She spent four years researching and writing the book, having conducted interviews and reviewed diaries, memoirs, oral histories, national archives, and doctoral theses.

It covers several waves of migration: the first was triggered by the California gold rush and the first transcontinental railroad in the 1850s, the second after the Chinese Communist Party took power in 1949, and the third after China's opening up after the late 1970s.

She weaves people's stories into the overarching historical narrative including vignettes about the "Siamese twins" Chang and Eng Bunker, the news anchor Connie Chung, the architect Maya Lin, the horticulturalist Lue Gim Gong, the Air Force officer Ted Lieu, the author Amy Tan, the actress Anna May Wong, and the entrepreneur Jerry Yang.

[1] Following her relocation to the San Francisco Bay Area, Chang became drawn to the history of Chinese Americans in the middle of the 1990s through conversations with key figures in the Chinese-American community.

She cited Chang's stories about the news anchor Connie Chung, the scientist Wen Ho Lee, the architect Maya Lin, the Air Force officer Ted Lieu, the author Amy Tan, the actress Anna May Wong, and the entrepreneur Jerry Yang.

[19] According to The Christian Science Monitor reviewer Terry Hong, the book is filled with obscure tidbits and thought-provoking ideas that would benefit even academics who were experts in Asian American history.

She cited how Chang chronicles that since there were insufficient laundry services in their area, Chinese and white gold rush prospectors mailed their clothes to Hong Kong.

These family members no longer possessed employment capability because they enjoyed a high quality of life through remittances from their relatives who were working in the United States.

[5][15] The Willamette Week's Steffen Silvis found the prose to be a "strong, engaging style", while Wisconsin State Journal's William R. Wineke called it "an easy dialogue that carries the reader along".

[20] The Los Angeles Times reviewer Anthony Day cited her story about Lue Gim Gong who invented several strains of fruit like that bore his name such as an orange and a grapefruit.

[25] According to The Sacramento Bee's Will Evans, Chang describes "historical details or current events as if reporting on them—but there's an underlying pointed critique, a sense of injustice".

[7] More contemporary events of Chang chronicles include the accusations against Wen Ho Lee and the Hainan Island incident in which an American surveillance aircraft went down over China.

[22] When the United States was transporting scrap metal to Japan during the Second Sino-Japanese War, Chinese Americans demonstrated for an embargo and garnered the public's approval.

[27] When the Los Alamos National Laboratory nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee was wrongly charged with spying, a boycott against the lab prevailed.

[22][27] In a positive review lauding the "exhaustive research" and "sheer writing ability", Jeff Guinn of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram wrote, "this engrossing account of Chinese-American struggles and triumphs is Pulitzer material".

... Chang's timely book deserves to be read in homes and schools because it documents well the struggles of one ethnic group to win its rightful place alongside others.

[7] The Christian Science Monitor Terry Hong found the book to be "a thought-provoking overview" that details Chinese Americans' cruciality to the history of the United States.

[45] Peter Schrag of The Washington Post penned a mixed review of the book, writing, "Chang has found a great subject, and her stories are well worth reading.

He said it "needs a stronger thread of hard data and analysis", pointing out the lack of information regarding the populace's size as Chang discusses how immigration ebbed and flowed.

He called her chronicling of major events in United States history like the Cold War, McCarthyism, and the financial misconduct during the Reagan period to be "simplistic" and to "make you a little uncomfortable with the rest of her account".

According to Leong, the book's most fleshed out parts are her discussion of her previous works on Qian Xuesen and the Second Sino-Japanese War rather than her recaps of researchers' and journalists' writings.

Wenger concluded that the book "would have been superior if it had been more consistently balanced, but, to its credit, it is always scholarly", calling it "invaluable for being deeper and broader on this important subject matter than anything else around".

[33] The Willamette Week's Steffen Silvis called it "a powerful book that leaves one breathless at times by the ignorance and barbarity of white American culture and law".

[4] The Jakarta Post reviewer Rich Simons agreed, calling her "negativity and bitterness wearing" in her "almost unceasing criticism" of how the Chinese have fared in the United States.

[29] In a mixed review, The Oregonian book critic Steve Duin said, "As a scrapbook of individual human odysseys, her history struggles to provide more than dimly-lit snapshots.

"[39] In a positive review, Scott Nishimura of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram stated that Chang has "the eye of a historian and the rhythm of a mesmerizing storyteller" and covers international events across time "without bogging the story down in minutiae".

[18] Peggy Spitzer Christoff of the Library Journal wrote, "Though some scholars might hope for more rigorous analysis, general readers will find many surprising aspects of the Chinese American experiences in the United States.

"[50] Booklist reviewer Brad Hooper said that for young adults the book is "a gripping narrative for teens' personal interest and for class discussion of America's diverse heritage".

[54] As part of an undergraduate course, Henry Yu, a history professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, had his students read The Chinese in America.

[17][56] AudioFile had a mixed review of the reading, praising Wu's performance for being "sensitive, even, and well paced" but finding "the flat tonality" used for several Chinese names and phrases to be "somewhat distracting".