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

by Judy Yung

  3 z. Emily Lee Fong, interview; King Yoak Won Wu, interview with Genny Lim; and CSYP, August z, 5, December 14, 1939; December z8, 1940; January 5, March 16, 1941; August 16, 1942; January 1o, August z1, 1943; August 21, 1944.

  33. CSYP, September 2.o, z6, 27, October z, 8, 17, 1937; January z1, July 24, December a8, 1938; January 4, 12, October 8, 1939; and October 7, 1940.

  34• Chinese Times, July 4, 1936; and CSYP, September 25, 1938; January 23, 1939; June 2z, August 1z, 1940; May 2, 1941.

  35. Lorena How, interview with Sandy Lee, May 1, 1982, Chinese Women of America Research Project, Chinese Culture Foundation of San Francisco.

  36. CSYP, September z6, 1931; February 22,1932; and Chinese Digest, September 1937, P. to.

  37. Lorena How, interview.

  38. CSTP, April z, 3, 8, 11, 30, May 6, 7, and 15, 1939.

  39. CSYP, May z, 1940.

  40. J. Lee, "A Chinese American," pt. II, p. 110.

  41. Ibid., chaps. 9 and To; and "Lianzhen chu ji" (Collection of plays by Lianzhen) (unpublished collection).

  42. CSYP, February 6, 1938; October 16, 1939; January 11, 1940; and Square and Circle Club minutes, 1932-41.

  43. Quoted in Mark and Chih, A Place Called Chinese America, p. 84; and T. Chinn, Bridging the Pacific, p. 238.

  44. CSYP, February 17, 1939.

  45• Y. K. Chu, History of the Chinese People, p. 124; and Chinese Digest, October 1937, P. 3.

  46. Chinese Digest, March 1938, p. io; May 1938, p. 9; Square and Circle Club minutes, September 17, 1937; January z1, June zz, 1938; CSYP, September 30, 1937; and Chinese Times, September z9, 1937.

  47. Chinese Digest, November 1938, p. 6.

  48. Chinese Digest, February 1938, P. 9.

  49. Zheng, "Chinese Americans in San Francisco," p. 40.

  50. CSYP, February 5, 1932..

  51. Community Chest 1930 Survey, p. 13; Stanley Lee, interview with author, July z6, 1985; CSYP, April z6, February 5, 1932; March 16, 1933; December 3, 1938, February 22, 1944; and Chinese Times, September 8, 1937.

  52. Chinese Digest, March 1938, P. 3.

  53• San Francisco Chronicle, June 17, 1938, p. I.

  54• Chinese Digest, July 1938, pp. 1z-I3, 19; San Francisco Chronicle, June 18, 1938, p. i; and California Chinese Press, May z, 1941, p. z.

  55• William Hoy, "S.F. Chinatown's 'Bowl of Rice' Pageant," Chinese Digest, July 1938, PP. 12, 19.

  56. CSYP, February 9-12, 1940; May 2-5, 1941; California Chinese Press, May z, 1941, p. z; and San Francisco Chronicle, February 1o-iz, 1940; May 3-6, 1941.

  57. Dare, "Economic and Social Adjustment," p. 78; and CSYP, February 12, 1940.

  58. Lim P. Lee, "Chinatown Goes Picketing," Chinese Digest, January 1939, pp. 10-11.

  59. CSYP, December 19, 1938.

  6o. Chinese Digest, January 1939, pp. io-11; February 1939, p.7; San Francisco Chronicle, December zo, z1, 193 8; and Zheng, "Chinese Americans in San Francisco," pp. 34-37.

  61. Liu Pei Chi, History, pp. z54-55.

  6z. Chinese Digest, December 1937, pp. 14, z3; and CSYP, December z, 1937.

