Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco (37 page)

Wong Shee Chan recalled similar hard times. Betrothed when ten years
old and married at seventeen to my great-grandfather Chin Lung's eldest
son, Chin Wing, she was admitted to the United States in 1920 as a U.S.
citizen's wife. They initially farmed land that Great-Grandfather had purchased in Oregon but, soon after, returned to San Francisco and worked
at Chin Lung's trunk factory on Stockton Street. In 193 z, Great-Grandfather decided to retire to China to avoid the depression, leaving what
business assets he had left to his sons. Chin Wing tried to maintain the
trunk factory, but to no avail. The family had to pawn Grandaunt's jewelry in order to make ends meet. "Those were the worst years for us,"
recalled Grandaunt, who by then had six children to support. "Life was
very hard. I just went from day to day." They considered themselves lucky
when they could borrow a dime or a quarter. "A quarter was enough
for dinner," she said. "With that I bought two pieces of fish to steam,
three bunches of vegetables (two to stir-fry and the third to put in the
soup), and some pork for the soup."52 For a brief period, while her husband was unemployed, the family qualified for federal aid; but after he
went to work as a seaman, Grandaunt was left alone to care for the children. She had to find work to help support the family. Encouraged by
friends, she went to beauty school to learn how to be a hairdresser. At
that time, there were sixteen beauty parlors in Chinatown-the only businesses in the community to be run by Chinese women.51 After she passed
the licensing examination, which she was able to take in the Chinese language, Grandaunt opened a beauty parlor and bathhouse in Chinatown,
working from 7 A.M. to I I r.M. seven days a week. She kept the children
with her at the shop and had the older ones help her with the work. Thus
she was able to keep the family together and make it through the depression.

Women across the country likewise found ways to "make do." When their husbands and sons became unemployed, many white women entered the labor market for the first time, finding work in female-dominated occupations-clerical work, trade, and services. In the decade between 1930 and 1940, the number of married women in the labor force
increased nearly 5o percent despite mounting public pressure that they
not compete with men for jobs. Often, in fact, it was not men who were
edged out of jobs by white women, but black women-particularly domestic workers-who were already at the bottom of the labor ladder. Concentrated in the marginal occupations of sharecropping, household
service, and unskilled factory work, black women suffered the highest
unemployment rate among all groups of women. 14 Most other workingclass women were able to keep a tenuous hold on their jobs in the industrial and service sectors even as their husbands became unemployed.
Women's marginal wages thus often kept whole families alive. Women
also learned to cut back on family expenditures, substituting store-bought
items with homemade products. They planted gardens, canned fruits and
vegetables, remade old clothing, baked bread, raised livestock, rented
out sleeping space, and did odd jobs. Pooling resources with relatives
and neighbors provided mutual assistance in terms of shared household
duties and child care. As a last resort, some women turned to prostitution. And among those who qualified, many went on relief 55

Grandaunt Wong Shee Chan (left) in front of her beauty parlor
and bathhouse in the 1930s. (Judy Yung collection)

It has generally been assumed that women also managed to provide
sufficient emotional support to keep the family together during these
troubled times. In 1987, however, Lois Rita Helmbold threw that assumption into question. After examining 1,340 interviews with white
and black working-class women in the urban North and Midwest that
were conducted by the Women's Bureau in the 193os, Helmbold concluded that a significant number of families were in fact torn apart by
the financial and emotional strains of the depression. The expectations
and actualities of female self-sacrifice resulted in unresolvable conflicts
between parents and children, husbands and wives; relatives, it is clear,
did not always come to the aid of unattached women. Family and marital breakups became widespread .,6 Moreover, as Jacqueline Jones points
out in her study on black women and the depression, federal aid to mothers with dependent children (started in 193 5) may have inadvertently
contributed to the disintegration of black families, for by "deserting"
their families, unemployed fathers enabled them to qualify for relief.
Jones's argument is supported by statistics: in the mid-193os, approximately 40 percent of all husband-absent black families received public
assistance; and by 1940, 31 percent of all black households had a female
head.57

In contrast, Chinese families held together. Whereas the nation experienced an increase in the divorce rate from the mid-1930s on, the
rate remained low among Chinese Americans. Chinese newspapers reported only nine cases of divorce in the 119 3 os, most of which were filed
by women on grounds of wife abuse, although three women also cited
lack of child support as a reason .18 No doubt, Chinese women experienced their share of emotional stress during the depression, but because of cultural taboos against divorce they found other ways to cope. My
grandaunt Wong Shee Chan recalled a number of occasions when her
unemployed husband took his frustrations out on her. "I remember buying two sand dabs to steam for dinner," she said. "Because he didn't like
the fish, he flipped the plate over and ruined the dinner for the entire
family. Even the children could not eat it then. See what a mean heart
he had?"59 Having promised her father that she would never disgrace
the Wong family's name by disobeying or divorcing her husband, she
gritted her teeth and carried on. But when the situation at home became
unbearable, Grandaunt would go to the Presbyterian Mission Home for
help. "She went there a couple of times, and each time it got ironed out
and she came home," recalled her eldest daughter, Penny.60 Jane Kwong
Lee, who was coordinator of the Chinese YWCA in the 1930S, noted
the added emotional stress that many women unaccustomed to accepting public assistance felt:

There is a family with a father, mother, and five small children. The
father was unemployed for several years before he obtained work relief.
The family is expressively grateful, for they are no longer afraid of starvation. Outwardly, the mother appears happy. Yet, when I talk with
her further, I can sense the struggle within her. She cannot bear the
thought of being on the relief roll. Her people in China think she is enjoying life here in the "Golden Mountain." She dares not inform
them about the family's sufferings and hardships. If she does, she would
"lose face." Although the relief money is enough to feed and clothe the
family, it is not sufficient to allow for better living quarters than the two
rooms they now occupy, without a private kitchen or a private bath. She
can afford no heat in the rooms even when the children are ill in bed.
This family is on the bare existence line. As in many other cases, at first
she felt humiliated about her surroundings. Later on, she got used to it.
Now she regards relief as a matter-of-fact.61

This pragmatic approach to life, kindled by personal initiative and a strong
sense of obligatory self-sacrifice in the interest of the family, helped many
Chinese immigrant women through the hardships that they faced in
America, including the depression.

The adverse impact of the depression was also blunted by the benefit that Chinese immigrant women and their families drew from federal
legislation and programs. