Spotlight Publication

Rice Paper Memoirs

Chinese Immigration Experience Explored in Rice Paper Memoirs

One of thousands of Chinese immigrants to the United States in the 1950s was nineteen-year- old Joy Lee, whose inspiring journey to a new world—and a new life—personifies the immigrant experience. Almost sixty years later, with US immigration policy in the headlines, the story of Joy Lee Han, documented in her new book, Rice Paper Memoirs, is a must-read.

In touching, heart-felt prose, Han recounts her early life in Kaifeng in north central China, describing both idyllic childhood days spent raising silkworms and tending her grandmother’s goats, and the terror of Pearl Harbor Day, when she was forced, with her parents and five siblings, to flee the American Baptist Compound where they lived. Nine years later, she would find herself on the run again, this time sneaking across the Chinese border into Hong Kong on her way to America.

Han’s story, first recorded in homemade rice paper journals and illustrated with more than one hundred personal and historical images, documents her battle against tuberculosis, college days in Texas, and settlement in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where she raised three children. Northern Michigan University’s Russell Magnaghi, professor emeritus, describes Han’s memoir as “a riveting work” and “a valuable piece of immigrant literature.”

The earliest memory I have is of my grandmother. She was my father’s mother and lived with us for as long as I can remember. Her name was Li Yangrong (李楊榮) and she was born in 1867, during the Qing dynasty, in a little village called Kwotien located south of the city of Kaifeng in Henan Province in north central China. She had given birth to two daughters before my father was born. Later in her life, when she was a widow, she was referred to as Lady Li Yang, but we called her Nai-Nai.