Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco
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66. Ibid., p. 17. Similarly, Pardee Lowe wrote in 1937 that "in striking, almost bewildering contrast to the preearthquake period, practically all of Chinatown's women are permitted to and do find employment outside of the home" ("Good Life," p. iz8).
67. Frank J. Taylor, "The Bone Money Empire," Saturday Evening Post, December 24, 1933, P. 48.
68. CSYP, November 13, 1933.
69. CSYP, May 31, June 1, 1935.
70. J. Lee, "A Chinese American," pt. II, p. 81.
7 1 . Ibid., p. 91.
72. CSYP, August 15, 1936•
73. J. Lee, "A Chinese American," pt. II, pp. 92-93
74. Ibid., p. 87.
75. Alice Sue Fun, interview with author, February z8, 1982.
76. Chinese Digest, May z9, 1936, p. 14.
77. Gladys Ng Gin, interview with author, November 4, 1988.
78. Lim P. Lee, "The Postal Chinese Club of San Francisco," Asian Week, January z7, 1984, p. 7.
79. Dare, "Economic and Social Adjustment," pp. 68-69; Lowe, "Good Life," p. iz8; and Chinese Digest, November 1 3, 1936, p. 7; March, 1937,P. 14.
8o. Ethel Lum, "Young Woman, Are You Looking for a Job?" Chinese Digest, March z7, 1936, p. ii.
81. Chinese Times, July z9, 1936.
8z. Jones, Labor of Love, pp. zo6-7.
83. Scharf, To Work and to Wed, p. 114.
84. Chinese Digest, March 27, 1936, p. 1 i.
85. Broussard, Black San Francisco, p. 1zz.
86. Chinese Digest, October 16, 1936, p. 10.
87. CSYP, March z9, 1934.
88. CSYP, November 5, 7, 1935; and Chinese Digest, December 13, 1935, P. 5.
89. Chinese Digest, February 14, 1936, p. z.
go. Gladys Ng Gin, interview.
91. Quoted in Forbidden City, U.S.A.: World Premiere Benefit (San Francisco, 1989).
9z. Quoted in Dexter Waugh, "Forbidden City," Image sec., San Francisco Examiner, October z9, 1989, P. 20.
93. Bertha Hing, interview with Kirk Fong and Valerie Fong, March 1991, Kirk Fong private collection.
94. Quoted in Lorraine Dong, "The Forbidden City Legacy and Its Chinese American Women," Chinese America: History and Perspectives 1992, p. 13 8.
95. Ibid., p. 140.
96. Bertha Hing, interview.
97. Waugh, "Forbidden City," pp. 19-z4, 34; and Jim Marshall, "Cathay Hey-Hey!" Collier's, February z8, 194z, PP. 13, 53.
98. Business Week, March 12, 1938, p. 28.
99• Chinese Christian Student, April 1939, P. 5; Chinese Digest, May-June 1939, P. 3.
100. Jane Kwong Lee, interview with author, October zz, 1988.
ioi. CSERA 1935 Survey, p. 9.
1o2. Eva Lowe, interview with Genny Lim.
103. Henriette Horak, "New Chinatown: Modernity Creeping Into Section," San Francisco Chronicle, July 9, 1936, p. 7.
104. Lowe, "Good Life," p. 12 8. In this article, Lowe provides detailed notes of the bicultural lifestyle he found in San Francisco Chinatown but makes no mention of any poverty conditions caused by the depression.
105. Jane Kwong Lee, "Chinese Women in San Francisco," Chinese Digest, June 1938, P. 9.
1o6. See Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American, chap. u.
107. Eva Lowe, interview with Genny Lim.
Io8. According to Him Mark Lai, "To Bring Forth a New China," pp. I z-14, the Chinese Students Association supported the Guomindang left faction and was strongly against any foreign domination in China. In T929 the group was raided by the San Francisco Chinatown Police Squad and closed down for alleged Communist activities.
