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

by Judy Yung

  Ironically, neither Robert Dunn, Kaye Hong, nor Jane Kwong Lee acted on the opinions they expressed. Despite what he said in his essay about remaining in the United States, Robert, after graduating from Harvard University in international law, went to China in 1941, where he became the secretary of one of China's top delegates to the United Nations Conference. After the 1949 revolution he returned to the United States, working as senior reference librarian at the Library of Congress until he retired. Kaye, who had advocated going "west to China," ended up staying in the United States, where he made his fortune in business. As for Jane Kwong Lee, by the time she graduated from college, her mother had passed away and, rather than returning to China, she settled down to married life and active political involvement in San Francisco. These three students' contrary actions to their earlier beliefs show how Chinese Americans had to stand ready and accommodate changing circumstances in their lives.

  When polled, 75 percent of Chinese Americans who attended the Chinese Young People's Summer Conference at Lake Tahoe, Califor nia, in 1193 5 were in favor of serving China. During a discussion on the issue, many of them expressed the belief that the second generation not only should go back to China, but they must go back to China.122 Similar sentiments were expressed in CSYP, whose line was "Once a Chinese, always a Chinese." The newspaper encouraged Chinese Americans to learn Chinese but also to take advantage of the American educational system-to acquire knowledge of mechanics and applied sciences so that they could take this knowledge back to benefit China. "Indeed," the newspaper stated, "your future lies with China, not with the United States." 12' At the same time, though, CSYP encouraged those entitled to vote to do so. "The thought of eventually going back to China should not keep the Chinese from voting," the newspaper pointed out. "Exercising the right to vote is one way to ensure protection for the individual and the community."124

  Some Chinese American women, whose political identities were shaped by their parents' loyalty to their homeland and speeches by Chinese nationalists in the community, also felt strongly that their future lay in China. These thoughts, expressed by Jade Snow Wong in her commencement address at graduation from San Francisco City College, were shared by her peers:

  The Junior College has developed our initiative, fair play, and selfexpression, and has given us tools for thinking and analyzing. But it seems to me that the most effective application that American-Chinese can make of their education would be in China, which needs all the Chinese talent she can muster. 125

  While second-generation women such as Florence Chinn Kwan, Lilly King Gee Won, and Rose Hum Lee did indeed put their education and talents to good use in China, most Chinese American women remained in the United States and made the most of the situation.126 Some, particularly the daughters of educated, middle-class parents, were inspired by their dual political identity to take the first steps toward political activism.

  Out of a strong sense of Chinese nationalism, many daughters first joined their mothers in raising funds for Dr. Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary cause and for war and famine relief in the years following the 191111 Revolution. When America entered World War I, they were encouraged to express their American patriotism by volunteering for Red Cross work on the home front while the men stood in long lines to enlist. Organized by the Chinese YWCA and local churches, women helped solicit donations, contributed handcrafted items to fund-raisers, wrapped bandages, sewed garments for war refugees, and knitted socks and scarves for soldiers at the war front. Chinatown newspapers also reported that young Chinese women were organizing American dances and musical events in the community to raise monies for the war effort.127

  When the war ended and China was humiliated by the Versailles Treaty, which awarded German concessions in Shandong Province to Japan, women did not hesitate to join in the community's boycott and burning of Japanese products from Chinatown stores. According to newspaper accounts, Chinese merchants were united on boycotting the sale of Japanese art goods, rice, and seafood as long as Japan occupied Shandong. To launch the boycott, a public burning of Japanese-made goods was held in which Chinatown merchants contributed thousands of dollars of whatever Japanese merchandise they had left in their stores.128

  Eva Lowe, who was ten years old at the time, remembered the community's outrage over the treaty.129 "We realized that China was again being carved up like a melon," she said. "In response, we protested by burning Japanese curios in the Chinatown streets." Her early political awareness and involvement stemmed from encounters she had personally had with racism and from her exposure to nationalist sentiment in the Chinese community.

  As a child growing up in Fort Bragg, California, Eva had been called "Ching Chong Chinaman" and had had horse manure and rocks thrown at her. She also recalled seeing derogatory cartoons in the American newspapers that depicted Chinese with long queues. "I felt deep inside that the Chinese were inferior and I was not proud to be a Chinese," she said. After moving to live with her sister in San Francisco, Eva became inspired by ideas of Chinese nationalism and learned to detest Japanese imperialism. On the way home from making deliveries for her sister at a local garment factory, she would pass Japanese businesses along Dupont Street. She couldn't resist shouting, "Hell, hell, hell, Japanese go to hell!" She continued doing this until "one time she [a Japanese proprietor] had a broom ready for me. And that was the end of it." Soon after, Eva left for China with her sister and brother-in-law. Her four years of education there further politicized her about Chinese nationalism and women's rights and made her a "fighter for the underdog" upon her return to the United States.

