Hello, I'm Chloe Veltman. Welcome to NPR's Book of the Day.

Faye Miening's new memoir, Orphan Bachelors, takes its title from The Lonely Men Without Families

the author got to know as a kid growing up in San Francisco's Chinatown.

In an interview with here and now host Deepa Fernandez,

In talks about the struggles faced by her own family and the larger Chinese community,

trying to survive in the United States over generations of exclusion and marginalisation.

Ing says one of the most potent things about the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882,

the first significant law restricting immigration

into the United States is how bloodless the legislation was. She says, quote, you didn't need

to kill any Chinese babies. You just had to ensure none were born. Here's Deepa Fernandez.

In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.

Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors.

On our new show, Sources and Methods.

NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people

helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.

Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

California author Faye Mian Ng is the author of the acclaimed novel's Bone and Steer Toward Rock.

Now she turns to memoir.

In her new book, Inng goes back and forth in time to tell the story of

her family, her father who worked on ships that often took him away from home, her seamstress

mother, her own life growing up in San Francisco's Chinatown in the 1960s and teaching at

UC Berkeley in the 2000s. But all through it, we see the far-reaching effects of one of America's harshest immigration

...