109. Eva Lowe, interview with author, July 15, 198z.
1 io. Eva Lowe, interview with Genny Lim.
i i i. The following account is derived from my interview with Alice Fong Yu, March 31, 1986.
iiz. Chinese Times, March 16, 1936.
113. Alice Fong Yu, interview with Gordon Chang, June 29, 1987.
114. Chinese Digest, March 13, 1936, p. 11; "A Summary of Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Chinese Young People's Christian Conference Held at Zephyr Point, Lake Tahoe, August 1-14, 1938," Him Mark Lai private collection; and Alice Fong Yu, interview.
115. CSYP, April I, 1938; and Chinese Digest, July 1937, PP. 14, 19•
116. CSYP, April 11, 193 5 . As government pressure mounted against Chinatown factories that violated NRA codes, other articles appeared in CSYP beseeching owners to consolidate and improve working conditions in Chinatown (e.g., March 18, z2, 1936).
117. Time, March z8, 1938, pp. 54, 56.
118. In other words, the employer was underreporting the hours that employees worked in order to pay them at the piece rate and giving work to women who sewed at home even though homework was illegal. Sue Ko Lee, interview with author, October z6, 1989.
i i 9. "Jennie Matyas and the ILGWU," oral history conducted 19 5 5 by Connie Gilb, Regional Culture History Project, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1957, p. 172 (hereafter cited as Matyas interview).
120. Chinese Digest, July 1937, P. 19.
121. Sue Ko Lee, interview.
1z2. See Rose Pesotta, Bread upon the Waters (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1944), chap. 6; titled "Subterranean Sweatshops in Chinatown," the chapter describes her investigation of conditions in Chinatown garment factories and how she comes to understand the difficulties involved in organizing Chinese workers.
1z3. San Francisco Chronicle, May 17, 1934, P. 1; Chinese Times, February 16, 1936; CSYP, March 13, 15, 22, 1936; and San Francisco News, April z6, 1936, p. i.
124. Pesotta, Bread upon the Waters, pp. 74-76.
125. Him Mark Lai, "To Bring Forth a New China," pp. io-zo; and Matyas interview, pp. 127-28, 173-74.
1 z6. Sue Ko Lee, interview.
127. Kessler-Harris, Out to Work, p. 262; and Scharf, To Work and to Wed, PP. 130-32.
128. Ware, Holding Their Own, p. 4z; Jones, Labor of Love, p. 212; Blackwelder, Women of the Depression, pp. 135-39; and Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American, pp. 23 2-3 5.
129. Matyas interview, pp. 163-77; "Good News!!! Chinese Workers Are in the Union!" Sue Ko Lee scrapbook (in my possession); Chinese Digest, March 193 8, p. 15; and Jennie Matyas, letter to William Green, President of the American Federation of Labor, March 7, 1938, Labor Archives and Research Center, San Francisco State University.
130. Chinese Digest, April 1938, pp. 10-12; Jennie Matyas, "History and Background of Dispute Between Chinese Ladies' Garment Workers, Local 341, and Dollar Stores," Labor Archives and Research Center, San Francisco State University; and San Francisco Chronicle, February 27, 1938, P. 4.
131. "A Letter to the Public Regarding the Strike," February z6, 1938, Sue Ko Lee scrapbook.
132. "A Statement to the Public Regarding the Damages Done to Business by the Chinese LGWU Strike Against National Dollar Store," March z, 1938, Sue Ko Lee scrapbook.
133. "Another Letter to the Public from Local 341, the Chinese Chapter of the ILGWU," March 5, 1938, Sue Ko Lee scrapbook.
134. "A Statement by Golden Gate Company," March 7, 1938, Sue Ko Lee scrapbook.
13 5. "An Explanation Regarding the Strike Against National Dollar Stores by Workers of the Golden Gate Company," Sue Ko Lee scrapbook.