  The aviators Ouyang Ying (Mrs. Frances Lee) and Katherine Cheung are further examples of the kind of educated, middle-class Chinese American women who moved into the political arena-and in their cases, into a male-dominated field-because of Chinese nationalism. Ouyang Ying was one of the first Chinese Americans to answer the Chinese government's call for trained aviators to help China build up its air defenses. Born in 1895 in Courtland, California, she was a "modern woman," according to her grandson Li Yauguang. "She enjoyed motoring and horseback riding, and was quite aware of anti-Chinese discrimination, which worked to instill in her a strong sense of Chinese nationalism at an early age."13° Ying, who studied under instructor Frank Bryant, was considered "one of the most apt pupils they have had."131 Unfortunately, she died in a flying accident in 192.0 at the young age of twenty-five, before her goal of going to China to serve could be realized.132

  Katherine Cheung of Los Angeles gave up studying music in favor of flying for similar reasons. She was the first Chinese woman in America to earn a pilot's license (in 1931) and the first Chinese member of the 99 Club, the nationwide organization of women flyers. Katherine frequently made the San Francisco newspaper headlines because of her daring feats in navigational flying, aerobatics, and cross-country racing. When she heard that China excluded women from its aviation schools, she responded, "I don't see any valid reason why a Chinese woman can't be as good a pilot as anyone else. They drive automobiles-why not fly airplanes?"133 She had every intention of opening an aviation school for women in China, but after the trainer plane given to her by the Chinese community in San Francisco crashed, her ailing father made her promise not to fly again. Because of strong sexism in China, even if Ouyang Ying and Katherine Cheung had succeeded in going there, it is doubtful that the Chinese government would have allowed them to serve as aviators. When aviators Hazel Ying Lee and Virginia Wong of Portland, Oregon, went to China in 193 3 with eleven male Chinese American aviators, neither was allowed to serve; the Chinese Air Force simply refused to admit women. 134

  Voting was another avenue of political participation for Chinese American women. As soon as California granted women suffrage in 1911, a number of second-generation women exercised their right to vote. According to newspaper accounts, Clara Lee and Emma Tom Leong of Oakland and Tye Leung of San Francisco were among the first Chinese American women to vote. All three were featured in the local newspapers
as "progressive" women when they appeared to register or cast their vote. One reporter promoted Clara and Emma as "the first Chinese of their sex to become accredited members of the American electorate"; according to the article, the two women chose to exercise their rights "because they believe that mothers as well as fathers should have a voice in making the laws which are going to govern the lives of their children.""' Tye Leung was accorded the distinction of being "the first Chinese woman in the history of the world to exercise the electoral franchise. 11136 Capitalizing on her renown, the newspaper showed her seated behind the wheel of a Studebaker-Flanders z.o, a preference that she supposedly shared with Dr. Sun Yat-sen-though she in fact never owned a car in her life. "Miss Tie believes in the automobile and regards it in its various functions as a mark of progress-her own watchword." The newspaper reporter found Tye Leung a "progressive" match to the automobile: "Not only can she read and write the English language better than a great many of her adult brethren, but speaks it fluently, and is altogether familiar with the political issues involved in the Presidential primary election." 131

  In 1930, the native-born group constituted 47 percent of the total Chinese population; 19 percent of them were of voting age (2,3 3 6 males and 784 females). Yet only 40 percent of those eligible were registered to vote, and only 25 percent actually voted.13s Local Chinese American organizations such as the Chinese American Citizens Alliance, Square and Circle Club, and Chinese YWCA constantly reminded them to exercise their right to vote: "The most important thing is to register and vote," emphasized the Chinese American Citizens Alliance. "It is the ballot that will win the political rights-and economic opportunities-for the future of American citizens of Chinese ancestry in the United States."139 Special outreach to women included messages such as "Women's suffrage in America was only won in 1920 after many years of struggle.... We encourage Chinese women who qualify to vote to take advantage of this right and come to the YWCA to register." 140 As their political consciousness became aroused, a few second-generation women began to participate in partisan politics. The Community Chest 1930 Survey reported that Chinese American women were active members of a political organization to elect Al Smith president in 1928.141 In 1931, the San Francisco Chronicle announced that the first Chinese women voters' club had been formed to support Angelo Rossi for mayor.142 These were but small steps toward political activism, though. It would take the changing circumstances of World War II to motivate the second generation to participate more fully in American politics.

  Clara Lee registering to vote in 19 1 1 with (from left to right) Emma Leung, Tom Leung, Dr. Charles Lee, and deputy county clerk W. B. Reith. (Courtesy of Dr. Lester Lee)

  A Bicultural Marriage and Family Life

  Sexism at hone and racism outside also affected the marriages and family life of second-generation women. The two forces influenced not only these women's choice of partners but also the quality of their married and family life, which proved to be markedly different from that of their parents. It was at this stage of their lives that Chinese American women's efforts to shape a new ethnic and gender identity for themselves really struck home.

