CLOSURE: Central Library will be closed Tuesday, July 21, through Saturday, July 25, while emergency repairs are made to the building’s cooling system. We expect to reopen Monday, July 27. Click for more details on holds, program schedules, and returns during the closure. 

Notice of Public Meeting: Kalamazoo Public Library Board of Trustees | July 27 | 5:30 pm | Central Library/Van Deusen Room. The packet of information for the meeting can be found on the library’s website. 

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Bitter Creek

Year

2025

Language

ENGLISH

Publication Information

Torrey House Press

Summary

Bitter Creek, a lyric Chinese epic of the American West, reveals the devastating realities of the 1885 Rock Springs Massacre. In September of 1885, the Chinese coal miners who were brought in as strikebreakers were ambushed and driven out of the town at gunpoint by white coal miners. Bitter Creek revisits this dark episode-known today as the Rock Springs Massacre-revealing the stories beneath this violent, decade-long culmination of labor struggles and racial hostilities in the Union Pacific Coal Mines. Through the eyes of the struggling railroad workers, their families, and the corporation working them to the bone, Teow Lim Goh creates an ode to buried history that blends epic tradition with modern composition and astonishing empathy to ask the question, "What turns ordinary people into monsters?"

Subjects