But first she has to overcome the prejudice against her race, as well as the pain of her own losses.ĭiscussion: The story illustrates the animosity towards the Chinese at the time just 24 years earlier, President Arthur had signed the Chinese Exclusion Act, barring any more Chinese from immigrating. Mercy decides to lead the girls on a mission to help others in need. Mercy observed, “It’s just like Chinatown and all the laws passed to contain us. The soldiers don’t help much at first – they are more focused on policing people.

The girls gather in Golden Gate Park along with other survivors, and they are not only traumatized, but hungry and without homes. Nor does she know if the boy she likes, Tom Gunn, is safe. She didn’t know the fate of her father, who might have been out on business, or might not have. (from Steinbrugge Collection of the UC Berkeley Earthquake Engineering Research Center)Ĭhinatown was destroyed, with Mercy’s mother and brother caught in the conflagration. This photograph by Arnold Genthe shows Sacramento Street and approaching fire.

(It was reported that this violent quake was felt from southern Oregon to south of Los Angeles and inland as far as central Nevada.) Devastating fires soon broke out in the city and lasted for several days. It seemed she would be expelled, but the date was April 18, when the great earthquake of San Francisco struck. She was doing well until her conflict with her roommate, Elodie Du Lac, came to a head. She manages to talk her way into a white high school (schools were segregated then) because there were no high schools in Chinatown, the twelve block area where the Chinese were restricted.

In addition, Mercy wants to live up to her mother’s high expectations for her. She wants to help her father, who works a grueling sixteen hours a day in the laundry, and to ensure that her sickly little brother Jack doesn’t have to work there also. Mercy is determined to get a good education and make some money. Like her previous book, Under a Painted Sky, this story also expresses the Chinese principle of yuanfen, which refers to the fate that brings people together to become a family. In this heartwarming historical fiction novel for young adults set in 1906 San Francisco, we meet Mercy Wong, a young woman of 15 who dreams of making something of her life in spite of the many prejudices against, and obstacles to, Chinese at that time.

Outrun the Moon by Stacey Lee