Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco

by Judy Yung

  The most damaging blow to Chinese immigration and settlement proved to be the Chinese Exclusion Act of 18 8 z, passed by a Congress under siege from white labor and politicians at the height of the antiChinese movement. The act suspended the immigration of Chinese laborers to the United States for ten years. It was renewed in 189 z for another ten years, and in 1904 extended indefinitely. The Exclusion Acts were strictly enforced until they were repealed in 1943. 21 It was the first time in American history that a specific group of people was excluded on the basis of race and class. In the interest of diplomatic and trade relations between China and the United States, Chinese officials, students, teachers, merchants, and travelers were exempted by treaty provisionsand therein lay the loophole through which Chinese, including women, were able to continue coming after i 8 8 z. Although the number of Chinese immigrants dropped sharply-only 9z,41 r entered during the Exclusion period (1882-1943 ), as compared to 2- 58,zro prior to the i88z act-Chinese immigration was not totally stopped.23 As my maternal great-grandfather and father did, Chinese immigrants who could pool enough money to become partners in import-export businesses were able to attain merchant status and so send for their wives and children. Many others who had merchant or U.S. citizenship status would falsely report a number of sons (rarely daughters) in China, thereby creating "paper son" slots that were then sold to fellow villagers who desired to immigrate.

  The class bias of the Exclusion Act applied to women as well as men. Wives of laborers, although not specifically mentioned in the act, were barred by implication. The ambiguity was settled two years later in the separate cases of In re Ah Quan and Case of the Chinese Wife [Ah Moy]. Both women were married to Chinese laborers who were bringing them back with them after a visit to China. While their husbands, who possessed the proper certificate indicating prior residence in the United States, were allowed to reenter, the two women were barred because they were of the laboring class (by virtue of their husbands' status) and were entering the United States for the first time.24

  Chinese women could enter only if they qualified as one of the exempt classes; even this right, however, had to be won through the judiciary. Chung Toy Ho and Gue Lim, both merchant wives, were initially denied admission on the grounds that they did not hold merchant's certificates. Their successful appeals established the right for merchant wives to join their husbands in the United States. As Judge Matthew Deady of the Circuit Court for the District of Oregon ruled in the case of Chung Toy Ho,

  My conclusion is that under the treaty and statute, taken together, a Chinese merchant who is entitled to come into and dwell in the United States is thereby entitled to bring with him, and have with him, his wife and children. The company of the one, and the care and the custody of the other, are his by natural right; he ought not to be deprived of either, unless the intention of Congress to do so is clear and unmistakable.25

  The Exclusion Act severely limited the number of Chinese women who could come to America, keeping a crack open mainly for the privileged few-the wives and daughters of merchants. But in fact, rigorous enforcement of the act, along with the implementation of anti-Chinese measures regulating prostitution such as the Page Law of 1875, kept even those Chinese immigrant women with legitimate claims out of the country and made immigration to America an ordeal for any woman who tried to enter. Immigration officials apparently operated on the premise that every Chinese woman was seeking admission on false pre tenses and that each was a potential prostitute until proven otherwise. Only women such as my great-grandmother who had bound feet and a modest demeanor were considered upper-class women with "moral integrity." As one immigration official wrote in his report, "There has never come to this port, I believe, a bound footed woman who was found to be an immoral character, this condition of affairs being due, it is stated, to the fact that such women, and especially those in the interior, are necessarily confined to their homes and seldom frequent the city districts." Furthermore, he wrote, "The present applicant No. 14 4 18 is a very modest appearing woman whose evident sincerity, frankness of expression and generally favorable demeanor is very convincing."26 Most other women, however, were detained for inordinate lengths of time and crossexamined like criminals. Under such trying circumstances, women suffered humiliation and, often, the added expense of legal fees in order to obtain release and appeal adverse decisions. They also ran the risk of being barred for a number of other reasons: lack of proper documentation, having a contagious disease, or discrepancies in their testimonies. As a result, the numbers of Chinese women in the United States remained low throughout the nineteenth century, never exceeding the 5,000 mark, or 7 percent of the total Chinese population (see appendix table i); the scarcity of women supported Chinese prostitution, which was rampant until the 18 8os; and merchant wives predominated as the favored class of Chinese immigrant women throughout the Exclusion period.

