Dragon's Gate

Dragon's Gate is a historical novel by Chinese American author Laurence Yep, first published by HarperCollins in 1993. It is the third novel in the Golden Mountain Chronicles series, which charts the experiences of various members of the Young family, from 1830s China to modern-day America. Set in both China and the United States, Dragon's Gate follows 14-year-old Otter as he grows up under the oppressive shadow of the Manchu dynasty and eventually finds adventure in the "Land of the Golden Mountain"—California. Yep won the 1994 Newbery Medal for Dragon's Gate.

The book opens with a discussion of the political and social climates of both the U.S. and China in the mid-1860s. The North defeats the South in the Civil War, but connecting the western and eastern parts of the country proves challenging. Only 31 miles of train tracks exist between California and the East, and the government seeks to hire Chinese workers to complete this laborious task. Meanwhile, in China, the boy emperor of the Manchus survives multiple challenges to his rule. Local clans take up arms against an ethnic group known as Strangers, and soon Chinese men flee China in record numbers. Arriving in America, they find work—and a whole different kind of hardship.

It is 1866, and Otter is at a magical place called Dragon's Gate in his village of Three Willows, China. Here, legend has it, a carp braves the churning rapids, passes through the mystical gate, and transforms into a dragon. Completely by accident, Otter kills a Manchu at Dragon's Gate. This immediately puts him in grave danger, so, in hopes of saving his life, Otter's mother sends him to California, where he will join his father and his Uncle Foxfire.



Uncle Foxfire has become a legend in Three Willows. His job on the American railroad makes him something of a celebrity in the village. The villagers look forward to the day that Uncle Foxfire returns a rich and powerful man to overthrow the Manchu revolutionaries who have taken control.

Otter's father, who followed Uncle Foxfire to America, sends what money he makes back home, and the family has been able to afford food and shelter. In Otter's mind, California must indeed be the Land of the Golden Mountain.

But when he arrives, Otter discovers that life in America is not at all what he imagined it to be. First, he must make his way deep into the Sierra Nevada Mountains, where his father, uncle, and the rest of the work crews labor away at boring holes through the mountains. Though he is little more than a child, Otter must stay and work with the grown men. The job is nothing short of backbreaking, despite all the promises the Americans originally made the Chinese workers about the safety of the working environment and the comfort of the living conditions. To make the situation even worse, the workers must deal with freezing cold temperatures, snow, and biting winds.



This opens Otter's eyes to another reality of American life: racism. Americans treat Chinese people with open disdain. And in the social pecking order of the workers, the Chinese migrants are the lowest on the totem pole. In China, they are thought of as heroes who can afford to send impressive sums of money back for the welfare of their families. But in the United States, they are peasants—servants, essentially—and Otter has difficulty accepting this.

It isn't all bad, however. Otter makes friends with Sean, the son of the crew boss. Both boys are outcasts among the grown men that comprise the work crew, so their alienation bonds them. Though it doesn't save Otter from the brutality of Sean's father.

One day, during the course of the crew's work, a tunnel explodes and blinds Otter's father. Devastated, and knowing that the unsafe working conditions are to blame for the injury, Otter refuses to go to work. As punishment, Sean's father whips Otter until he bleeds.



Otter quickly falls back in line and does the work he has been ordered to do. He adopts the mindset of the other Chinese workers, which is that they must work hard to complete this project as soon as possible, or they're all going to die. Otter develops a deep respect for his fellow workers, and he begins to see Uncle Foxfire in a whole new light. He realizes his uncle is not the golden boy the village back home thinks he is, nor is he the hero Otter himself once thought him to be. All the workers, not just Uncle Foxfire, bravely adjust to the challenges of life on the mountain, doing intense physical labor for days, weeks, and months at a time.

Otter also taps into his own bravery. When an avalanche destroys a camp full of Chinese workers, Otter volunteers to go into the snowstorm and plant explosives to prevent another avalanche. Through his own experience, his newfound perspective on Uncle Foxfire, and his love and admiration for his father's struggles, Otter learns a life-changing lesson: Heroes are ordinary people who do extraordinary things.