136. "A Letter to Fellow Union Members by Local 341, the Chinese Chapter of the ILGWU," Sue Ko Lee scrapbook.
137. Ware, Holding Their Own, p. 4z; Scharf, To Work and to Wed, pp. 13 2-33; and Elaine Leeder, The Gentle General: Rose Pesotta, Anarchist and Labor Organizer (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), pp. 53-57. See Dana Frank, Purchasing Power: Consumer Organizing, Gender, and the Seattle Labor Movement, 1919-1929 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 117-z6, for a discussion of the sexual division of labor in the Seattle trade union movement; and Vicki L. Ruiz, Cannery Women, Cannery Lives: Mexican Women, Unionization, and the California Food Processing Industry, 1930-1950 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987), for an example of a union formed and run by Mexican women workers.
&nb
sp; 138. Sue Ko Lee, interview.
139. Matyas interview, pp. 183-84.
140. Sue Ko Lee, interview.
141. According to Him Mark Lai, "A Historical Survey of Organizations of the Left Among the Chinese in America," Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 4, no. 3 (fall 1972): 1o-zo, organizations such as Ping Sheh and Chinese Workers Mutual Aid Association developed in the 192os and 193os as part of a leftist movement among Chinese Americans committed to supporting the Chinese revolution and fighting exploitation and discrimination in America. Ping Shch was an anarchist organization that advocated worker solidarity through the publication of pamphlets, a monthly magazine, and leaflets it distributed in support of workers' struggles in Chinatown. The Chinese Workers Mutual Aid Association was established in 1937 following a successful strike against the Alaskan Packers Association to unite Chinese workers for the purposes of improving working conditions and raising their status in labor unions.
142. "A Letter to the Public Regarding the Strike," February z6, 193 8; "Another Letter to the Public From Local 341, the Chinese Chapter of the ILGWU," March 5, 1938; and "The Opportunity for Chinese Workers' Liberation Has Arrived," February z7, 1938; all in Sue Ko Lee scrapbook.
143. Sue Ko Lee, interview.
144. Matyas interview, pp. 19o-9z.
145. Sue Ko Lee, interview.
146. Matyas interview, pp. 184-91; Matyas, "History and Background of Dispute"; and "Labor Strike in Chinatown Official Statements."
147. None of the strikes by Chinese laborers in San Francisco prior to the 1938 National Dollar Stores strike lasted more than a week or two: construction workers at the Parrot building (185z), garment workers 0875), shoemakers (1877), cigarmakers (1884), and laundry workers (1929).
148. "Local 341 Letter to the Public Regarding Strike Settlement," June 11, 1938, "The Chinese Local Extends Greetings," Sue Ko Lee scrapbook; and Agreement Between Golden Gate Manufacturing Company and ILGWU, Chinese Ladies' Garment Workers, Local No. 341," June 8, 1938, Labor Archives and Research Center, San Francisco State University.
149. David Dubinsky, president of ILGWU, telegram to Jennie Matyas, May 31, 1938, Labor Archives and Research Center, San Francisco State University.
150. Matyas interview, p. 19z.
151. Handwritten note, Labor Archives and Research Center, San Francisco State University.
1152. Sue Ko Lee, interview.
153. G. N. Wong Low, Golden Gate Mfg. Co., letter to International Ladies' Garment Workers Union, Chinese Ladies' Garment Workers Local No. 341, May 6, 1939, Labor Archives and Research Center, San Francisco State University.
154. Sue Ko Lee interview; and Matyas interview, pp. 193-204, z89.
155. Patricia M. Fong, "The 1938 National Dollar Strike," Asian American Review z, no. 1 (1975): 196. Douglas Monroy makes a similar argument about the 1933 Mexican Dressmakers' Strike in Los Angeles: "Consistent with its corporate ideology, the ILGWU leadership was not so much interested in assisting Mexican workers in establishing their own strength in the dress factories, as it was interested in establishing its own strength in the garment industry"; see Monroy, "La Costura en Los Angeles, 1933-1939: The ILGWU and the Politics of Domination," in Mexican Women in the United States: Struggles Past and Present, ed. Magdalena Mora and Adelaida R. Del Castillo (Los Angeles: Chicano Studies Research Center, University of California, Los Angeles, 1980), p. 176.
