Q&A: "Paper Daughter" Explores the Legacy of Exclusionary Laws in Seattle's Chinatown

After a hit-and-run driver claims the life of her father -- a veteran Seattle journalist -- 16-year-old Maggie Chen stumbles across troubling clues that raise questions about her father's past -- and her own identity. Proceeding with a summer internship at her hometown paper, the Herald, Maggie delves into a story that ends up casting a cloud over the reputation of her highly respected father. Her efforts to clear his name -- and take her first steps as a journalist -- carry her to Seattle's International District, where she learns that the past does not easily give up its secrets.

That's the premise behind Paper Daughter by Jeanette Ingold (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $17). It's a fascinating Young Adult novel that connects the dots between a contemporary American teen and the legacy of fear and subterfuge generated by racist U.S. immigration laws from 1882 to 1943 -- the so-called Exclusion Era. Younger teens from all backgrounds will find it easy to relate to Maggie, who comes across as a flesh-and-blood girl absorbed with the usual issues of adolescence -- friendships, rivalries, budding independence and self-identity. More than a good read, Paper Moon describes an important chapter in Seattle history and U.S. policy.

Author Jeanette Ingold struck me as a writer worth exploring, so I asked her to tell me more about herself and the issues she covers in Paper Daughter. Our Q&A, conducted by e-mail, follows. You can learn more about Ingold at http://www.jeanetteingold.com/



Q. The idea for Paper Daughter came to you while you were in Seattle doing research for your novel Hitch. What did you discover that made you realize your next book was in the wings?

A. Touring the National Archives regional depository on Sandpoint Way, I saw a massive collection of files from the Chinese Exclusion Era -- each representing one person but together speaking of a slice of recent history that was unfamiliar to me. I felt that spark of discovering something that I wanted to delve into and understand. Most of my books begin with such sparks, because it's on paper (or at my computer) that I bring together what I learn and then try to make sense of it.

Some of the best stories are the ones that you don't set out to get, but that you keep yourself open to. I realized this might be one of those, that it was a significant story -- one worth telling -- and I already had the framework for it. For some time, I'd been wanting to write a novel set in a newsroom, to show both the excitement and also the day-to-day work of being a journalist. This was a perfect story -- both my protagonist, Maggie Chen, and I could go from source to source, digging for facts, until we finally came to know Fai-yi Li.

Q. Did you visit Seattle's International District to research Paper Daughter? If so, what were your impressions and experiences?

A. Absolutely. Walking where my stories take place is always a crucial part of getting to know my characters. Of course the International District today -- the place that Maggie ventures into -- is a very different place from the Chinatown that Fai-yi was directed to when he was a teen. You can still find pieces of what he would have come into, but overall, today's loosely defined area gives the impression of being a busy, vibrant, diverse place that is constantly evolving.

Q. In terms of the issues presented in Paper Daughter, was Seattle's Chinatown any different from other Chinatowns across the West? That is, could the story have been set anywhere, or is the history especially applicable to Seattle? Also, is it correct to assume that most Chinese immigrants settled in the West?

A. I like to write about the places that pull on me and that I care about. Seattle's one of them, and I tried to catch the feel of it in Maggie's looping, nighttime drive by the university and along the waterfront, and in the places she goes during her investigations -- across the floating bridges, into downtown's breathtaking Seattle Public Library. But more than that, Seattle's where I came upon the history behind my fictional Fai-yi, and I wanted to link Maggie's search for him with my own.

To answer your broader question, though -- yes, Fai-yi's story could have been played out in Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, or in any of dozens of other places where there would be a paper family that he could merge into. And his story does take him to some of them, particularly to San Francisco, where many Chinese immigrants went through Angel Island.

There were large Chinese populations in other parts of the country, but you're right in thinking that much of the immigration history prior to the Exclusion Era was linked to work going on here in the West -- railroads being built, mines being dug. And, when many of those jobs disappeared, some of the sharpest clashes happened here, also.

Q. Without giving away too much of the plot, would you explain the significance of the title, Paper Daughter?

A. That's a question that I hope my readers will ponder, so maybe you'll let me phrase it another way. How about, who is the paper daughter? There's more than one, I think, and each is a paper daughter in more than one way.

Q. What parallels do you see between the issues surrounding Chinese immigration in the early 20th century and the controversy over today's undocumented workers from Mexico?