  The marriage pattern of Chinese American women differed from that of European American women. In 1920, only 14 percent of foreignborn women in America over age fifteen were single, but 37 percent of the second generation remained unmarried. According to Doris Weatherford, the general pattern in the United States had been that immigrant women often married young; third-generation women had the second highest marriage rate after the first generation; and those who were most likely to be unmarried were second-generation women (those born in America of foreign parents). She attributed the second generation's reluctance to marry to the harsh married lives of their mothers or the need for daughters to delay marriage in order to help out their families, as in the case of Irish women.143 This was not the same for second-generation Chinese women in the insulated community of San Francisco Chinatown in the 19zos, who still considered marriage and motherhood as their destiny. Just when and how they married, however, depended upon their class background, degree of acculturation, and the historical circumstances at the time.

  Prior to the 1911 Revolution, it was not unusual for poor, workingclass parents to marry off their daughters early in order to better provide for the rest of the family. The marriage was arranged through a matchmaker, and according to Chinese custom, the bride had no say in the choice of her partner. She was not even allowed to see him until the wedding day, when, dressed in red silk and beaded headdress, she was carried from a carriage into her husband's home. Because of the skewed Chinese sex ratio in America, the husband was usually older, China-born, and conservative. Life for most of these young brides proved to be as harsh and socially restrictive as it had been for their immigrant mothers. The case of Rose Jeong serves as an example of such a traditional marriage. Her sister Bessie Jeong described how it all happened:144

  In a way, she had two men to choose from, but as she had never seen either of them, only their photographs, she took her parents' advice. One was young, about twenty, and her parents put it this way: "This man is young, he has his way to make, and he has a large family of brothers and sisters. You would be a sort of slave to all of them. This other man is fifty years old, but he can give you everything, he has no family. Better to be an old man's darling than a young man's slave," or words to that effect. They told her, too, that a young man would not be constant, he would be running around with other women, it was far safer to take an older man, who would settle down. Of course she was married in the Chinese way, that is, the man handed over to her parents a sum of money. Naturally that would be far larger with an older and richer man, but the parents did not speak of that.

  Having already endured a hard life as the eldest daughter responsible for housework and the care of her younger siblings, sixteen-year-old Rose dutifully agreed with her parents' choice, even though the man was thirtyfour years her senior. After the wedding she followed him to the lum her camp of Weed, California, where he worked as a cook. He was a "hard taskmaster," according to Bessie, who also went to live with them in their poorly insulated log cabin. "He had a horrible disposition, suspicious and jealous, and my sister's life was one long tragedy with him." Rose worked alongside her husband in his many business ventures. He first ran a boardinghouse, then a laundry, and at another time, five different dining places in town. When his businesses later failed, he sold all of Rose's wedding jewelry. In r 918, Rose died during the flu epidemic at the young age of twenty-six.

  Learning from her sister's example, Bessie was determined not to suffer the same fate. When her father, who had returned to China with the rest of the family after the 19o6 earthquake, came back to fetch Bessie and, as she believed, marry her off in China, she refused to go with him. "I knew that my father was determined to take me hack that time. He was going to realize money out of it or he was fulfilling his duty as a father. But I still would he on the auction block. Prized Jersey-the name `Bessie' always made me think of some nice fat cow!" At the suggestion of her sister Rose, Bessie ran away to Donaldina Cameron and the Presbyterian Mission Home. "I had been away from my father for so long that I was not much afraid of him.... I was resolved not to marry, to have an education instead." With a bit of legal maneuvering, Cameron was made her legal guardian, and Bessie was able to stay at the Mission Home and pursue an education, becoming a physician. She later married a man of her choice, Dr. Ying Wing Chan, the Chinese consul in San Francisco, and was in private practice in the San Francisco Bay Area for nearly forty years.

  After the 1911 Revolution, the second generation-particularly those of middle-class background-began to take a different course from that of their mothers with regard to courtship and married life. Inspired by the example of the "new woman" in China, many resisted arranged marriages and chose to follow Western courtship and marriage customs. 14", Initially, their attempts were cause for social ostracism. "Remember when young men and women were never se
en together on the streets of Chinatown?" wrote Chingwah Lee in 1936. "Even as late as 1910, when the bold experiment of `spooning' along Dupont Street (generally immediately after school, and always in droves) [happened], business would be momentarily at a standstill, and there would be a lot of [rub- ber]necking-on the part of the giggling spectators."146 In 1908, when Rose Fong accepted a carriage ride through Golden Gate Park with her suitor Tsoa Min, a Chinese schoolteacher, Chinatown was scandalized, and the Chinese Six Companies tried unsuccessfully to get the young teacher removed from his post.147 By the 192os, however, the second generation had successfully adopted the Western practices of courtship and free marriage and formulated their own style of a Chinese American wedding. Said Caroline Chew, a daughter of Rev. Ng Poon Chew:

  In these days, the young people in America no longer wait for a go-between to arrange matters and to draw up the betrothal contract for them, but, in independent American fashion, if they have an inclination for one another's company, they take matters into their own hands and arrange things to suit themselves. They go out together whenever and wherever they please. They see all they want to of each other. There are even occasional love letters when it is deemed necessary to have their spirits buoyed up a bit. Thus betrothal is no longer a matter left for parents and "go-betweens" to take care of, except in cases where the whole family was born and brought up in China and then transplanted over here.148