When the Earth Dragon Trembled: A Story of Chinatown During the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire (I Am America)

It’s 1906, and strict immigration laws have divided Han Liu’s family. His mother and sister are in China, while he and his father live in San Francisco, California. Han resists his father’s attempts to teach him traditional Chinese values. Han is an American, after all, and he’d rather read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer than study Chinese proverbs. But when a massive earthquake and fire destroy Chinatown and separate Han from his father, those proverbs are all he has left. Can Han use the wisdom of his family to survive the earthquake and fire, reunite with his father, and rebuild their life? It’s the storytellers that preserve a nation’s history. But what happens when some stories are silenced? The I Am America series features fictional stories based on important historical events about people whose voices have been underrepresented, lost, or forgotten over time. Read more