CHAPTER ONE

Chinatown, San Francisco
April 17, 1906
Tuesday evening, 7:00 p.m.

I took a deep breath and whoosh! blew out tiny flames on a frosted pink cake. Out loud, I counted all twelve of the birthday candles in Mandarin, then in English.

Father clapped. “Your English sounds good! You are learning so much at school.”

I ducked my chin and felt my cheeks warm. Everyone in the room was looking and smiling at me. Even though the attention was uncomfortable, it felt good to make Father proud.

“What else are you learning, Lily?” Mother asked. She bounced baby June on her hip.

All eyes were still on me. I know they wanted me to say something big and important, but I couldn’t find the right words. I looked down at my hands and shrugged.

“Our shy Lily,” Father said, his voice kind. “Just like the flower she was named after, she will choose her own time to bloom.”

Hearing Father talking about me blossoming in front of everyone at my birthday celebration was so embarrassing. It made me want to shrivel up into a tiny ball. I didn’t like when my parents talked about me like I wasn’t there.

Just then, June fussed and screamed. The adults shifted their gazes toward her.

“There, there,” Mother said, rocking June back and forth. My little sister was almost a year old. Mother said June’s new teeth were coming in. June’s gums were sore, and it made her cranky. She also drooled a lot. Sometimes I wished I was like Baby June. Not afraid to fuss or scream or say how I felt. She was only a baby, but she was already braver than me.

Mother tore off a section of a soft bao bun and handed it to June. My little sister grabbed the white, fluffy dough and bit down. Little pieces of soggy bread clung to her chin.

Lee, my seven-year-old brother, laughed. “June is a flying mess!”

Mother frowned. “Your English is coming from those Penny Dreadful stories,” she answered in Mandarin. “You sound like a western cowboy.”

Lee’s eyes lit up. “Yippee!” he whooped.

I covered my mouth to hide my laugh. Lee was wearing a straw cowboy hat. It was his most prized possession. He liked to ride around our home on a broom, pretending it was a horse. He wanted to have his own horse more than anything in the world. Father had to keep him from trying to pet the workhorses pulling wagons in the streets.

Mother shook her head and looked over at Father. “Where did you get this cake?”

Father smiled and touched June’s chubby cheeks. Then he placed his big hands on my shoulders. “Mr. Mason gave it to me,” he said. “He came into the store today. He knew it was Lily’s birthday and wanted to contribute to the party.”

Mr. Mason, a friend of Father’s, would often ask about us. It was nice to know he cared. Not all people in San Francisco were kind to those who lived in Chinatown. Having this birthday treat from the Masons was special.

My family lived in a tiny apartment above our grocery store on Commercial Street. In our store, we sold all sorts of produce, like ginger, potatoes, and spices. It had been my grandparents’ store, and now it belonged to my parents. Like Father, Mother was born in the United States. She helped Father run the family store. She was just as chatty as Father, and they had good relationships with many of their customers, including a few Americans.

Tonight, Father brought fresh fish from the market to share with our neighbors. Since our living space was larger than most, we could sometimes gather here for special occasions like my birthday.

I looked around the room while Mother took the cake away to cut. Our home was filled with neighbors from our building. Some attended the same Presbyterian church we went to. Others, like Mr. Quan who lived on the floor above us, had become good friends.

Mr. Quan was elderly. He had white streaks in his long black braid and wrinkles that looked like small smiles when he laughed. Mr. Quan’s family was still in China. He had children and a wife back home and hadn’t seen them in years, but he regularly sent them money. He liked to give Lee and me little candies. He said it was like he was giving sweets to his own son and daughter.

Father held out his hands. “Let’s eat!”

The neighbors each brought food to share. Someone brought large bowls filled with rice. Another person contributed noodles with bits of pork. Our apartment smelled of fried garlic and savory vegetables. I couldn’t eat fast enough with my chopsticks. I wanted to taste every dish.

When we finished our dinner, Mother passed out tiny pieces of cake to everyone in the room. The cake was bright yellow with pink icing.

I took a bite of cake and closed my eyes. The frosting was smooth and creamy. The cake had a bright flavor, bursting of lemon. It was an explosion of sweet and tangy. I had never tasted anything so wonderful.

After everyone had their last bite, Mr. Quan held out a present. “This is from all of us in the building.”

I traced my fingers over the newspaper. There was an ink drawing of horses running all along the newsprint. Mr. Quan loved art. He would sit outside the building and draw on whatever paper he could find. I stared at his horses. Their manes blew around them, and some stood on hind legs. They looked so wild and free.

“It’s so beautiful,” I whispered, holding up the wrapped present.

Mother nudged me gently. “Open it, Lily.”

I carefully peeled off the wrapping. The paper was stuck together with a bit of mashed rice. I wanted to keep this drawing of the horses forever. I already knew where it would hang—in the front room, right above the seating area where Lee and I slept.

He could pretend to be a cowboy riding wild horses, and I could imagine being free like the horses, who could roam anywhere they wanted. One day, I wanted to go further than the restrictions of Chinatown. Who knows? Maybe I would go across the ocean.

