The story of how a few Chinese immigrants found their way to the Mississippi River Delta in the late 1870s and earned their living with small family operated grocery stores in neighborhoods where mostly black cotton plantation workers lived. What was their status in the segregated black and white world of that time and place? How did this small group preserve their culture and ethnic identity? "Chopsticks in the Land of Cotton"is a social history of the lives of these pioneering families and the unique and valuable role they played in their communities for over a century.
To Honor Pioneering Chinese Grocery Families Who Overcame Great Odds With Resolve and Resourcefulness To Provide for, Protect, and Preserve Family
(Note from reviewer: I was Dr. John Jung's primary consultant for this book about my community in the Mississippi Delta.) When Dr. Jung contacted me after having read my internet story entitled "Pilgrimage to China" on [...] to tell me of his plans to write a book about my community I was more than eager for someone of Dr. Jung's stature and reputation to do such a project. I had already read his two books about the North American Chinese hand laundries and was familiar with his works. His final product, in my opinion, was a home run because he went to great lengths to gather so many accounts from many, many sources to present a wide spectrum of differing views about life in the Mississippi Delta. The views presented were not always the most flattering to the Delta Chinese either but he tried to be even-handed in the presentations. On balance this is the best study to-date of my community and I will be forever grateful for his wonderful work which exceeded all of my expectations. Bobby Joe Moon (formerly of Boyle/Cleveland MS 1944-1965) Houston Tx
In Chopsticks in The Land of Cotton, John Jung has done it again! Plunging into the history of Chinese grocers in the Mississippi-Yazoo Delta, he traces their migration history, work, families, and social lives. His work is anchored in a creative mix of oral history, community historical documents and publc records, and includes a generous fill of photos. As a study of the complexities of triangular race relations in the Jim Crow South, his work rivals James Loewen's classic study, The Mississippi Chinese. Greg Robinson, By Order of the President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans Harvard University Press, 2001; Co-Editor, Mine Okubo: Following Her Own Road University of Washington Press, 2008.
“Chopsticks” tells the story of yet one more example of Chinese tenacity in which John Jung traces the paths of pioneer Chinese immigrants in Mississippi as they moved from laborers to become successful grocery store merchants for decades with family members and relatives serving as the backbone. “Chopsticks” pays tribute to the resilience and “can-do” attitude of these enterprising entrepreneurs.Sylvia Sun Minnick, Sam Fow,The San Joaquin Chinese Legacy
Chopsticks in the Land of Cotton explores aspects of Chinese settlement in the Mississippi Delta that earlier writings on the subject do not address in detail. Jung analyzes why grocery stores emerged as virtually the only occupation for Chinese in that area instead of farming and hand laundries. He examines the extensive kinship networking that brought male relatives and later whole families to this unlikely region for Chinese settlement. Jung’s impressive book can be enjoyed by ordinary readers for its captivating stories and by scholars for its thorough research and analysis of sources. Daniel Bronstein, The Formation and Development of Chinese Communities in Atlanta, Augusta, And Savannah, Georgia: From Sojourners To Settlers, 1880-1965
John Jung provides meticulous detail on a subject worth much greater examination: the Chinese grocery stores of the South. These grocery stores were the center of Chinese American family and commercial life in the South, including Texas and the Southwest, for at least half of the twentieth century. Jung illuminates every aspect of these grocery stores, which were as important to black neighborhoods as they were to the Chinese American families who ran them. Especially of interest is Jung’s exploration of the relationships between Chinese Americans and African Americans, a topic distorted by the iconic images of more recent inter-ethnic conflicts. Chopsticks is a valuable contribution to Asian American history. Irwin Tang, Co-Author and Editor Asian Texans: Our Histories and Our Lives
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