Lalu was a Chinese-American pioneer woman who overcomes poverty, footbinding, and slavery to build a life of relative freedom
in the American Northwest. From Shanghai to San Francisco, Lalu's courageous journey was an important contribution to the history of
Asian pioneer women on the American frontier.
Lalu is first sold to a brothel and then to a slave merchant bound for America, before being auctioned to a saloonkeeper, and
finally offered as a prize in a pokergame where Charlie won her.
So at the beginning, Lalu was sold into slavery in 1871 by her poverty-stricken family and auctioned off in the American West.
McCumn tells the gripping tale of how Lalu refused to be mistress, pawn, or chattel to any of the men who "owned" her and how she
struggled out of sernitude to ahcieve a life of freedom and dignity as a pioneer woman.
Lalu's innate self-esteem is her only protection in the wilderness. American laws deny Chinese men citizenship _ they are
wanted mostly for cheap labor and women are viewed as even more insignificant. And there were no women in Chinatown which
Chinese-women couldnt buy a property ownership and thats why Charlie bought the land in behalf of her. Lalu, nicknamed "China
Polly" by the cowboys who cannot be bothered to pronounce her name, is saved from proctitution but then becomes Hong King's
slave, until her husband's white partner, a genial alcoholic named Charlie, explains to her that slavery has been outlawed. But Lalu
found out from a black man who was a customer in Hong King's saloon.
Charlie, a good man when he doesn't drink too much, is attracted to "Polly", but she dreams only of buying her freedom and
returning to China. Then Hong King, short of funds and tired of living with a "hellcat," decides to auction his wife "Polly" to the
highest bidder _ and Charlie, in a rare stroke of luck, wins her. But first Charlie auct
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