156. Sue Ko Lee, interview.
157. Jennie Matyas, "Chinatown Turns Union," Sue Ko Lee scrapbook. At the time, the ILGWU had been dismissed from the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and San Francisco Labor Council for supporting the Congress of Industrial Organizations. In 1940, the union reaffiliatedwith the AFL. See Matyas interview, pp. 291-3o6.
158. Sue Ko Lee, interview.
159. Ibid.
16o. "Statement in Support of the Strike by Employees of the Emporium and Other Department Stores," September z1, 1938, "Chinese Local Carrying on Battle for Economic Freedom Against Odds," "Boycott Japanese Goods," Sue Ko Lee scrapbook; and Chinese Times, December 2 4, 1938.
5. In Step
i. See Chafe, American Woman; Ruth Milkman, Gender at Work: The Dynamics of Job Segregation by Sex During World War II (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987); Margaret Randolph Higonnet et al., eds., Behind the Lines: Genderand the Two World Wars(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987); Leila Rupp, Mobilizing Women for War: German and American Propaganda, 19391945 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978); Karen Anderson, Wartime Women: Sex Roles, Family Relationships, and the Status of Women During World War 77 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981); D'Ann Campbell, Women at War With America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984); Susan Hartmann, The Home Front and Beyond: American Women in the 19405 (Boston: Twayne, 1982); and Sheila Tropp Lichtman, "Women at Work, 1941-1945: Wartime Employment in the San Francisco Bay Area" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Davis, 1981).
z. See Jones, Labor of Love, chap. 7.
3. See Nakano, Japanese American Women, chaps. 5, 7, and 8.
4. San Francisco Chronicle, March 13, 193z, p. 8A; Chinese Times, December z9, 1939; Liu Pei Chi, History, pp. 566-73; and Wu Jianhung, "The Chinese American Patriotic Movement Before and After the 9-18 Incident" (in Chinese), paper presented at the First International Conference on Overseas Chinese Studies, Peking, 1978. San Francisco Chinatown was full of conflicts between political parties, social classes, religious organizations, and different generations. Moreover, when the Communists split from Chiang Kai-shek's Guomindang Party in 1927, a similar split between the left and right factions occurred in the Chinese American community.
5. Wu Jianhung, "Chinese American Patriotic Movement," p. g.
6. San Francisco Chronicle, September 28, 1931, p. 7. The Kellogg-Briand peace pact of 1928 pledged that the United States would back any effort to renounce war as an instrument of national policy.
7. Wu Jianhung, "Chinese American Patriotic Movement," p. 7.
8. Ibid., p. 18. According to Wu's calculations, the Chinese in the United States gave more to the Nineteenth Route Army than Chinese in other parts of the world (p. 13). Joe Shoong of the National Dollar Stores alone gave $30,000 (P. 9).
9. CSYP, August 19, 1936.
10. Liu Pei Chi, History, pp. 566-73; Wu Jianhung, "Chinese American Patriotic Movement"; and San Francisco Chronicle, March 13, 1932, p. 8A.
it. Lowe, "Good Life," p. 130; and Tsai, Chinese Experience, p. III.
12. Chinese Digest, September 1937, p- 10•
13. Liu Pei Chi, History, pp. 569-70; and Chinese Digest, September 1937, pp. 9-10.
14. Liu Pei Chi, History, pp. 577-83.
15. Chinese Digest, September 1937, P. 9; July 1938, pp. 12-13, 1g; and San Francisco Chronicle, May 1, 1939, P. 9.
16. Chinese Digest, December 1937, pp. 14, 23; Y. K. Chu, History of the Chinese People in America (in Chinese) (New York: China Times, 1975), PP. 125-27; and CSYP, October z5, 1939.
