We talk with historian Charlotte Brooks about her new book "The Moys of New York and Shanghai."
Born to Chinese immigrant parents, the Moy siblings grew up in an America that questioned their citizenship and denied their equality. Charlotte Brooks’s gripping tale follows the family back and forth across the Pacific and through two world wars, China’s Nationalist and Communist revolutions, and the Cold War — events that the siblings and their spouses helped shape. The Moys’ story offers a kaleidoscopic view of an entire generation’s struggle for acceptance and belonging.
Charlotte Brooks is a historian and author who has published widely on Asian American history, especially Chinese American and Chinese diaspora history. Originally from California, she graduated from Yale and worked in mainland China and Hong Kong before earning a PhD from Northwestern University. She is a professor of history at Baruch College and the CUNY Graduate Center, as well as a proud New Yorker.
