Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco (34 page)

I have been thinking that I have given the six best years of my life to a
man who is not worth it.... When I first met him, I was idealistic and
enthusiastic and ambitious. I had a body that was sound and healthy.
Now I am completely disillusioned, entirely lacking any enthusiasm, and
utterly devoid of ambition.... I had my first abortion in September,
1928, at a time when I was pathetically struggling with some editorial work for which I was never paid. The next abortion came the following
spring. Then in September, 19z9, I was fortunate enough to get a job
at the Methodist Book Concern, the salary from which helped [my husband] to go back to school. In January, 1930, I had my third abortion.
My memory is a bit hazy but I think the fourth came in December of
1931. I struggled with contraceptives, begged [my husband] to use condoms for added precaution but he stubbornly refused. Then I had a fifth
abortion in January, 1932. For these abortions, I have pawned my
mother's jewelry, modelled in art schools, slaved at office routine, stood
the boresome company of a Chinese newspaper editor whom I taught
English, neglected [my son] to go out to work, gone without the decencies of life and the clothes I long for with all the fever of youth. Why
have I had to undergo this torture? Because of a man who prides himself on his intelligence [but] is hopelessly lacking in understanding.'69

Despite her husband's shortcomings, Flora remained married to him
and bore him three children, two of whom were born in China. The last
pregnancy almost cost her her life. That was when she finally insisted on
having a tubal ligation.

Although they faced discrimination in the labor market and in their
search for decent housing, second-generation Chinese were still able to
take advantage of their education and achieve a degree of upward mobility. The combined income of this generation of middle-class Chinese
American couples afforded them modern apartments outside of Chinatown, albeit on the fringes. Chew Fong Low, frustrated by housing
discrimination in San Francisco, spent a quarter of a million dollars constructing the Low Apartments on the outskirts of Chinatown in order
to give her family and "her people an opportunity to live in true American style in a building constructed by American workmen from American plans."170 The apartment building was made of steel frame and
concrete and contained twenty-five apartments, all featuring modern
kitchens, tiled bathrooms, separate shower cabinets, French doors and
windows, built-in mirrors, hot water heaters, and outlets for radio and
private telephone lines. Other Chinese American couples, like the
Schulzes, were able to rent accommodations, complete with running water and a private bathroom, above Powell Street in the 19 zos. They were
also among the first in Chinatown to have modern appliances such as a
radio, toaster, iron, and refrigerator.171

Although they preferred to live in modern apartments, young Chinese American couples generally tried to combine Chinese and Western
customs in their home life. The Schulzes, for example, had Western food
for breakfast and lunch but Chinese food for dinner. They celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas but also Chinese New Year and the Moon
Festival. They spoke both Chinese and English at home with the children. They went to church, but every year at Ching Ming, Tye took the
children to the Chinese cemetery to pay proper respect to her parents.
Nor did Tye physically punish her children, as was the practice among
Chinese parents then. Fred and Louise Schulze could not remember ever
being spanked. "She was always very gentle. She never raised her voice,"
said Fred. 172

Although Jade Snow Wong had spent her college years away from
home and Chinatown, after her marriage she chose to live close to Chinatown so that her children might learn from their grandparents and
come to appreciate their bicultural heritage. The children attended Chinese school and were introduced to Chinese foods, holidays, and the
arts, but they were also raised on Christmas parties, Easter egg hunts,
trips to museums and libraries, and vacations in Hawaii and Canada. Ultimately, Jade Snow instilled the same traditional values of honor,
courage, honesty, personal conviction, and service to fellow humans in
all her children that she had been taught by her parents. Representative
of her generation, she had come full circle in her search for a new ethnic and gender identity conditioned by the discrimination she had experienced as a dutiful daughter at home and a young woman growing
up in a prejudiced society. As she wrote in No Chinese Stranger, a work
that compares socialist life in China with democratic life in America:

Each Chinese-American like me has the opportunity to assess his talents,
define his individual stature, and choose his personal balance of old and
new, Chinese and Western ways, hopefully including the best of both.
Father Wong's prize, more meaningful than gold, has also been the legacy
he gave his children and grandchildren: he, and others like him, first gave
us our cultural identity and then, by remaining in this country, permitted us the American freedom to attain individual self-images which ought
to be constructive for the state but not subordinate to it. My own children may be potential revolutionaries who will throw their javelins
earnestly and strongly; and I hope their targets will be the alleviation of
mankind's miseries. When they drink water, as the old Chinese saying
goes, I hope that they will think of its source, so that when they reach
out to drop their aerial roots, their growth will bear the fruit of the banyan
tree-wisdom.

