September 16, 2003
Contact: George Yatchisin
(805) 893-3494
e-mail: yatchisin-g@ sa.ucsb.edu

Iris Chang presents a complex portrait of
The Chinese in America in a lecture
at UCSB Campbell Hall

Summary Facts:

• Iris Chang
• The Chinese in America
• Chang is the best-selling author of The Rape of Nanking
• Chang’s lecture examines the immense hardships and great successes of one of America’s fastest growing ethnic groups
• Thursday, October 16
• 8 pm / UCSB Campbell Hall
• General public: $5 / UCSB students: Free with valid ID at the door
• Tickets & Information: UCSB Arts & Lectures at 893-3535

Author of the eye-opening The Rape of Nanking Iris Chang—an invaluable source of information about Asia, human rights and Asian American history—will present the fascinating lecture The Chinese in America, based on her recent book of the same name, on Thursday, October 16 at 8 pm in UCSB Campbell Hall.

One of the nation’s leading young historians, Iris Chang has won the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Program on Peace and International Cooperation Award and the Woman of the Year award from the Organization of Chinese Americans. Her latest work The Chinese in America: A Narrative History focuses on the epic journey made by Chinese immigrants and their descendents in the United States—their sacrifices, achievements and contributions to the fabric of American culture. The San Francisco Chronicle asserts that Chang “makes a convincing case in her engrossing new book that throughout the 150 years of Chinese immigration to the United States, ‘success can be as dangerous as failure: whenever the ethnic Chinese visibly excelled—whether as menial laborers, scholars or businessmen—efforts arose simultaneously to depict their contributions not as a boon to white America but as a threat.’ The Chinese Americans’ struggle for success, its costs and tenuousness, are major themes in Chang’s highly readable, panoramic history of Chinese American immigration.” Publishers Weekly raves, “In this outstanding study of the Chinese-American community, the author surpasses even the high level of her bestselling Rape of Nanking....Chang’s even, nuanced and expertly researched narrative evinces deep admiration for Chinese America, with good reason.”

In The Rape of Nanking, Chang examines one of the most tragic chapters of World War II: the slaughter, rape and torture of hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians by Japanese soldiers. Stories about Chang’s grandparents’ harrowing escape from Nanking, the former capital of China, were part of her family legacy and prompted her to embark on this ambitious project, for which she interviewed elderly survivors of the massacre and discovered thousands of rare documents in four different languages. Published by Basic Books on December 1997 (the 60th anniversary of the massacre) and in paperback by Penguin in 1998, The Rape of Nanking became the groundbreaking first, full-length English-language narrative of the atrocity to reach a wide audience. The Chicago Tribune called the book “a powerful new work of history and moral inquiry.”

Chang is also author of the critically acclaimed and engrossing Thread of the Silkworm, which traces the life of the visionary scientist Tsien Hsue-shen. Born in China in 1911 and educated at the best American universities, Tsien helped pioneer the U.S. space program until he was accused of communism and deported to China during the Cold War. In China Tsien developed the Silkworm missile that later was sold around the world and has been used to threaten American armed forces, including during the recent war in Iraq.

Chang has written for numerous publications, such as The New York Times, Newsweek and the Los Angeles Times, and has been featured by countless radio, television and print media, including Nightline, the Jim Lehrer News Hour, C-SPAN’s Booknotes, and the front cover of Reader’s Digest. Born in Princeton, New Jersey, Chang grew up in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Illinois in 1989. She worked briefly as a reporter for the Associated Press and the Chicago Tribune before completing a graduate degree in writing from the Johns Hopkins University and launching her career as a full-time author and lecturer.

More information about Iris Chang can be found at her website www.irischang.net.

Courtesy of the UCSB Bookstore, books by Iris Chang will be available for purchase and signing at the evening event.

This lecture is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures and the UCSB Women’s Center.

For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.

Editor: For photos, please call
George Yatchisin at (805) 893-3494.