  63. Liu Pei Chi, History, pp. 5 5 z-63.

  64. San Francisco Chronicle, March 1, 1932, P. 3.

  65. Chinese Digest, November 1937, p. 1; and December 1937, PP.14, z3•

  66. Chinese Digest, October 1937, p. "; February 11938, p. i2; and CSYP, January 114, 1941; February 4, 1942.

  67. San Francisco Chronicle, September 18, 1937, p. 11.

  68. San Francisco Chronicle, September 15, 1937, p. z; and Chinese Digest, November 1937, P. 13.

  69. Margaret Chung, "TV Summary of Margaret Chung's Life" (unpublished autobiography, Asian American Studies Library, University of California, Berkeley, ca. 1945).

  70. CSYP, October z, November 9, 1938.

  71. J. Lee, "A Chinese American," pt. II, p. 132.

  72. CSYP, November 9, 1938.

  73. CSYP, April 27,1939; Ruth Brown Reed, "Career Girl, Chinese Style," Independent Women, September 1942, pp. z6o, z86; and Guan, Study on Chinese Women Aviators, pp. 120-28.

  74. San D i e g o Union, April 17, 1939, P. 3

  75. CSYP, May 2, 1939•

  76. CSYP, February 8, 1941.

  77. For a report of Madame Chiang's visit to San Francisco, see Chen Yueh, Madame Chiang Kai-shek's Trip Through the United States and Canada (San Francisco: Chinese Nationalist Daily, 1943), PP. 76-106; CSYP, March z6-31, 1943; and Chinese Press, April z, 1943, P. 2.

  78. Chen Yueh, Madame Chiang Kai-shek, p. 8o; and CSYP, March 31, 1943. The six key groups included the Women's Council, Women's Patriotic Club, New Life Association, Chinese YWCA, Square and Circle Club, and Fidelis Coteri. The Refugee Relief Committee was omitted most likely because it was an auxiliary of the CWRA.

  79. CSYP, June 17, 1945.

  8o. Chinese Christian Student, November-December 1933, P. 11.

  81. CSYP, June r6, 1945.

  8z. San Diego Union, April 17, 1939, P. 3.

  83. Chinese Times, March 8, 1945.

  84. Lonnie Quan, interview with Genny Lim, August io, i98z, Chinese Women of America Research Project, Chinese Culture Foundation of San Francisco.

  85. For a discussion of the differential impact of World War II on the various Asian ethnic groups owing to politics and foreign relations, see Ronald Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore.: A History of Asian Americans (New York: Little, Brown, 1989), chap. to.

  86. Jules Archer, The Chinese and the Americans (New York: Hawthorne Books, 1976), p. io6; and J. Lee, "A Chinese American," pt. II, p. 169.

  87. Helen Pon Onyett, interview with author, January 9, 1983-

  88. Time, March 1, 1943, P. z3.

  89. Life, March 1, 1943, P. z6.

  go. Time, March 1, 1943, P. 23.

  91. Chinese Press, April z, 1943, P. z.

  92. Fred W. Riggs, Pressure on Congress: A Study of the Repeal of Chinese Exclusion (New York: Columbia University Press, 1950), p. 111.

  93. San Francisco Chronicle, October 1z, 1943, P. 4.

  94. For a discussion of the negligible impact of repeal on Chinese Americans, see L. Ling-chi Wang, "Politics of Assimilation and Repression: History of the Chinese in the United States, 1940-1970," chap. 5 (typescript, Asian American Studies Library, University of California, Berkeley).

  95. Rose Hum Lee, "Chinese in the United States Today: The War Has Changed Their Lives," Survey Graphic: Magazine of Social Interpretation 31, no. 1o (October 1942): 444.

  96. Lonnie Quan, interview.

  97. Although internment disrupted family and community life and was an equally negative experience for Japanese American women as for men, women did gain some advantages by it. For the first time in their hardworking lives, issei (first generation) women found leisure time to pursue educational classes and hobbies, while nisei (second generation) women were able to work in nontraditional positions of authority in the camps. In addition, nisei women who resettled outside the camps before the end of the war benefited from their travel, work, and educational experiences. See Valerie Matsumoto, "Japanese American Women During World War II," Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 8, no. 1 (1984): 6-14.

