Using a fresh approach that combines literary and historical scholarship, Xiao-huang Yin covers representative works from the 1850s to the present. These include journalistic and autobiographical texts from nineteenth-century Chinese authors; writings on the walls of Angel Island, the main Asian immigrant arrival point on the West Coast; writings of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century "cultivated Chinese", students and scholars who came to America to advance their educations; and the work of more recent authors who have entered the canon, including Sui Sin Far, Jade Snow Wong, Frank Chin, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Amy Tan.

As the only volume that covers the literature written by immigrant authors in the Chinese language, Xiao-huang Yin's book significantly enlarges the scope of Chinese and Asian American studies. This body of literature, including works by immigrant writers such as Chen Ruoxi, Yu Lihua, and Zhang Xiguo, reflects the high percentage of Chinese Americans for whom the Chinese language remains an integral part of everyday life.

A core text for students and scholars of Asian American studies, Chinese American Literature since the 1850s is an important resource forliterary critics, historians, sociologists, and anthropologists interested in diaspora studies, transnationalism, cultural studies, race and ethnicity, and the immigrant experiences in which Chinese American literature is embedded.