by Judy Yung
59. Martin, Chinatown's Angry Angel, pp. z56-61; and Mason, "Social Christianity," pp. z16-18.
6o. Richard Kock Dare, "The Economic and Social Adjustment of the San Francisco Chinese for the Past Fifty Years" (Master's thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1959), p. 23; Martin, Chinatown's Angry Angel, p. z39.
61. San Francisco Call, November z3, 1895, P. 7.
6z. San Francisco Chronicle, January z, 1905, p. 16.
63. See Pascoe, Relations of Rescue; Martin, Chinatown's Angry Angel; and Carol Green Wilson, Chinatown Quest: One Hundred Years of Donaldina Cameron House, 1874-1974 (San Francisco: California Historical Society, 1974).
64. Martin, Chinatown's Angry Angel, pp. 193-94.
65. Donaldina Cameron, "Report of the Mission Home Superintendent," Women's Occidental Board of Foreign Missions, Annual Report, 1908-9, p. 76.
66. For different assessments of Donaldina Cameron, see McClain, "Donaldina Cameron"; Martin, Chinatown's Angry Angel; Pascoe, Relations of Rescue; and Mason, "Social Christianity."
67. Wilson, Chinatown Quest, pp. 19-z5; Martin, Chinatown's Angry Angel, pp. 55-59; Howard A. Zink, "Cast of Characters," Kum Quey file, Palo Alto Historical Association; Palo Alto Times, April z7, 1900; CSYP, March z4, April z, 3, 5, 13, 14, 16, 25, z8, 30, May 7, 8, 14, igoo; San Francisco News, March 17, 1937, P. IT
68. CSYP, August 8, 1907. For an overview of CSYP's coverage of women's issues, see Yung, "Social Awakening."
69. Ashbury, Barbary Coast, pp. 169-72.
70. See David J. Pivar, Purity Crusade: Sexual Morality and Social Control, 1868-1900 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1973).
71. O. Edward Janney, The White Slave Traffic in America (New York: National Vigilance Committee, 1911), p. 13. Although white slavery, as opposed to black slavery, referred to European American women by definition, Chinese women who had been forced into prostitution were implicated.
72. See M. G. C. Edholm, "Traffic in White Girls," Californian Illustrated Magazine z (June-November 189z): 825-38; Janney, White Slave Traffic; Francesco Cordasco, The White Slave Trade and the Immigrants: A Chapter in American Social History (Detroit: Blaine Ethridge Books, 1981); Howard B. Woolston, Prostitution in the United States (New York: Century Co., 1921), pp. 159-78; Pillors, "Criminalization of Prostitution," pp. 140-45; and Rosen, Lost Sisterhood, pp. 112-3 5.
73. See Ashbury, Barbary Coast, chap. 12; Issel and Cherny, San Francisco, pp. 106-9; Neil Larry Shumsky and Larry M. Springer, "San Francisco's Zone of Prostitution, 1880-1934," Journal of Historical Geography 7, no. 1 (1981): 71-89; Pillors, "Criminalization of Prostitution," pp. 146-63; and Symanski, Immoral Landscape, pp. 129-3 5
74. Pillors, "Criminalization of Prostitution," pp. 164-69.
75. See Jerry Flamm, Good Life in Hard Times: San Francisco's 192os and 1930s (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1978), chap. 6.
76. The figures for 188o are from Stephens, "Quantitative History," pp. 71-88; and Hirata, "Free, Indentured, Enslaved." Figures for 1900, 1910, and 1920 are based on my computation of data from the manuscript censuses.
77. According to the igzo manuscript census, 38 percent of Chinese husbands were merchants or managers. Some of these, however, may in fact have been posing as such so that their wives could come from China and join them in America. If these men were actually laborers, their wives likely had to engage in wage work.
78. Housing conditions in Chinatown were congested and unsanitary, according to the Community Chest 1930 Survey. Of the 153 families surveyed, only 19 had bathtubs, 49 had private kitchens, and 3 3 had private toilets. Family size averaged 6.1 persons, and most families occupied two small rooms, half of which had no windows.
79. Law Shee Low, interview with Sandy Lee, May z, 1982, Chinese Women of America Research Project, Chinese Culture Foundation of San Francisco.
8o. Segregation had the same effect on the acculturation of Italian and Mexican women; see Cohen, Workshop to Office; and George J. Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
8i. For a study of changing clothing and hairstyles as indicators of acculturation, see Ginger Chih, "Immigration of Chinese Women to the U.S.A." (Master's thesis, Sarah Lawrence College, 1977).