  98. Tsai, Chinese Experience, p. 117; L. Wang, "Politics of Assimilation," pp. 156-57; "Veterans Survey Report," Bulletin, Chinese Historical Society of America 17, no. 7 (September 1982): 2; Y. K. Chu, History of the Chinese People, p. i z9; and R. Lee, "Chinese in the United States Today," p. 444.

  99. Buckley Armorer, February 4, 1944, PP. 1, 4.

  too. Midway through the war, the U.S. Army decided to induct Americans of Japanese ancestry into an all-Japanese combat team. Approximately 25,000 nisei ended up serving in the military, 18,ooo in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. In contrast, Chinese American G.I.'s were in both integrated and segregated units. See, for example, the story of the all-Chinese American 407th Air Service Squadron of the Fourteenth Air Force (Flying Tigers), which served in the China-Burma-India theater of war. See Christina Lim and Sheldon Lim, "In the Sh
adow of the Tiger: The 407th Air Service Squadron," and Peter Phan, "Familiar Strangers: The Fourteenth Air Service Group Case Study of Chinese American Identity During World War II," ChineseAmerica: History and Perspectives 1993, pp. 25-74-, 75-107, respectively.

  ioi. "Veterans Survey"; and Tsai, Chinese Experience, p. I 17.

  ioz. Except for a detachment of nisei Wacs in the intelligence corps, the approximately three hundred Japanese American women who volunteered for service were assigned to bases all over the country as well as in Germany and Japan. See Nakano, Japanese American Women, p. 170.

  103. See Susan Hartmann, "Women in the Military Service," in Clio Was a Woman: Studies in the History of American Women, ed. Mabel Deutrich and Virginia Purdy (Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1980), pp. 195- 205, Campbell, Women at War, chaps. I and z; Hartmann, Home Front and Beyond, chap. 3; Jones, Labor of Love, chap. 7; and Mattie Treadwell, United States Army in World War II, Special Studies; The Women's Army Corps (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 1954), chap. 30.

  104. Campbell, Women at War, p. 49. Spars (from Semper Paratus, the motto of the U.S. Coast Guard) were members of the Coast Guard women's reserve.

  105. See ibid., chap. z; and Hartmann, Home Front and Beyond, chap. 3.

  sob. The following account is derived from my interview with Helen Pon Onyett.

  107. The following account is from my interview with Jessie Lee Yip, November z, 11989.

  io8. Ruth Chan Jang, who enlisted in the WAC in 1944, said she initially had no intention of joining the service because her parents read in the Chinese newspapers that "servicewomen go in there only to serve the men" (interview with author, July 8, 1994).

  1109. CSYP, January 6, April 29, October 22, 29, November 11z, 1943; and Chinese Press, March z6, April 116, October 8, zz, 29, 1943.

  110. Charlotte Sexton, interview with author, August 17, 198z.

  iii. Maggie Gee, interview with author, February 25, 1990.

  1111 z. Maggie Gee, slide presentation at Chinese Historical Society of America, San Francisco, May 17, 1991.

  I13. For a history of the WASP, see Sally Van Wagenken Keil, Those Wonderful Women in Their Flying Machines (New York: Rawson, Wade, 1979); and Vera S. Williams, WASPs: Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II (Osceola, Wis.: Motorbooks International, 1994).

  11 114. Maggie Gee, interview.

  115. Maggie Gee, slide presentation.

  11116. Helen Pon Onyett, interview.

  117. Jessie Lee Yip, interview.

  11118. May Lew Gee, interview with author, June z5, 11994.

  119. Marietta Chong Eng, slide presentation at Chinese Historical Society of America, San Francisco, May 17, 1991; and interview with Genny Lim, September 13, 1982, Chinese Women of America Research Project, Chinese Culture Foundation of San Francisco.

