Research Guides: Author Talk with Heather B. Moore: Home

PCC Library Author Talk

On Friday November 13th, 2020 the PCC Library welcomed historical fiction author, Heather B. Moore.

Heather’s book the Paper Daughters of Chinatown is a historical fiction novel that has been named one of the best new books by the American Library Association, and the Historical Novel Society called her book, meticulously researched.

The book takes place in San Francisco in the 1890s at the Occidental Home for Girls. The book highlights all of the impacts, conflicts, and the enduring effects of human trafficking from the view of those who were trafficked, those who were trying to help, and those who were a part of the trafficking system. This guide contains the recording of the event as well as resources mentioned by the author as well as those cited in the book.

Connect with the author, Heather B. Moore

Follow author Heather B. Moore on Pinterest @heatherbemoore3

Books

Unbound Feet by Judy Yung
Call Number: F869.S39C595 1995
ISBN: 0520088670
Publication Date: 1995-11-15
The crippling custom of footbinding is the thematic touchstone for Judy Yung's engrossing study of Chinese American women during the first half of the twentieth century. Using this symbol of subjugation to examine social change in the lives of these women, she shows the stages of "unbinding" that occurred in the decades between the turn of the century and the end of World War II.

China's Lost Women
In the summer of 1870, when Chinese women remained relatively scarce in California, writer Ambrose Bierce penned this acerbic dispatch for the San Francisco News Letter and California Advertiser. Killing two birds with one stone, the consummate cynic offender was calling out an epidemic of callousness regarding the often sad fate of Chinese women out West.

The Barbary Coast by Herbert Asbury
Call Number: HN80.S4 A8 1989
ISBN: 9781560254089
Publication Date: 2002-10-09
The Barbary Coast is Herbert Asbury's classic chronicle of the birth of San Francisco -- a violent explosion from which the infant city emerged full-grown and raging wild. From all over the world practitioners of every vice stampeded for the blood and money of the gold fields. Gambling dens ran all day including Sundays. From noon to noon houses of prostitution offered girls of every age and race. This is the story of the banditry, opium bouts, tong wars, and corruption, from the eureka at Sutter's Mill until the last bagnio closed its doors seventy years later.
Longtime Californ' by Victor Nee; Brett de Bary Nee
Call Number: F869.S3 N27
ISBN: 9780804153911
Publication Date: 1973-01-01
Beginning with the immigrants who left poverty-ridden villages in China to try for a better livelihood in America, the narratives and extensive interviews of Longtime Californ’ tell the true story of the Chinese in America. A young Chinese girl tells of being sold into slavery, brought to America, and rescued by a missionary; men of Chinatown recall the awful conditions and long waits on Angel Island before being allowed into the country, and remember the backbreaking experience of building the railroads that opened the West.
The White Devil's Daughters by Julia Flynn Siler
Call Number: HQ316.S4 S55 2020
ISBN: 9781101910290
Publication Date: 2020-04-07
A history of the Occidental Mission Home and Donaldina Cameron's efforts to help the enslaved and vulnerable young Chinese women of San Francisco's Chinatown

Author Talk Recording

The Paper Daughters of Chinatown

The Paper Daughters of Chinatown by Heather B. Moore
Call Number: PS3613.O5589 P37 2020
ISBN: 9781629727820
Publication Date: 2020-09-01
Based on true events, The Paper Daughters of Chinatown is a powerful story about a largely unknown chapter in history and the women who emerged as heroes. In the late nineteenth century, San Francisco is a booming city with a dark side, one where a powerful underground organization-the criminal tong-buys and sells young Chinese women into prostitution and slavery. These "paper daughters," so called because fake documents gain them entry to America but leave them without legal identity, generally have no recourse. But the Occidental Mission Home for Girls is one bright spot of hope and help.