8 z. At one point, Law gave this alternative a shot: "We tried to pick shrimps and decided it was easier to sew. My older daughter brought home ten pounds and we picked at home. Our shoulders hurt and our nails hurt and we gave up. Only made Si that day for the ten pounds." The following account is derived from my interview with Law Shee Low, except as noted.
83. Law Shee Low, interview with Sandy Lee.
84. Most women who sewed at home were averaging $i a day, according to Elsa Lissner in 19z2; see "Investigation into Conditions in the Chinese Quarter in San Francisco and Oakland," Survey of Race Relations Collection, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, Stanford University.
85. J. C. Geiger et al., The Health of the Chinese in an American City: San Francisco (San Francisco: Department of Public Health, 1939), P. z5•
86. See H. Hartmann, "Capitalism, Patriarchy, and Job Segregation"; see also E. Glenn, "Racial Ethnic Women's Labor," for an argument on why this framework does not apply to women of color.
87. For a discussion of women's survival as resistance, see Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (London: HarperCollins Academic, 199o), chap. 7; and Bettina Aptheker, Tapestries of Life: Women's Work, Women's Consciousness, and the Meaning of Daily Experience (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1989), chap. 5.
88. See Bonnie Thornton Dill, "Our Mother's Grief: Racial Ethnic Women and the Maintenance of Families," Journal of Family History 13, no. 4 (1988): 415-31; and E. Glenn, "Racial Ethnic Women's Labor."
89. Law Shee Low, interview with author. Law Shee Low's frequent references to both the Christian God and Chinese gods (as represented by "heaven") are another indication of her pragmatic approach to life: cover all the bases.
90. CSYP, April z, 1907.
91. See Yung, "Social Awakening."
92. I am indebted to Peggy Pascoe for sharing with me her extensive files on past inmates of the Presbyterian Mission Home (name changed to Cameron House in 1942) and to the Gum Moon Women's Residence for allowing me to review the case files of the Methodist Mission Home. For a fuller account and interpretation of the Presbyterian records, see Pascoe, Relations of Rescue.
93. Caroline Chew, "Development of Chinese Family Life in America" (Master's thesis, Mills College, 1926), pp. zz-z3; and Ching Chao Wu, "Chinatowns," pp. 248-50.
94. Chew, "Development of Chinese Family Life," p. 3o; and Ching Chao Wu, "Chinatowns," pp. 145-46•
95• Elaine Tyler May, Great Expectations: Marriage and Divorce in PostVictorian America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), p. 85.
96. Ching Chao Wu, "Chinatowns," p. 235; Pascoe, Relations of Rescue, pp. 38, rho; and Dare, "Economic and Social Adjustment," p. 9o.
97. San Francisco Call, January 5, 1921, p. 14. In another case, reported in the San Francisco Chronicle, July 3, 1924, p. 6, "fervid love letters, written by a white woman to Harry, a Chinese, and from Harry to the white woman, won a divorce for Minnie, Harry's wife, yesterday when produced before Superior Judge Michael J. Roche."
98. Pascoe, Relations of Rescue, p. i 6o.
99 Dare, "Economic and Social Adjustment," p. go.
ioo. See Rosaldo, "Woman, Culture, and Society."
1o1. See Dorothy O. Helly and Susan M. Reverby, eds., Gendered Domains: Rethinking Public and Private in Women's History (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, r992).
1oz. J. Lee, "A Chinese American," pt. II, p. 10.
103. Jane Kwong Lee, interview with author, October 22 and November z, 1988.
104. For a comparison of work patterns among different groups of women, see Louise A. Tilly and Joan W. Scott, Women, Work, and Family (New York: Hol
t, Rinehart & Winston, 1978); Alice Kessler-Harris, Out to Work: A History of Wage-earning Women in the United States (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982); Cohen, Workshop to Office; Laura Anker, "Family, Work, and Community: Southern and Eastern European Immigrant Women Speak from the Connecticut Federal Writers' Project," in Helly and Reverby, eds., Gendered Domains, pp. 303-z1; and E. Glenn, Issei, Nisei, Warbride.
io5. See Issel and Cherny, San Francisco, pp. 76-77; Alex Yamato, "Socioeconomic Change Among Japanese Americans in the San Francisco Bay Area" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1986), chap. 4; and Albert S. Broussard, Black San Francisco: The Struggle for Racial Equality in the West, 1900-1954 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993), chap. 2.
106. Chinn, ed., History of the Chinese in California, pp. 53-54; Dean Lan, "Chinatown Sweatshops," in Counterpoint: Perspectives on Asian America, ed. Emma Gee (Los Angeles: Asian American Studies Center, University of California, 1976), PP- 347-58; and Dare, "Economic and Social Adjustment," pp. 15-16, 66.
107. Community Chest 1930 Survey, p. 8. When Chinese men dominated the trade, there were three Chinese guilds to regulate hours, wages, and work conditions. These guilds, which did not allow women members, became defunct after women entered the trade. Women workers remained unorganized until 1938, when they formed their own local under the auspices of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union.
io8. Lissner, "Investigation into Conditions."
tog. Whitfield, "Public Opinion," p. 45.
110. Lissner, "Investigation into Conditions."
i i i. See S. Glenn, Daughters of the Shtetl.
i 1 z. See "Miscellaneous Accounts," Survey of Race Relations Collection, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, Stanford University.
113. Diane Mei Lin Mark and Ginger Chih, A Place Called Chinese America (Dubuque: Kendall/Hunt, 198z), p. 67.
114. Ibid., pp. 68-69.
115. Lissner, "Investigation into Conditions," p. z. A similar work environment for Jewish women is described in S. Glenn, Daughters of the Shtetl: "The informal authority of the boss, the small size of the shop, and the shared ethnic background of the work force created a relatively unstructured environment. Few rules governed shop life. Hard work was expected, but any form of social behavior that encouraged it was usually tolerated. As a result, singing, talking, smoking, drinking, eating, and other `merry makings' were a regular part of the routine in these shops" (p. 135).
116. See Patricia Zavella, Women's Work and Chicano Families: Cannery Workers of the Santa Clara Valley (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), for a similar analysis of how outside work affected family roles and relationships for Chicanas employed in canneries.
117. California State Emergency Relief Administration, "Survey of Social Work Needs of the Chinese Population of San Francisco, California," 1935 (hereafter cited as CSERA 193 5 Survey), p. 3 z. My own mother's former boss, who ran a Chinatown sewing factory for over fifty years, gained the friendship and loyalty of my mother and many other workers through her willingness to assist them with personal problems, her fairness in delegating work assignments, and her generosity in hosting luncheons for the workers during the Chinese New Year, Thanksgiving, and Christmas holidays. Despite her illegal practice of paying her workers below the minimum wage, none of her employees reported her, and two women stayed with her for over forty years.
118. Jane Kwong Lee, interview.
119. See Gerda Lerner, The Majority Finds Its Past: Placing Women in History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), chap. 5.
i zo. See ibid., chap. 6; Anne Firor Scott, Natural Allies: Women's Associations in American History (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991); Karen J. Blair, The Clubswoman as Feminist: True Womanhood Redefined, 1868-1914 (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1980); Paula Giddings, When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America (New York: William Morrow, 1984); and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women's Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880-1920 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993).
12 1. San Francisco Chronicle, January 18, 1903, p. z.
izz. Woo, "Protestant Work," pp. 231, 264.
Iz3. Dora Lee Wong, interview with author, October 5, 1982.
124. Ira M. Condit, The Chinaman as We See Him and Fifty Years of Work for Him (Chicago: Fleming H. Revell Co., lgoo), pp. 2o9-1o; Hoexter, From Canton to California; and CSYP, May 25 and z8, igii.
12 5. King Yoak Won Wu, interview with Genny Lim, October z7, 1982, Chinese Women of America Research Project, Chinese Culture Foundation of San Francisco.
1z6. I am indebted to Teresa Wu of the Chinese YWCA, historian and architect Philip P. Choy of the Chinese Historical Society of America, and Yee Ling Fong of the International Institute of San Francisco for sharing past correspondence, board minutes, and staff reports of the Chinese YWCA with me.
127. According to Giddings, When and Where I Enter, pp. 155-58, black women in the South resented the discriminatory policies of the national board, particularly the lack of black women on the board and local black input on the establishment and running of YWCA branches in the South.
128. See Alison R. Drucker, "The Role of the YWCA in the Development of the Chinese Women's Movement, 189o-1g 27," Social Services Review, September 1979, PP. 4z1-4o; Mary S. Sims, "The Natural History of a Social Institution: The Y.W.C.A." (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1935); Jean McCown, "Women in a Changing China: The Y.W.C.A." (April 5, 1970), YWCA of the U.S.A., National Board Archives, New York; Emma Sarepta Yule, "Miss China," Scribner's 71 (January 1922): 66-79; and Kwok Pui-lan, Chinese Women and Christianity, 186o-1927 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992), pp. 126-3z.
