments of everyday life.

The death of the author's mother in 1957 marks the end of an era for the Tom Leung family. An epilogue brings the story to the late 1980s, tracing the intermarriage of the third and fourth generations, and the family's diminishing sense of its Chinese identity. A postscript by the author's daughter, Jane Leung Larson, provides details of the fourth and fifth generations Leungs and recounts Jane's trip to China where she visited her parents' birthplaces and met relatives from both her grandmother's and grandfather's families. Taken together, these keen observations illustrate several generations' adaptation to dual cultures and the formation of a unique Chinese American sensibility.

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[Chloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

This was an interesting look at an early upper-class Chinese American family in Los Angeles from the turn of the century through the end of World War Two, with a strong focus on the patriarch and matriarch of the family and their early years in Los Angeles. The author, Louise Leung Larson, was a journalist at a time when exceedingly few Asian American women worked in the journalism field. Although I enjoyed the wealth of detail in the book about the lives of the family (the personalities of their parents, the food they ate, the furnishings of their home, the vacations they took, and so and so forth), I personally would have liked to have seen a little more introspection about their experiences as Chinese Americans at a time when the community was a lot smaller. It is clear that the Chinese American community had a huge impact on the family, and their awareness of their difference is clear throughout the book (including the author's early experiences with being ostracized by white Americans because of her race, and her and her siblings' experiences being mistaken for Japanese during World War Two). All the same, there's no broader, introspective look at how race shaped their identities, and the mentions of interracial relations don't go in-depth enough for my liking until the epilogue. Leung Larson does writes frankly at one point about the family's prejudices towards literally anyone who weren't also upper-class Cantonese, but glosses over her interracial marriage, and only briefly mentions that her family wasn't too preoccupied by the internment of Japanese Americans during World War Two. To be fair, though, this is the memoir of the family as a whole, and not an in-depth look at the pysche or identity of Chinese Americans in the early 20th century - I'm just writing about what I would have liked to have seen more of in this book.

As a native Angeleno, it was quite fun to see references to streets and neighborhoods that have become unrecognizable in the century that the Leung family lived in Los Angeles - their first two homes in Los Angeles, on Olive Street and West Pico Street, no longer exist, and the author refers to the Pico-Union neighborhood's decline into a "ghetto" several times in the book. One of the sons also worked for a bit at the "old but prestigious apartment house on Wilshire Boulevard called the Gaylord" (which tickles me to no end, since the Gaylord is decidedly still around, although perhaps it's now more old than prestigious).

And lastly, as a fun bonus, the copy I read from the Los Angeles Public Library has a signed inscription from Holly Leung, the author's sister.

[Hillary · Rating 4 out of 5]

surprised this isn't better known. could very easily see this made into a show by PBS.

[theresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

oh it’s so good & such a surprising find in malaysia, so touching to hear abt all the adventures they were on & how the daughter found their family in china :’)

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

very interesting family.

[melissa]

Wonderful story!