——回顾历史、警醒后人、教育同胞、思考未来
潘秋辰、焦凡
Historical Record of Chinese Americans Vol. 1 , Vol. 2, Vol 3 美华史记第一卷, 第二卷，第三卷 在Amazon 上架。 本系列丛书包括从美华史记170 多篇文章中精选出来的文章，中英文双语，图文并茂。特别适用于K-12 教授华裔历史及贡献。
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第一卷 （Book 1)
黑白 $17.00 普通彩色 $32.00 高清彩色 $54.00
第二卷 （Book 2)
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第三卷 （Book 3)
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摘要
美国华人历史并未记载或包含在美国公共教育系统的教科书里，多数后人对美华历史的了解只能来源于零星文章。直到今天，美国华人历史也没有系统性、连续性地被记录下来，甚至只是一知半解的某个故事、历史事件或历史人物，这为当今华人完整记录美国华人历史留下了需要填补的史料空白。
自2017年9月起，《美华史记》通过连续发表单篇文章的形式，回顾华人在美洲大陆的生活、人生及历史事件。五年来，我们在网络上发表了超过150篇的中、英文关于美国华人历史研究的文章(usdandelion.com)，同时，我们最先提出将“亚裔历史推进中小学课程(K-12)”，领头推动“建立亚裔国家历史文化博物馆”。毫无疑问，《美华史记》这个项目吸引了越来越多志愿者的加入，沉默漫延，持续成长，同时收获了越来越多的读者的关注和支持。
今年年初，在广大读者的鼓励下，我们推出美华史记系列丛书（三卷）。藉由这次集结成册的文章整理过程，我们将过去发表在网络上的文章逐字逐句地推敲，对其中的人物、事件和历史政治背景再次核实。为此，我们对文中的历史又有了更深刻的理解和感悟，骄傲又惭愧，高山仰止，景行行止。本系列丛书的宗旨是收集史实，考掘文物，避免解读、重构历史。我们谨以对历史的虔诚和敬畏之心，奉献给读者这套系列丛书。
《美华史记第一卷》囊括14篇精选文章。19世纪中期，华工在美国淘金、修铁路、开发西部，为美国国家建设和经济发展做出了巨大贡献。后来，于19世纪末20世纪初，又出现长达六十年的《关于执行有关华人条约诸规定的法律》，即“排华法”(Chinese Exclusion Act)，成千上万华工还被迫走上了迁往各地的悲惨之旅。无论是西部淘金，修筑太平洋铁路，作为留学生来美学习，或者加入美国军队服务，美国华人在用自己的智慧和勤劳开辟出生存崛起之路时，没有忘却对这个国家的荣誉、责任和奉献。
《美华史记第二卷》的主题是华人移民，包括中国人或美籍华人，我们统称美国华人(Chinese in the U.S. or Chinese Americans)。早期的华人被认为在道德和行为上低下，根本就不能融入西方社会。第二次世界大战期间，当美中两国结盟共同对付日本侵略者时，美国人对华人的态度有了温和软化。然而，在麦卡锡时代，华人又受到国家忠诚度的质疑。尽管美国华人是美国多元民族群体中的一个组成部分，但是这一群体在美国历史的大部分时间里被视为“外国人”，常常被迫接受自己是他者、渺小或不受欢迎的一群人。第二卷图书再现“排华法”阴影下华人移民的“纸儿子”这一历史现象；也集中回顾了华人女性移民在性别和种族的双重歧视、排斥的压力下积极融入美国社会，留学生的留与回的挣扎，美国华人跨国参政并积极促进中美两国成功合作的历史。
《美华史记第三卷》收录了著名的华人民权抗争和法律案例。例如排华法案前后美国最高法院审理的六个华人案件，早期华人诉讼的著名而成功的案例Tape v. Jennie Hurley，益和屋诉霍普金斯(Yick Wo v. Hopkins)，和美国诉黄金德(United States v. Wong King Ark)。尽管当时的美国国会禁止华人成为美国公民，一些华人为了保护个人和族群的利益，能够机智并巧妙地利用美国的司法武器进行合理、合情与合法的抗争。《美华史记》第三卷还记录了一些近代华人民权抗争的历史，如纽约监狱的变迁与华人维权运动，华人抗议警察暴行和华人反对教育种族配额等。
美国华人是出生国（中国）和移民国（美国）的桥梁。他们不一定始终认同哪个政党，但是他们深深地热爱着这两个国家和两个国家的人民。当两国关系友好时，他们是完整的个体；当两国关系紧张时，他们个体撕裂。他们也或多或少有过“留”或“返”的挣扎。然而，他们为自己和子孙选择了美国做为长久的居住国，这是他们对国家选择的客观指标和明确的答案。在这片土地上，美国向世界发表独立宣言，我们（人民）生而平等。美国华人是这个国家人民的一部分。
美国所有的族群在特定的历史时刻都曾被赋予过特殊的使命——捍卫平等、自由、民主。“我们投入这项事业的能量、信念和奉献精神将照亮我们的国家和所有为它服务的人，而那团火的光芒将真正照亮世界……不要问你的国家能为你做些什么——问问你能为你的国家做些什么。” 愿我们共勉。
如果您希望阅读美华史记系列丛书，或给当地学校和图书馆捐赠图书，请在amazon网上检索”Historical Record of Chinese Americans”购买。
Summary
The Chinese American history has not been written to be served for the textbooks for the American public education system, and later generations can only learn about Chinese American history from sporadic articles since the day the first Chinese landed in the U.S., two hundred and thirty-seven years ago in 1785. To this day, the history of Chinese Americans has not been systematically and continuously recorded; even just a piece of discrete story, a related historical event or a figure was not fully understood and recorded, leaving a historical gap that needs to be filled for Chinese Americans to record the Chinese History in the U.S. correctly and precisely throughout those 237 years.