129. CSYP, September z8, 1929.
130. Florence Chinn Kwan, interview with author, October 12, 1988.
131. For an analysis of the baby contest in the larger context of maternal and infant care in the United States, see Alisa Klaus, Every Child a Lion: The Origins of Maternal and Infant Health Policy in the United States and France, 1890-1920 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993).
13z. CSYP, May 4, 1907.
133. CSYP, April z1, May 1z, 17, 1911.
134. Zeng Bugui, "Sun Zhongshan yu Jiujinshan nu Tongmenghui yuan" (Sun Yat-sen and the women members of San Francisco's Tongmenghui), in Zhongshan xiansheng yishi (Anecdotes of Sun Yat-sen) (Beijing: Zhongguo Wenshi Chubanshe, 1986), pp. 141-42.
13 5. See Lilly King Gee Won, "My Recollections of Dr. Sun Yat-sen's Stay at Our Home in San Francisco," Chinese America: History and Perspectives 1990, pp. 67-82.
136. San Francisco Call, February 13, 1911, p. I; October z9, 1911, P- 34; and CSYP, May 25, November 21, 27, 1911; January Iz, 1912.
137. See Mary Backus Rankin, "The Emergence of Women at the End of the Ch'ing: The Case of Ch'iu Chin," in Women in Chinese Society, ed. Margery Wolf and Roxane Witke (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1975 ), PP. 39-66; and L. Collins, "New Women," pp. 351-60.
138. Quoted in Croll, Feminism and Socialism, pp. 68-69.
139. CSYP, August zz, 31, September 9, 11, 12, 13, 16, 17, 1907.
140. Zeng, "Sun Zhongshan," p. 141; San Francisco Call, October 29, 1911, P. 34.
141. Jane Kwong Lee, "Chinese Women in San Francisco," Chinese Digest, June 1938, p. 8.
142. Levy, Chinese Footbinding, pp. 275-80; Dora Lee Wong, interview; Florence Chinn Kwan, interview; Fred Schulze, interview with author, January 26, 1989; Clara Lee, interview with author, October 2, 1986; Connie Young Yu, "The World of Our Grandmothers," in Making Waves: Anthology of Writings By and About Asian American Women, ed. Asian Women United (Boston: Beacon Press, 1989), PP. 33-42•
143. Rose Hum Lee, "The Growth and Decline of Chinese Communities in the Rocky Mountain Region" (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1947), PP. z52-53.
144. San Francisco Examiner, May 10, 1914, p. 78.
145. San Francisco Examiner, July z6, 1915, p. 6.
146. San Francisco Chronicle, February 8, 1914, P. 5.
147. The Chinese Native Sons of the Golden State changed its name to the Chinese American Citizens Alliance in 1928 after the Native Sons of the Golden West refused to give them affiliated status. See Sue Fawn Chung, "The Chinese American Citizens Alliance: An Effort in Assimilation, 1895-1965," Chinese America: History and Perspectives 1988, PP. 30-57.
148. San Francisco Chronicle, February 8, 1914, P. 5.
149. Ibid.
150. Sai Gai YatPo, August zz, 1913.
151. Clara Lee, interview with author, July 31, 1989.
15z. The daughter of liberal parents Rev. Chan Hon Fun and Ow Muck Gay, Clara Lee was born in 1886. The family moved to Oakland before the 1906 earthquake, and Clara remained there after her marriage to Dr. Charles Lee, the first Chinese licensed dentist in California. She had just turned loo when I interviewed her in 1986. Clara Lee passed away in 1993 at the age of io6.
3. First Steps
i. See Park, Race and Culture.
2. See Milton M. Gordon, Assimilation in American Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964); and Omi and Winant, Racial Formation.
3. Ching Chao Wu, "Chinatowns," p. z9o. Park attracted a number of Chinese American students to study sociology at the University of Chicago. Among those who chose to research and write about Chinese Americans were Rose Hum Lee ("The Growth and Decline of Chinese Communities in the Rocky Mountain Region," Ph.D. diss., 1947), Beulah Ong Kwoh ("Occupational Status of the American-born Chinese College Graduates," Master's thesis, 1947), Liang Yuan ("The Chinese Family in Chicago," Master's thesis, 1951), and Paul C. P. Siu ("The Chinese Laundryman," Ph.D. diss., 1953)•
4. The following account is derived from an interview I conducted with Alice Sue Fun on February z8, 1982.
5. Many working-class immigrant daughters had their schooling cut short because of traditional values and economic constraints; see, for example, Cohen, Workshop to Office, chap. 4; and S. Glenn, Daughters of the Shtetl, chap. z.