She concluded her second autobiography on an optimistic note:

My future is in this land where Daddy and his progeny have sunk their
roots around the rocks of prejudice, rather than closer to the shelter of the mother trunk. As I encourage my children's roots, I take heart from
that "Foolish Old Man" in Ming Choy's lesson. With strong belief in
our purpose, it may not be folly for the determined, with the hearts of
children, to attack the high mountain of prejudice in our own way. When
we die, our children and grandchildren will keep on working until, some
day, the mountain will diminish. Then there will be no Chinese stranger.173

By the time of the Great Depression, second-generation women under
the influence of Chinese nationalism, Christianity, and acculturation had
indeed taken the first steps toward challenging traditional gender roles
and racial discrimination in the larger society. Compared to their mothers, they were better educated, more economically mobile, socially active, politically aware, and equal partners in marriage. Although they still
had a difficult time assimilating into mainstream society, they had learned
to accommodate racism and establish a new bicultural identity and
lifestyle for themselves. As the Great Depression loomed before them,
they would draw strength from the wellspring of their bicultural heritage to weather the storm ahead.

Women in this community are keeping pace with the quick
changes of the modern world. The shy Chinese maidens in
bound feet are forevergone, making place for active and
intelligent young women.

Jane Kwong Lee
Chinese Digest, June 1938

We will fight our fight to the end, and hope to raise the living
conditions not only for ourselves but for the other workers in
Chinatown as well.... "The ILGWU is behind us. We shall
not be moved."

Chinese Ladies' Garment Workers' Union
letter to the ILGWU membership, April 1938

The prosperous years of the Roaring Twenties in America came to an abrupt halt on Black Thursday, October 24, 1929, when
the stock market crashed. By the end of that year, stock prices had
dropped 5o percent. Investment funds dried up, factories closed, and
workers lost their jobs. In the next three years, 40 percent of the nation's farms were mortgaged, industrial production was cut in half, thirteen million Americans-one-quarter of the work force-became unemployed, and over five thousand banks went out of business. With little
savings and no government relief, many Americans across the country
found themselves homeless, without any means of support. In Seattle,
it was reported, families unable to pay for electricity spent their evenings
by candlelight or in the dark. One couple in New York City lived in a
cave in Central Park for half a year. Many others lived on the outskirts
of towns in shacks made of tar paper, cardboard boxes, orange crates,
or rusted car bodies-in settlements that became sardonically known as Hoovervilles. Starving families subsisted on stale bread, potatoes, and
even dandelions. Farmers who lost their homes and crops in the dust
storms packed their families into dilapidated cars and drove west, hoping to find work in the orange groves and lettuce fields of California. In
desperation, one old man who found himself unemployed came home
and turned on the gas. His widow sat alone for three days and then did
the same.1

The devastating impact of the Great Depression on the American population has been well documented in books, photographs, and films.2
More recent studies have explored its negative effects on the lives of the
women and minority groups hardest hit by the economic crisis.' What
is missing from this larger picture is a sense of how the depression affected Chinese American men and women in different parts of the country. Pertinent to the present investigation is a narrower question: What
impact did race, class, gender, and nativity have on the economic survival of Chinese women in San Francisco, and how did their experiences
differ from the experiences of other groups of Americans during this
period?

Although little has been written about how Chinese Americans
weathered the depression, oral history interviews indicate that many faced
the same hardships as the rest of America's population. By the time the
depression was in full swing, the Chinese American work force had long
since been driven out of the better-paying jobs in the Western states and
was concentrated in either domestic and personal services or retail trade
in urban areas of the country. Many Chinese families, eking out a living
in small laundry, restaurant, and grocery businesses, were hard hit by
the depression. Wong Wee Ying, the only Chinese woman in the steelmill town of Midland, Pennsylvania, recalled seeing people sleeping out
in the streets and standing in line for government permits to sell apples
or shoelaces. "If you can see no smoke from the factory chimneys, you
know things are bad for everyone," she said.4 The bad economy affected
her family laundry business: "We just had a few collars to wash. There
was no work, so how can people afford to send out their laundry to
wash? "5 Like many other resourceful American women, Wee Ying made
clothes out of old rice sacks for her six children, reinforced their shoes
with tin cans to make them last longer, and made a lot of thin soup out
of rice or oatmeal and vegetables from their family garden.