I saw these things, and they turned me into the old man you see before you.
-- Old man on a riverboat (chapter 1)

Importance: As a teenager arriving in the United States, Fong See meets an old man on a riverboat as they travel from San Francisco to Sacramento. The old man recounts a steamboat explosion and how the Chinese were not helped nor treated like human beings. He then shows Fong See the extravagant ballroom on the boat where the white people were. His advice is to not let the white man see him angry and to avoid them as much as possible. This places Fong See in a predicament. He believes in the dream of Gold Mountain and is determined to be successful—as successful as the white people who can travel in the ballroom of the steamboat. The old man’s words do not fit his dream, and the young teenager chooses to ignore his...