I'm not a Chinese-American, but my kids are. Here's something about what that means.

The Fortune Cookie Chronicles is a blog that's mostly about all-American Chinese food, but recently devoted a little attention to Chinese-American history, thanks to the publication of a new book by Jean Pfaelzer, a professor of English and American studies at the University of Delaware.

Driven Out: The Forgotten War Against Chinese Americans by was recently the subject of a fairly comprehensive New York Times review. (And they also put the first chapter up for your delectation over yonder.)

Among other things, Pfaelzer writes about Idaho when it was 30 percent Chinese and Deadwood, South Dakota, (yes, the same Deadwood that I'm given to believe is a purty good show on the cable television) at a time when it had a 20 percent Chinese population - workers who'd come over to build railroads, pick fruit, dig mines and provide prospectors with meals and equipment.

Deadwood isn't 20 percent Chinese-descended any more. The book explains why.

If the phrase "a Chinese skull used as a sugar bowl in a local ranch home" makes you uneasy, you might want to skip the contents.

On the other hand, the book also explores what the first Chinese-Americans did about stuff like this - including filing the first lawsuit for reparations in the United States, prosecuting vigilante leaders and, by refusing to wear yellow-star-style photo ID cards, organizing what was the largest civil disobedience protest in America. Fans of the cowboy way might also be pleased to learn about attorney Fred Bee, one of the founders of the Pony Express, deciding to become Chinese consul - and agreeing to defend Chinese clients when few others would.

The West might not be "Old" any more, but it's still "Wild" in surprising ways, and some of this stuff is still lingering out there - and here, and everywhere. This book is coming out at the same time that Germans look for a new face for Mr. Wong (the "Jeeves" of continental Europe), and that Amy Sedaris thinks "ching-chong" jokes are funny and gets tagged for it on Racialicious, a blog that pays attention to these things. Apparently, this is nothing new for her, but there you go.

It's funny because it's over, right? Right? Is that what we tell our kids?