  Bound Lives in Old Chinatown

  A good number of the Chinese women who came to the United States in the nineteenth century-despite the social, economic, and political barriers-settled in San Francisco: 654, or 37 percent of all Chinese women in the country, lived in San Francisco in 18 6o; z,136, or 47 percent, in r goo. But they were still grossly outnumbered by men, who on the average made up 95 percent of the total Chinese population during these years. While women from such European areas as Ireland, Scandinavia, and Bohemia immigrated to the United States on their own for economic reasons, few Chinese women came alone.27 Most had either been sold into prostitution or domestic slavery, or they were coming to join their husbands. To a large degree, the legacy of bound feet, bound lives, continued for these women in San Francisco. Not only were their lives as circumscribed and socially restricted as in China, but alienation and anti-Chinese hostilities in a foreign land compounded the difficulties they faced. Speaking no English, having no independent means of support, and insulated within Chinatown from alternative views of gender roles, they continued to abide by the patriarchal values of their homeland, maintaining a subordinate role to men and confining their activities to the domestic sphere. In this sense, their early settlement in America was similar to that of Jewish mothers and Italian women, whose cultures also dictated that they remain within the house, isolated from the larger society.28 Regardless of social status-whether prostitute, mui tsai, or wife-Chinese women were considered the property of men and treated as such.

  As in China, Chinese women stayed close to home and appeared as little as possible in public. Indeed, the predominantly male and relatively lawless society of mid-nineteenth-century San Francisco contributed to their sheltered existence. Moreover, the Chinese kinship system, which formed the buttress for patriarchal control in Chinatown, successfully kept them outside the power structure: only men could be members of the clan and district associations that governed Chinatown, or of the trade guilds and tongs (secret societies) that regulated both legal and illicit businesses. Footbinding, practiced only among the merchant wives, was not necessary to stop Chinese women in San Francisco from "wandering"; their physical and social mobility was effectively bound by patriarchal control within Chinatown and racism as well as sexism outside.

  Migration from the preindustrial household economy of China to the industrialized, urban society of San Francisco had little effect on the socioeconomic status of most Chinese women. During the same period, Arab, Jewish, and Irish immigrant women, for example, often became more independent through outside employment and exposure to American ideas of individuality and women's rights.29 Chinese women, confined within the home and within Chinatown, did not have these same opportunities. Even as San Francisco experienced an economic boom following the gold rush, growing to become a major commercial and industrial center by the end of the century, Chinese women found themselves at the lowest rung of a labor market stratified by race and gender. While white men dominated the better-paying jobs in the professional and skilled trades, Chinese men concentrated in three low-wage industries (cigars, woolen goods, and boots and s
hoes), engaged in Chinatown enterprises that serviced their own community, or did menial work as domestic servants and laundrymen.30 Although a few white women found work as schoolteachers and clerks or kept boarders, the majority competed with Chinese laborers for jobs as garment workers, laundresses, and domestic servants. Because of the scarcity of well-paying jobs, a number of white women also turned to prostitution. Unlike on the East Coast, where European immigrant women filled the ranks of factory workers, in San Francisco women were kept locked out of the city's expanding manufacturing economy. In 1870, out of 1,223 manufacturing establishments, only 5 employed women. By 18 8 5, although the total number of manufacturers had more than doubled, the number employing women had only increased to 13.31 All the while, Chinese women fared poorly. In 1885, a municipal report on Chinatown found, only two women were employed in the factories.32 Most Chinese women either did piecework at home for subcontractors-sewing, washing, rolling cigars, and making slippers and brooms-or worked as prostitutes, receiving no wages for their services. While women earned fifty cents a day sewing, Chinese men earned one dollar a day as factory workers-both far below the standard wage for white men of two dollars per day in the early 188os.33

  Given these conditions, there was little opportunity for Chinese immigrant women to change their subordinate gender role and socioeconomic status in nineteenth-century San Francisco. Yet there was heterogeneity in their class backgrounds, life experiences, and the ways in which they utilized and adapted their culture and knowledge to sustain themselves in the new world. Starting from the bottom up, a closer examination of the gender roles of Chinese prostitutes, mui tsai, and immigrant wives within the context of race, class, and gender dynamics in the nineteenth century will help to illuminate their history and diversity; it will also point to the extent of social change in the lives of Chinese women who came after them in the 1902-45 period.