  11 zo. Ruth Chan Jang, interview.

  izi. On the impact of World War II upon women in the labor force, see Chafe, American Woman, chap. 6; Milkman, Gender at Work, chap. 4; Campbell, Women at War, chaps. 4 and 5; Hartmann, Home Front and Bevond, chaps. 4 and 5; Charles Wollenberg, Marinship at War: Shipbuilding and Social Change in Wartime Sausalito (Berkeley, Calif.: Western Heritage Press, 1990), chaps. 6 and 7; Rupp, Mobilizing Women, chap. 6; and Gluck, Rosie the Riveter, chap. i.

  1 zz. See Jones, Labor of Love, chap. 7.

  123. Quoted in Gluck, Rosie the Riveter, p. 42.

  1 24. On the demobilization of women in the labor force at the end of World War II, see Chafe, American Woman, chap. 8; Campbell, Women at War, chap. 8; Rupp, Mobilizing Women, chap. 6; and Milkman, Gender at Work, chap. 7.

  125. Louise Purwin, "Chinese Daughters of Uncle Sam," Independent Woman z3 (November 1944): 337, 353•

  iz6. Lucy Lee, interview with author, May 17, 1982.

  127. The six shipyards included the Kaiser yards in Richmond, Marc Island Navy Yard in Vallejo, Naval Drydocks at Hunter's Point in San Francisco, Marinship in Sausalito, Moore Dry Dock Company in Oakland, and Bethlehem Steel in Alameda and South San Francisco.

  iz8. L. Wang, "Politics of Assimilation," p. 135. For sample ads, see Chinese Press, January 1, 1943; and Chinese Times, October 6, November z, 1942..

  1z9. Chinese Press, August z1, 194z, p. i; Tsai, Chinese Experience, p. i 16.

  130. Broussard, Black San Francisco, p. 145; and Shirley Ann Moore, "The Black Community in Richmond, California, 1910-1963" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1989), p. 86.

  131. San Francisco Chronicle, December 24, 1942, p. I.

  132.. Fore 'n Aft, December 31, 1942.

  133. Fore'n Aft, April 7, 1944.

  134. Marin-er, June a6, 1943.

  13 5. Ibid.

  13 6. Letter quoted in ibid.

  1 37. Ibid.

  138. See Moore, "Black Community," pp. 93-96; Broussard, Black San Francisco, pp. 158-65; and Wollenberg, Marinship at War, chap. 7. All three sources discuss the landmark case of James v. Marinship, in which a black welder, Joseph James, won a discrimination suit against the Boilermakers' Union for segregating blacks into an auxiliary union.

  139. See Lichtman, "Women at Work," chap. 2.

  140. Katherine Archibald, Wartime Shipyard (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1947), pp. 100-109-

  141. San Francisco Chronicle, December 2.4, 1942, p. I.

  14z. Frances Jong, interview with author, February 1z, 199o.

  143. Maggie Gee, interview.

  144. May Lew Gee, interview.

  145. Rena Jung Chung, interview with author, June 30, 1994.

  146. J. Wong, Fifth Chinese Daughter, pp. 194-95; CSYP, April z1, 1943

  147. See Campbell, Women at War, chap. 4; Hartmann, Home Front, chap. 5; Chafe, American Woman, chap. 7; and Lichtman, "Women at Work," chap. 3.

  148. Dare, "Economic and Social Adjustment," p. 69; and R. Lee, "Chinese in the United States Today," p. 419.

  149. Chinese Press, May 28, 1943, p. 6; and June 4, 1943, P. 2.

  150. Gladys Ng Gin, interview.

  151. J. Lee, "A Chinese American," pt. II, p. 167.

  152. CSYP, June 3, 1942; February 27, March z6, 1943; April 11, 1944; February i 1, 1945; and Chinese Press, April z, 1943, p. 6.

  153. Chinese Press, May 29, 1942, p. 6.

  154. Margaret Woo, interview with author, February 24, 1983.

  15 5. Lonnie Quan, interview.