A. The specifics have changed over time, but many of the same issues have accompanied immigration waves going back to the earliest years of our country's history. There's often been disagreement about rights and obligations. About how a population of new immigrants might affect employment. About whether and to what extent immigrants balance the newly acquired identity that comes from living here with the political, cultural, and ethnic identities they bring with them. There's the pull between wanting to move into the future and wishing things could remain as they are. These can be difficult, emotional issues, but I'd hope that the distance provided by a fictional story set decades back might provide a context for thoughtful discussion.

Q. The changing face of journalism is another theme in Paper Daughter. Do you think printed newspapers will disappear entirely in the next five years -- and, if so, what impact will that have on society?

A. No, I don't think print newspapers are going to disappear, at least not anytime soon. Like Harrison [a reporter in the fictional Herald newsroom] and Maggie, I hope paper moves over press rollers for a long time to come. But I do think the impact they'll have is very much a question, and I suspect the answer is going to lie in the extent to which newspapers, particularly local ones, succeed in being indispensable. I love reading the comics, but I've never bought a newspaper for them. My husband and I subscribe to our local paper because without it we wouldn't have the information we need to live fully in our community. And we subscribe to a national paper, also, because it's our best source for both an overview and an in-depth look beyond our state and across the world.

Q. Online journalism seems to be a different animal from print in many respects. Whereas print newspapers often try (or used to try) to appear sober and upstanding, a lot of newspaper websites have an attention-grabbing format that emphasizes celebrity gossip, fashion shots, sports and cute puppies in order to gain "clicks." Sometimes they operate with very small staffs. Do you think they have the same sense of mission as traditional print newspapers? How do you see online journalism evolving?

A. There's an immediacy to online journalism that's exciting. And it's a very democratic kind of journalism, much more accessible both to the journalist and to the reader, and that's exciting. But newspapers are businesses, and spending the money required to produce solid news and then giving that news away is a hard economic sell.Which is part of what's behind the cute puppies and gossip. Do I like such stuff? Think it's what newspapers should be doing? Think it's the way newspapers will survive? I'm a dog lover, but other than that....no, no, and no.

Q. I'd be interested to know about your own newspaper background. Where did you work and what kinds of stories did you cover? Why and when did you transition into writing books for young readers?

A. I worked at a daily newspaper, the Missoulian, full-time and part-time, as a reporter, feature writer, and western Montana editor. I wrote about education, the Forest Service, food. I wrote obits to start with, and, like Maggie, did my share of rewrites.

I started writing for young readers in the early nineties -- my first published pieces were short stories, and The Window, my first novel, came out in 1996. By then my son had outgrown reading with me, and I missed the children's books that had been a daily part of my life while he and his sister were growing up.

Q. You seem particularly drawn to historical fiction. Why is that -- and what do you think young readers gain from reading about the past?

A. Historical fiction is the closest thing I know to time travel! Doing the research, I find voices and details that let me imagine what it would have been like to be another person in another time. Working on Hitch, to be a kid in the Civilian Conservation Corps, to fight the 1910 wildfires in The Big Burn. And in doing the writing, I get to flesh out that imagined person.

But even more than that, historical fiction gives me -- and I hope, my readers -- a new understanding of the events that have shaped today. It's easy to get caught up in the present -- maybe sometimes feel overwhelmed by it -- and stepping back offers an opportunity to slow down and consider things from a broader perspective.

Q. What projects are you working on now?

A. I'm about to wrap up a high action, survival novel for teens, and then I'll turn my attention to a set of short stories that have been percolating.

Q. Finally, I'd appreciate it if you'd flesh out some biographical details such as your date of birth, where you were born and raised, parents' occupations, etc. Did you have brothers or sisters? I see you once lived in Washington state -- when and where? Is your husband Kurt a writer as well?

A. I grew up in New York, with lots of time in Texas, where my family was from. Mom was the library-goer, keeping Dad, my brother, and me supplied with books. My father had an airline career that went back to the early days of commercial aviation. I wove his tales of that time into my novel, Airfield.

My husband, who's a CPA with wide-ranging fields of interest, is my best and final reader -- the one I count on to catch errors that get by everyone else. It was his work that took us to Seattle in the seventies. We lived in Magnolia for a year and then on Mercer Island for two more.

Q. Thank you for your time!

A. I thank you, Cecelia. I've loved your questions -- good ones to chew over! They made me crystallize some thoughts.