Russell N Low – författare

Using source documents, including a 150-year-old fortune teller scroll, Hop Lee''s hand-written journal, and a box of 100-year-old photographs, the story of this Chinese American pioneer turned businessman comes to life on the book''s pages.

We watch him grow from arrival in Albany, Oregon''s Chinatown, through a disastrous stint as a cook for a railroad gang run out of camp for burning the rice, through his days learning his ticket to the American dream as a Chinese laundryman. Along the way, the ever-ambitious and enterprising Hop Lee runs headlong into Anti-Chinse racism with the Chinese Exclusion Act and the massacre of Chinese miners at Deep Creek in Eastern Oregon. Hop befriends a young Nez Perce warrior in the last adventure by disguising him as a Cantonese. Yellow Fox and Hop have a friendship that transcends cultures and spans decades.

Hop''s laundry business in Salem, Oregon, is squarely in the crosshairs of the White laundry owners who started a campaign called Bust the Trust to drive the Chinese out of the dirty clothes business.

Realizing the need to diversify their portfolios, Hop Lee and fellow immigrant merchant George Sun learn the art of hop farming in the fertile Willamette Valley. They participate in the Northwest''s Rise of the Chinese Hop Men, a nearly forgotten chapter in our history. In their haste, they run into the Women''s Temperance Union and Prohibition, depressing the price of hops.

After almost three decades as a bachelor in America, Hop decides to try to find an American-born Chinese wife, a tall order in a country where there are 20 Chinese men for every woman. So, Hop takes the train to San Francisco and uses a matchmaker to find the rare jewel - the American-born Chinese girl. What happens next is the journey and the tale of how this single Willow Tree became a Willow Forrest.

While seeking his elusive dream of citizenship, Hop Lee was, in his heart, a true American who believed in the spirit and possibilities of his adopted country. His story embodies the tale of the bold, bright, determined immigrants who proudly built America with their sweat, imagination, and ingenuity. Those who stayed created the ripples that gave us life as individuals and as a nation of nations.

The second edition of Three Coins includes over 40 new full-page photographs at the start of every chapter, accompanied by newly crafted graphic elements in the Chapter Headers. These additions collectively enrich and breathe new life into this enduring classic, which recounts a young girl''s quest for freedom and love 140 years ago.

When Ah Ying is kidnapped, she must escape from her life of slavery while being pursued by gangs and missionaries in order to find true love in San Francisco''s Chinatown at the turn of the 20th century. Ah Ying is only 9 years old when she awakens in the hold of a ship bound for America. Sold by her family for a few Chinese yuan, she is beaten and burned as a child slave in San Francisco''s Chinatown. Her defiant survival allows Ah Ying to take control of her life as she finds romance, is rescued by missionaries, and is given a new life at the Mission Home. Life is good until her rescuers become her captors, and she is again forced to flee to be with her beloved Gee Sung. What ensues is a race between her love for Gee Sung, the Tong highbinders who want to enslave her, and the Presbyterian Missionaries who want to save her soul. "Three Coins" is based on a true story that touches upon the themes of human trafficking, immigration, cultural and racial discrimination, violence, and romance that are as relevant today as they were 140 years ago.