Dragon's Gate

"Dragon's Gate" is a 333 page book by Laurence Yep. In the story Otter a young Chinese boy from Three Willows village wants to join his adoptive father and Uncle Foxfire in America, The Land of the Golden Mountain, so that the people may learn how to overthrow the Manchus, who invaded and took over, with technology like trains and other gadgets. When Otter finally goes to America unlike everyone in China's belief he finds out that his uncle and dad are not at the top but rather almost like slaves of the railroad contractors where they work 8 to 12 hours a day chipping away at the mountain the workers call "The Tiger" so that the railway can go through the mountain itself. At the end Foxfire dies, his father is blinded, and Otter is a hero for saving the camp from an avalanche so he can get off the darned god forsaken mountain and back to his pampered ways in China but he carries on his Uncle Foxfire's dream of studying the American tech for the aforementioned overthrow of the Manchu invaders power over China.