17. Lim P. Lee, interview; Ira Lee, interview with author, November 1, 1989; and District Intelligence Office, Twelfth Naval District, Commandant's Office, "Chinese Situation in the San Francisco Bay Area," General Correspondence, folder A8-5, National Archives, San Bruno, Calif., 1945, pp. 20-2 1. See also Norman Bock, "Chameleon Cloaks, Flying Tigers, and Missionary Ladies: The Oral History and Political Economy of Baltimore Chinatown and the China Relief Movement, 1937-41" (B.A. thesis, Harvard College, 1976), chap. 5; and Mei Zheng, "Chinese Americans in San Francisco and New York City During the Anti-Japanese War: 1937-1945" (Master's thesis, University of California, Los Angeles, 199o), pp. 6z-63.
18. CSYP, October 25, 1939.
ig. Liu Pei Chi, History, p. 579.
zo. Chinese Digest, November 1937, p• 15.
z i. Him Mark Lai, "Sprouting Wings on the Dragon: Some Chinese Americans Who Contributed to the Development of Aviation in China," in The Annals of the Chinese Historical Society of the Pacific Northwest (Bellingham, Wash.: Chinese Historical Society
of the Pacific Northwest, 1984), P. 182..
zz. CSYP, January 15, 193z.
13. Chinese Times, May 2.3, 1939. Similar editorials often appeared on March 8, International Women's Day: e.g., CSYP, March 8, 1942.; and Chinese Times, March 8, 1942, 1944, 1945.
z4. Quoted in Chinese Digest, November 1937, P.-II.
25. For a further discussion of women's role in the War of Resistance in China, see Ono, Chinese Women, pp. 161-70; Croll, Feminism and Socialism, chap. 6; Esther S. Lee Yao, Chinese Women: Past and Present (Mesquite, Tex.: Ide House, 1983), PP. 137-42; and Edith Hsiao, "Women's Activities in Wartorn China," Chinese Christian Student 30, nos. 3 (January 1940): 1, 4; and 4 (February 1940): 4.
z6. On "the process of social change," see Sherna Berger Gluck, Rosie the Riveter Revisited: Women, the War, and Social Change (New York: New American Library, 1987), p. z6o: "Rather than debating the degree of change resulting from the wartime experiences, the life stories of these former aircraft workers encourage, instead, a study of the process of change."
2.7. Signed by the United States at the Washington Naval Conference following World War I, the Nine-Power Treaty pledged respect for the sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity of China.
z8. Both letters and the history of New York's Chinese Women's Association are in The Chinese Women's Association Fifth Anniversary Special Issue (New York: Chinese Women's Association, 1937), microfilm, New York Public Library.
29. CSYP, March 16, 1932. A sister of Soong Mei-ling (Madame Chiang Kai-shek), Soong Ching-ling chose to side with the Chinese Communist Party.
30. Ibid. Liang Hongyu, the wife of the Sung general Han Shizhong, stopped the advancing Tartars in a decisive battle by beating the drums to arouse the morale of her husband's troops. Hong Xuanjiao lived during the time of the Taiping Rebellion and was related to Hong Xiuquan, leader of the rebellion. For a description of the activities of the Women's Patriotic Club, see CSYP, February 7, March 11, 193z; February 5, 1933; December 8, 1934; March 6, April z7, z9, August 17, 1935; March 9, 1936; September i9, October io, 1937; November z8, 1938; and February 15, 1942.
31. Emily Lee Fong, interview with Him Mark Lai and Gilbert Woo, March 1, 1975, Him Mark Lai private collection; CSYP, May 23, 1939; and Liu Pei Chi, History, p. 255.