Story Behind The Book
Southern Fried Rice is a memoir that conveys the experiences, first of my parents and subsequently of our family, the only Chinese people living in Macon, Georgia between 1928 and 1956 during the Jim Crow era of segregation. It describes our family's isolated existence running a laundry, enduring loneliness as well as racial prejudice for over 20 years, why and how it moved to San Francisco to live in a Chinese community, and how each family member adjusted to the challenges and opportunities of their new lives.
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<p><span style="font-family:verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;"><strong>Praise from Some Scholars</strong> </span></p> <div><span style="font-family:verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">"John Jung provides an insightful account of himself and his family in the context of Chinese immigrants who lived in the American South during the 1940s and 1950s. The unique experiences and struggles of his family members serve both to confirm some principles from social science research on Chinese in America as well as to remind us of the importance of individual differences, yielding meaningfulness and substance to issues of culture, race relations, immigration, and identity development. This engaging, candid, and often humorous and heartwarming book is an important contribution not only to the fields of psychology, sociology, and history but also to literature. Social scientists and students alike will find the book immensely fascinating and satisfying." <br /><strong>Stanley Sue. Distinguished Professor, Psychology and Asian American Studies, University of California, Davis </strong><br /><br /> "A charming and engrossing self-ethnography. More importantly, John Jung's book enhances the archive on Asians in the South as well as our understanding of how Jim Crow situated the Chinese between `white' and `colored.'" <br /><strong>Leslie Bow, English and Asian American Studies (Director) University of Wisconsin </strong><br /><br /> "In Southern Fried Rice, John Jung offers an intriguing and unique perspective on American immigration. Based on his experience as a child in the only Chinese family in Macon, Georgia in the mid-20th century, Jung's story is a fascinating account of the negotiation of personal and ethnic identity in a foreign environment. His narrative highlights many of the features of the larger society, including both government policy and situational practice, that shape the lives of immigrants, both then and now." <br /><strong>Kay Deaux, Distinguished Professor, Psychology, City University of New York Graduate Center, Author, "To Be An Immigrant</strong>" <br /><br /> John Jung's delightful book opens a window providing a glimpse into the lives of one family born to Chinese immigrants in a small town in the South in the 1930s and 1940s. Being the only Chinese in town in a segregated society, their lives were certainly not mint julep and magnolias...The author sees his upbringing and that of his siblings, as the challenging task of accommodating two wolds and, being more Chinese than not. <br /><strong>Sylvia Sun Minnick, Author, Samfow, The San Joaquin Chinese Experience </strong><br /><br /><strong>WHAT READERS LOVE ABOUT SOUTHERN FRIED RICE</strong></span></div> <div><span style="font-family:verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;">Your book is a joy to read. It has a beautiful flow to it and an enriching quality that is easier to feel than it is to describe. Couched in humor, it deals with the painful and serious matter of day-to-day struggles of existence of a couple who came here with hardly anything more than faith in their hearts and steel in their spines. </span></div> <p> </p> <p><span style="font-family:verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;"><strong>Krishan Saxena, Kensington, Ca.</strong><br /><br /> Your book is the one that I had promised myself that I would write one day, but you went ahead and wrote it. You did a wonderful job! <br /><strong>Henry Tom, Frederick, Maryland </strong><br /><br /> Thank you for telling your story in such an engaging manner. While your story is personal it is also universal because of its working class foundation laced with layers of Chinese ethnicity, family structure and dynamics, and the specificity of the South. <br /><strong>Flo Oy Wong, Artist, Sunnyvale, California </strong><br /><br /> Enjoyed very much reading your family history revealing a unique experience yet sharing many of the same problems of families in Chinese laundries. Yours is one of the few written accounts of the many family-run laundries in the U. S. Thank you for the careful documentation of this history, which would be otherwise forgotten.<br /><strong>Tunney Lee, Boston, Massachusetts </strong><br /><br /> "Southern Fried Rice" is a well-written and factually documented memoir that gave me insight into the lives of Chinese in the South, especially those living where there were no other Chinese, as you did in Macon. Your move to San Francisco must have been as much of a cultural shock for you as it was for me, an African American moving to the Bay Area from Memphis. </span></p> <p> </p> <div><span style="font-family:verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:small;line-height:normal;"><strong>Leatha Ruppert, Cotati, Californi<span style="font-weight:normal;">a </span> </strong></span></div> <div> </div>