Since September 2017, the “History of Chinese Americans “has carefully reviewed and written a series of individual articles of many lives, and historical events of the Chinese people in the American continent. “Historical record”, as the name suggests, refers to the text of human history, which has become an urgent need for historical research and development in a complete and truthful manner before many major historical events in the U.S. and China in this period being forgotten, and that has summarized and written eloquently about the Chinese American history in such way that is easily memorized by most readers who are Chinese or not, generations to come.
As we all know now, the history of Chinese Americans is a history of tears and hard struggles. In the United States, the history of the Chinese is about 237 years long, and it can be seen from historical records that the first three or four Chinese sailors arrived in Baltimore by boat on August 9, 1785, leaving a Chinese footprint on the American mainland. They had been “coolies” (hard labors) because they could not bear the poverty of their hometown and because of years of war, they signed a long-term labor contract to some companies in the U.S., with their greatest wish at that time was to earn money and return home alive.
In the mid-19th century, Chinese workers helped the U.S.’s tight labor market to pan for gold, build railways, and develop the western region, making great contributions to the construction of the United States and economic development. Later, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there was another sixty-year-long Chinese exclusion law, and thousands of Chinese workers were forced to embark on a tragic journey to move to various places. Whether it was as a “Chinese worker” who came to the United States to build the Pacific Railway, participated in the gold rush in the west, was sent to the U.S. as a student because of Gengzi’s indemnity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Indemnity_Scholarship), or joined U.S. army forces to fight in the WW2, the population of Chinese people in the United States has increased, and at the same time, the fatherland in the Far East has also developed and become stronger and stronger amid suffering.
Today, the population of Chinese Americans in the United States is about 5 million, and they have achieved their due socio-economic status through the efforts of generations. When the Chinese in the U.S. have opened the road to survival and rise with their wisdom and diligence, they have not forgotten the honor, family, responsibility, and dedication to this country, and they have always shown their traditions of being diligent and thrifty, working hard and without complaining. Along the way, there are members of Congress, academic elites, political leaders, financial giants, art, and sports stars, etc. among the Chinese people today, and yet, there are still many Chinese who work hard and silently dedicate to this society with low wages. So, how to make the history of the Chinese Americans recorded in a more precise context, so that future generations can trace through ethnic research historical materials to find out their ancestors’ contributions to the nation.
As the result, this group of grassroots Chinese Americans from all over the United States, including professional authors, media reporters, freelance writers, historians, engineers, researchers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, etc., have joined the “History of Chinese Americans” writing team, without any financial support, with the awareness of volunteer service, has been using “Chinese American For Social Justice” as the platform, that opened this amazing Chinese American historical writing project, which can be described as a journey of thousands of miles beginning with a single step. Under the pen of these Chinese Americans from different occupations, different educations, different ages, and different ancestral origins, there are the life courses of the Chinese ancestors, the historical events of different eras, and the perception of the contrast between the present and the past… The reader’s vision begins to appear one after another to write Chinese history in an orderly manner.
These individual articles are a process of information collection, which can not only meet the reader’s interest as the fulcrum of reading, but also achieve the combination of dots and lines to observe, study, and think about historical content. When accumulated to a certain number, history will slowly connect dots into lines and lines into surfaces, forming a historical record of real macro significance in the horizontal and vertical directions, thus leading the Chinese Americans to learn to view the growth process of the Chinese ethnic group deeply and rationally on the road of democratic politics in the U.S. in history.
The goal of “History of Chinese Americans” is to review history, warn future generations, educate compatriots, and think about the future, which is a long-term task and has a long way to go, and its significance is self-evident.
Adhering to the rational attitude of “writing history, educating the public, defending the rule of law, and self-restrained”, from the perspective of objectivity and fairness and no political prejudice, they reproduced the history of the Chinese in the United States for more than two hundred years, leaving a rich spiritual and cultural wealth of humanistic history for future generations and historical research.
Chinese American history is, in fact, American history.
