Coming to America

“We first proceeded to Bridgetown...and there I saw the dying, the living and the dead, lying indiscriminately upon the same floor, without anything between them and the cold earth save a few miserable rugs upon them. To point to any particular house as proof of this would be a waste of time, as all were in the same state; and, not a single house out of 500 could boast of being free from death and fever, though several could be pointed out with dead lying close to the living for the space of three or four, even six days, without any effort being made to remove the bodies to a last resting place.”

“In the small village where I was brought up, I read with passion, until the age of fourteen, stories about Buffalo Bill and the Wild West, that were published in a French weekly magazine. I could not imagine any better life than roaming on horseback over the Great Plains and the Rockies. Then, while a student in Patois, I read everything available about American life and became intoxicated with the phrase, ‘America, the land of unlimited possibilities.’ I had no clear vision of what these possibilities were, but I wanted to experience them nevertheless.”

"Americans are very rich people. They want the Chinaman to come and will make him very welcome. There you will have great pay, large houses, and food and clothing of the finest description. You can write to your friends and send them money at any time, and we will be responsible for the safe delivery...There are many Chinamen there now, and it will not be a strange country. China god is there and the agents of his house. Never fear and you will be lucky. Come to Hong Kong, . . . and we will instruct you. Money is in great plenty and to spare in America."

"Why remain here to struggle for a piece of bread without any security for the future, without honor and independence? Why not open your eyes and see the good that awaits you; Why linger? To protect your parents?

Today or tomorrow, whether their children are here or abroad, they will close their eyes forever. It will be better for you to leave home and send a little money to provide for them in their advancing years.

Have you seen how much progress you have made thus far?"

"If they wants to, they can throw an old woman out of a third-floor window together with a grand piano, he can smash a chair against a baby’s head...hammer a nail into a living human body...He exterminates whole families, he pours petrol over a house, transforms it into a mass of flames, and if anyone attempts to escape, he finished him off with a cudgel."