Richard Aston

Views from Gold Mountain Richard Aston

We are all immigrants. Whether your ancestors arrived 15,000 years ago, or you are "fresh off the boat," we all came from some other place. Torn from our homeland, seeking wealth, or yearning to be free, we arrived. Over the years, family memories fade, until we all become "Americans." The road to acceptance can be hard, often mired in discrimination and prejudice. Commonly, we are conflicted between the values of the past, and those of our new homeland. The history of America is of how immigrants overcame the barriers they faced, and forged a better nation. Views from Gold Mountain, gives voice to a Chinese family, mostly ordinary people, with a scattering of few spies, gangsters, and concubines. Faced with poverty, starvation, and revolution, they tell of why, and how, they left China, to find a new life in the "gold mountain," that is California.