Ernest Young

Ernest Young is a man with mixed-race genealogy who was born to a Chinese mother and a white missionary father. Ernest spends most of the novel reflecting on his childhood experiences of being smuggled to America, raffled off at Seattle’s first World’s Fair, and working at a high-class brothel, the Tenderloin. Ernest’s most important emotional relationships are with Gracie/Fahn, his wife, and Maisie, who he also loves. When given a chance to work for the rich Louis J. Turnbull, Ernest refuses the life of extravagance and luxury that Turnbull promises, preferring to seek freedom outside of material wealth and social dependence. The novel uses Ernest to explore counternarratives to the American Dream and the social conditions of Seattle for poor, undocumented Chinese immigrants duped by false promises in the trade of human smuggling.

Throughout the novel, Ford represents Ernest as outside of the...