January 1, 2023
This book, much like Michelle McNamara's 2018 I'll Be Gone in the Dark, is about the author's unfinished, obsessive search for the truth about a crime. Spagna (Mile Marker) engagingly recounts her visits to small towns in northeastern Washington State, where she interviews local experts and scours records for clues about an 1875 case that left as many as 300 Chinese gold miners dead at the bottom of a cliff. Details about what happened remain murky, but the likelihood is that they were pushed. Spagna offers three theories--no conclusions--about who the perpetrators were. For many readers, the quest to find answers is the most interesting part. Spagna's book could be paired with Mae Ngai's The Chinese Question, the Bancroft Prize-winning scholarly book that supplies an in-depth look at how exploited Chinese labor fueled a worldwide boom in gold extraction. VERDICT True-crime fans will enjoy the puzzle of an unsolved mystery but might miss having a concrete conclusion.--Harry Charles
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December 1, 2022
A history of the tense relationships among White settlers, Chinese miners, and Indigenous peoples of the American West in the late 19th century. When Spagna set out to write about a possible massacre of Chinese miners in the Columbia River Gorge, she confronted countless obstacles to her research. She could only find a single original record of the so-called Chelan Falls Massacre, an 1892 newspaper article about the killings that read more like a pulp novel than scrupulous reporting. Furthermore, nearly everyone she spoke to in the region offered conflicting accounts of what happened. According to some, nearly 300 Chinese miners had been pushed off a ledge by a group of Indigenous people in the area, while others said that the murderers had been White people dressed as Natives--a not-uncommon practice that conveniently denigrated both groups. Still others believed that it hadn't been 300 people massacred but 300 feet that they fell. In her quest to uncover the truth, Spagna provides a thorough and insightful depiction of what Chinese immigrant life might have looked like in the 1800s. This history is overlooked despite the fact that by the late 19th century, Chinese immigrants "were doing the lion's share of work in the West," including up to "three quarters of the farm labor in California." The author creates a poignant and damning narrative of discrimination and exclusion integral to the formation of the modern West. Blatantly xenophobic legislation--e.g., the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882--expelled many immigrants from the region, while many others faced violence. How a historian chooses to narrate a particular history is significant in countless ways. Spagna is insistent in her efforts to "tune our imaginations to empathy rather than exploitation," and she succeeds in demonstrating that "when given the opportunity to listen, we should." A solid history of Western expansion, a powerful refrain against xenophobia, and a celebration of those who resist.
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October 15, 2022
1875, Chelan Falls, Washington: 300 Chinese miners were pushed off a cliff into the depths of the Columbia River. Or were they? Spagna invites readers to sleuth with her as she investigates an obscure alleged massacre and the mysteries surrounding it. Were the Chinese miners murdered by Indigenous people, or was a group of white men behind the atrocity? Did the event actually occur at all? To answer these questions, Spagna consults with local historians, archaeologists, and Native elders. She scours the region, searching the land intently for a possible crime scene or piece of evidence. At one point, she turns to grave dowsing, an ancient practice used to locate buried bodies. In her quest for answers, Spagna also explores how xenophobia shaped U.S. history, particularly in the American West. Spagna dispels the myth that white people were the only colonizers in the West and gives a more rounded view of the time period and the experiences of those who lived it. A thoughtful, well-written addition to any history collection.
COPYRIGHT(2022) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.