  156. Broussard, Black San Francisco, pp. 146-65.

  157. Lonnie Quan, interview.

  158. Campbell, Women at War, pp. 66-71.

  159. San Francisco Chronicle, August 7, 1942, p. 8.

  16o. Chung, "TV Summary."

  161. Ibid.; Purwin, "Chinese Daughters of Uncle Sam," p. 337; CSYP, October 31, 1944; Gertrude Atherton, My San Francisco (Indianapolis: Bobbs- Merrill, 1946), pp. 272-77; and San Francisco Chronicle, June 5, 1945, P. 5; January 6, 1959, pp. 1, 4.

  162. Chinese Press, March 27, 1942, p. 1.

  163. Quoted in Chinese Press, December z6, 1941, p. I.

  164. Chinese Press, January 30, 1942, p. 1.

  165. J. Lee, "A Chinese American," pt. II, p. 173.

  166. Chinese Press, August zo, 1943, p. 1; October z9, 1943, pp. 1-2; and CSYP, January 3, December 8, zz, 1943; March 14, December z4,11944.

  167. Chinese Press, January 16, 1942, p. 1.

  168. Chinese Press, January 16, 1942, p. I.

  169. Chinese Press, August 13, 1943, P. 1; CSYP, May 15, 1943; and Alice Fong Yu, interview with author, March 31, 1986.

  170. Chinese Press, January 16, March 30, April io, September 4, November 13,194z; April 9, 1943; Emily Lee Fong, interview with Carey Mark Huang, April 1z, 1982, Chinese Women of America Research Project, Chinese Culture Foundation of San Francisco; and Stanley Lee, interview.

  171. San Francisco Chronicle, April 6, 1942, p. iz; and R. Lee, "Chinese in the United States Today," p. 444. On the nationally coordinated effort at wartime fund-raising as carried out in San Francisco, see Leni Cahn, "Community Interpretation of Foreign Gr
oups Through Foreign War Relief Agencies in San Francisco" (Master's thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1946).

  172. Liu Pei Chi, History, p. 580.

  173. Martha Taam, interview with author, November 27, 1989.

  174. Purwin, "Chinese Daughters of Uncle Sam," P. 327; and CSYP, November 6, 9, 1942.

  175. CSYP, December 5, 194z; May 17, 1943; December z3, 1945; and San Francisco Chronicle, June 19, 1944, P. 9; July 8, 1944, P. 1.

  176. CSYP, August 14, 15, 19, 1945.

  177. Margaret Woo, interview.

  178. Lorena How, interview.

  179. CSYP, August i9, and September 8, 1945.

  Epilogue

  1. The following account is derived from Jew Law Ying, interview with author, September 7, 198z.

  z. The actual transcript of her interrogation ran ten pages (single-spaced) and included many details regarding family history, village and home life, her wedding celebration, and the time she spent with my father in Hong Kong before he departed for the United States. See Jew Law Ying, folder 40766/1113, CDCF-SFDO.

  3. As someone who helped my mother calculate her earnings every month, I was aware of the "doctoring" of time sheets that her employer required of her. Throughout her working life as a seamstress in Chinatown, my mother was paid at a piece rate and not by an hourly wage, in violation of state laws and union regulations. Like many other Chinatown seamstresses, she was a victim of paternalism at work and union tokenism; and she felt powerless to do anything about it. For an analysis of the difficulties in organizing Chinatown seamstresses, see Chalsa Loo, Chinatown: Most Time, Hard Time (New York: Praeger, 1991), pp. 189-z11.

  4. For a discussion of the postwar period and supporting statistical evidence, see Judy Yung, Chinese American Women: A Pictorial History (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1986), pp. 80-95, Iz3-z4.

  5. For a discussion of the basic tenets of the Asian American movement within the context of the civil rights movement, see William Wei, The Asian American Movement (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993) -

  Manuscripts and Archival Collections

  Chinese Departure Case Files [CDCF]. San Francisco District Office, Immigration and Naturalization Service. Record Group 85. National Archives, San Bruno, Calif.