Orphan Bachelors, the title of Fae Myenne Ng's new memoir, is a reference to the many "grandpas" she had while growing up in San Francisco's Chinatown.
These men had been forced to stay single and childless by the Chinese Exclusion Act. In her book, Ng traces the long-lasting legacy of that legislation, which even touched her own parents.
She tells Here & Now's Deepa Fernandes about the deep loneliness that stopped procreation for four generations, and the way Ng and other children became the bachelors' stand-in descendants nonetheless.
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