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Bitter Melon
Inside America's Last Rural Chinese Town

Jeff Gillenkirk and James Motlow
Introduction by Sucheng Chan
Trade paper, 144 pages, (8.5 x 10)
ISBN: 0-930588-58-4, $21.95

At the turn of the century, Locke, located in the Sacramento Delta, was the only village in the United States built and inhabited exclusively by Chinese immigrants. This collection of moving oral histories and stunning photographs offers an unforgettable glimpse into this unique and vibrant community, and in doing so contributes significantly to our understanding of the immigrant experience in California.

Author biographies:

Jeff Gillenkirk is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in numberous journals and newspapers.

James Motlow is a freelance photographer; his photographs have been published in many magazines and journals and have been exhibited in both individual and group shows.

Reviews:

"The faces and voices [of Locke] are powerfully captured by Jeff Gillenkirk, a writer, and James Motlow, a photographer.... Bitter Melon bears eloquent witness."—New York Times

"These accounts convey the flavor of rural Chinese American life with an intimacy that no third-person narrative could achieve."—Asian Week