  THE RISE OF CHINESE PROSTITUTION

  The scarcity of women in the American West, the suspension of social and moral restraints, and the easy access to wealth during the early years of the gold rush attracted women from different parts of the world. The first prostitutes to arrive were women from Mexico, Peru, and Chile; these were followed by women from France and other European countries, as well as women from American cities such as New York and New Orleans.34 According to one writer in 1851, "To sit with you near the bar or a card table, a girl charges one ounce [of gold; $i6] an evening ... and if you wanted anything more from these nymphs, you had to pay 15 to zo ounces 1$ z40 to $3 zo]."35 In contrast, a woman working as a domestic servant made $50 to $75 per month. Consequently, many women, particularly those with only a rudimentary education and few marketable skills, drifted into prostitution as a matter of economic survival or profit.36

  Whereas the majority of white prostitutes came to San Francisco as independent professionals and worked for wages in brothels, Chinese prostitutes were almost always imported as unfree labor, indentured or enslaved. Most were kidnapped, lured, or purchased from poor parents by procurers in China for as little as $5o and then resold in America for as much as $ i,ooo in the 18 70s . One young woman testified in r 89z: 37

  I was kidnapped in China and brought over here [eighteen months ago]. The man who kidnapped me sold me for four hundred dollars to a San Francisco slave-dealer; and he sold me here for seventeen hundred dollars. I have been a brothel slave ever since. I saw the money paid down and am telling the truth. I was deceived by the promise I was going to marry a rich and good husband, or I should never have come here.38

  Upon arrival in San Francisco many such Chinese women, usually between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five, were taken to a barracoon, where they were either turned over to their owners or stripped for inspection and sold to the highest bidder. Few women could read the terms of service in the contracts they were forced to sign with thumbprints. A typical contract read:

  An agreement to assist the woman, Ah Ho, because coming from China to San Francisco she became indebted to her mistress for passage. Ah Ho herself asks Mr. Yee Kwan to advance for her six hundred and thirty dollars, for which Ah Ho distinctly agrees to give her body to Mr. Yee for service of prostitution for a term of four years. There shall be no interest on the money. An Ho shall receive no wages. At the expiration of four years, Ah Ho shall be her own master. Mr. Yee Kwan shall not hinder or trouble her. If Ah Ho runs away before her time is out, her mistress shall find her and return her, and whatever expense is incurred in finding and returning her, Ali Ho shall pay. On this day of agreement Ali Ho, with her own hands, has received from Mr. Yee Kwan six hundred and thirty dollars. If An Ho shall be sick at any time for more than ten days, she shall make up by an extra month of service for every ten days' sickness. Now this agreement has proof-this paper received by Ali Ho is witness. Tung Chee [dated 18 7 3 ].39

  In principle, these contracts were similar to those signed by the large number of white migrants recruited to the American colonies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In exchange for passage, they agreed to work without wages for a period of four to seven years. At the end of their indenture, they were promised new clothes, tools, seed, arms, provisions, and land. Until the Alien Contract Labor Law of 1885 forbade the importation of workers under contract, indentured servants were protected by law from breach of contract and flagrant abuse.40 The same was not true for Chinese prostitutes like Ah Ho. As she later probably realized, the allowable ten days of absence in her contract were insufficient to cover failings due to menstrual periods, illness, or pregnancy; thus, such contracts could be extended indefinitely. Nor did she have access to legal protection. Most Chinese prostitutes were subjected to such physical and mental abuse that few could outlive their contract terms of four to six years .41 As Lucie Cheng Hirata points out in her definitive article on Chinese prostitution, "In reality, . . . the contract system offered very little advantage over the outright sale or slave system and was, in a number of ways, more brutal because it raised false hopes."42

