Gathering the Ancestors: A Reading and Conversation with Shelley Wong

Fourth-generation Chinese American poet Shelley Wong will share new work as part of her second book project, reflecting on the immigration journeys of her eight great-grandparents. Her great-grandmother Wong Lon Ying, was trafficked into Butte as a slave girl for a wealthy Chinese merchant in the 1890s, residing at 21 W. Galena. With the help of a local Butte mission woman who taught them English, the merchant’s wife and Lon Ying were rescued by a woman who brought them to the famous San Francisco Presbyterian Mission Home run by Donaldina Cameron in 1902.  Following the reading, there will be a Q&A session and a book signing. Shelley is the July artist-in-residence at Dear Butte.