Father laughed. “Lily is so happy to have this drawing, and she hasn’t seen the present yet!”

I felt another blush creeping up my face. I gently pulled off the paper.

I gasped. A hardbound book. “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz!”

I wrapped my arms around the book and hugged it hard. The neighbors all laughed, but I didn’t care this time.

At school, we had read this story about a little girl named Dorothy who was swept away by a cyclone in Kansas and transported to a far-off land. I had never owned a hardback copy of a book before. They were expensive, and my family was very poor.

I flipped through the pages of the book. The illustrations were so magical, and it was all mine to study! I didn’t have to worry about giving it up for another student to borrow. This was a book just for me.

I loved the story about the Land of Oz. I liked how Dorothy was brave. She had gone on a journey to find her way home, following a yellow brick road in search of a wizard. Along the way, she made new friends and defeated the Wicked Witch of the West. I wished I could be like her.

“Thank you all so very much.” I bowed my head to my neighbors.

They all smiled. I would treasure this book forever.

After we helped clear the dishes, Lee and I snuggled next to each other on the floor. It was late, and candles were lit. The adults lowered their voices.

Their murmurs sounded like a steady stream of water flowing all around me. I loved hearing them talk in Mandarin about their lives back home in China. When Lee and I were home, we spoke Mandarin like everyone else. But when it was just the two of us, we tried to speak English. Lee wanted to sound like a cowboy, and I wanted to practice.

“The Americans are doing everything they can to displace us,” Mr. Quan said. “Remember the bubonic plague? Just two years ago they were roping off Chinatown and blaming us for the disease.”

“We fought the barriers in court and won,” Father said. “They had to take those ropes down.”

“It’s not stopping them from spreading more rumors,” Mr. Quan said. “I heard city officials are trying to kick us out. Move us to another part of town—to the outskirts of the city.”

I turned my head so I could watch the adults. I didn’t understand why the Americans hated us so much.

“Mr. Mason says some people are afraid to come to Chinatown,” Father said. “There are those who say it is dirty and uncivilized. They call us vermin, wild animals who carry disease. They say there are too many Chinese crammed in this neighborhood.”

In 1882, a law called the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed, and it prevented Chinese people from moving to the United States. We were one of the few Chinese families in San Francisco with children. Like Mr. Quan, we had family back in China. I had never met Mother’s older sisters and brothers. They had returned to China and, because of the Chinese Exclusion Act, could not come back. We didn’t know if we would ever see them again.

Mother clucked her tongue. She rocked June to sleep. “Where else are we supposed to live?” she said. “Of course we are crowded. The laws prevent us from moving anywhere else in the city. Anyway, I bet Chinatown is just as clean as the other parts of San Francisco.”

For decades, Chinese immigrants had been coming to America to find better jobs. They worked on the railroads, mined for gold, or did housekeeping. The American dollar was worth a lot. People from all over the world were moving to the United States for new opportunities. Now, because of the law, Chinese people were the only ones who were not legally allowed to move to the United States.

Next to me, Lee stirred. “My stomach hurts,” he whispered. “I think I ate too much.”

I opened up my new book. I could see the words from the glow of the candlelight.

“How about I read to you?” I asked.

Lee rested his head on my shoulder. “Spin me a yarn, little lady.” He looked up at me. “That means tell a story.”

I giggled. Lee could always make me smile, even when things felt sad. “All right, cowboy.”

I opened up to the first page. There was an illustration of a young girl with braided pigtails, looking out over a vast field.

“Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies,” I read in English. “With Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer’s wife.”

The room was quiet. The adults had stopped talking and turned their heads in my direction. Seeing them watch, I froze and stopped reading. I wanted to hide.

“Keep going,” Mother said. “You’re a great storyteller.”

They weren’t my own words, I reminded myself, but the author’s. I could read out loud and practice my English. I hesitated, then took a deep breath.

“Okay,” I said.

My words came out slow at first, but soon I forgot people were listening. I got lost in the story of Dorothy’s ordinary life in Kansas with her family and dog, Toto. Before I knew it, I had read a few pages. I stopped reading right when the cyclone came down from the sky.

Lee was asleep next to me.

I looked at my parents. “Do you think we will ever get a cyclone here, like the one in my book?”

“In San Francisco,” Father said, “our greatest threat is earthquakes.”

Mr. Quan slapped his knees. “We’ve crossed an ocean to get here and survived mine explosions. A little earth shaking can’t drive us away!”

Mr. Quan was like Lee. He made everyone smile.

I knew that minor tremors were common in California. They were so frequent that sometimes Lee and I joked that it felt like a cable car was running loose past our apartment. With all the noise from our get-together tonight, I wondered if I had missed a small earthquake already.

It was time for our neighbors to leave. My parents said goodbye to everyone, and I pulled the blankets over me, ready to go to sleep. Suddenly I heard a terrible screeching sound. It sounded like an animal yowling, scared or in pain.