  A selected number of young women were sold to wealthy Chinese in San Francisco or outlying rural areas as concubines or mistresses and sequestered in comfortable quarters. As long as they continued to please their owners, they were pampered and well cared for. But if they failed to meet their masters' expectations, they could be returned to the auction block for resale. The remainder of the women either were sold to parlor houses that served well-to-do Chinese or white gentlemen or ended up in cribs catering to a racially mixed, poorer clientele.43

  Parlor houses were luxurious rooms on the upper floors of Chinatown establishments that were furnished with teakwood and bamboo, Chinese paintings, and cushions of embroidered silk. Here, anywhere between four and twenty-five Chinese courtesans, all richly dressed and perfumed, were made available to a select clientele. The "exotic" atmosphere, the relatively cheap rates, and the rumor that Chinese women had vaginas that ran "east-west" instead of "north-south" attracted many white patrons.44 Other parlor house women, known as "sing-song girls," whose livelihoods depended on their abilities to sing, converse, drink, and flatter, were available for hire as well. According to one newspaper account, Chinese clients paid for the company of these women at the theater, followed by an elaborate dinner with friends.45 Another newspaper account stated that no Chinese banquet was complete without their presence: "They sing, they play, they light and hold the pipes, and after the banquet is finished they join in the games. For a few hours of such work they get from $3 to $5 each."46 Savings from this money, as well as the jewelry and rich gifts the women often received from their clients, were sometimes enough for them to buy back their freedom or to send money home to support their families. Those redeemed by wealthy clients were considered fortunate. The majority "were there to be fondled or misused, one day loaded with jewels, then next day to be stripped and sold to the highest bidder, if it were the desire of her master."47

  In contrast, the cribs-considered the end of the line-were shacks no larger than twelve by fourteen
feet, often facing a dimly lit alley, where prostitutes hawked their wares to poor laborers, teenage boys, sailors, and drunkards for as little as twenty-five cents. The cribs were sparsely furnished with a washbowl, a bamboo chair or two, and a hard bed covered with matting. The women took turns enticing customers through a wicket window with plaintive cries of "Two bittee lookee, flo bittee feelee, six bittee doee!" Harshly treated by both owners and customers and compelled to accept every man who sought their business, most women succumbed to venereal disease.48 Once hopelessly diseased, they were discarded on the street or locked in a room to die alone.49 Thus, Chinese prostitutes in San Francisco, exploited as they were for their bodies by men who had control over their fates and livelihoods, were the archetype of female bondage and degradation.

  Various studies of the manuscript schedules of the U.S. population censuses indicate that a high percentage of the Chinese female population in San Francisco worked as prostitutes: from 8 5 to 97 percent in i 860; 71 to 72 percent in 1870; and 21 to 50 percent in r 880.50 There were reasons for these high percentages. Race and class dynamics created the need for Chinese prostitutes in America, while gender and class made poor Chinese daughters the victims of an exploitative labor system controlled by unscrupulous men denied gainful employment in the larger labor market. Certain sectors of the American capitalist economy called for a mobile male labor force unencumbered by women and families. Chinese cultural values and American immigration policies that discouraged the immigration of women resulted in a skewed sex ratio that, when combined with anti-Chinese prejudice and antimiscegenation attitudes (institutionalized in i88o when California's Civil Code was amended to prohibit the issuance of a marriage license to a white person and a "Negro, Mulatto, or Mongolian" ),51 forced most Chinese immigrants to live a bachelor's existence. Stranded in America until they could save enough money to return home, both married and single Chinese men found it difficult to establish conjugal relations or find female companionship. Some married other women of color-black, Mexican, or Native American; a few cohabited with white women; but the majority sought sexual release in brothels.52 The demand for Chinese prostitutes by both Chinese and white men intersected with an available supply of young women sold into servitude by impoverished families in China. What resulted was the organized trafficking of Chinese women, which proved immensely profitable for the tongs that came to control the trade in San Francisco.