Mark Twain spoke up on behalf of Chinese immigrants and against their mistreatment. His brilliant satirical short novel "Goldsmith's Friend Abroad Again" is an effort to make his readers reject the racism against Chinese. [This link is to the printed text.]
The novel was serialized in Galaxy Magazine over 1870-1. The format involved seven fictitious letters from Ah Song Hi to his friend, Ching Foo.
In the first letter, Ah Song Hi is beginning his journey from China to Gold Mountain, full of optimism. However, his following five letters describe increasingly negative experiences ranging from unfair immigration fees, prejudicial mistreatment by San Francisco police, attack by a dog belonging to young men, being jailed, and not being allowed to testify in court because he was not white. Ah Song Hi's dream of Gold Mountain was actually a nightmare.
Note: The odd title for Twain's indictment of the mistreatment of Chinese comes from the celebrated 18th-century Irish author, Oliver Goldsmith, who wrote "Citizen of the World" in 1760 about letters from Lien Chi, a fictional Chinese traveller in England, to provide an outsider's ironic and at times moralistic views on British society and manners.
The "Abroad Again" part of the title speaks to the many travel books Twain wrote that included the word, "Abroad" such as Innocents Abroad.
It is understandable why Twain used a title to acknowledge his debt to Goldsmith but unfortunately, it doesn't convey the content, namely, a biting criticism on the racism toward Chinese.
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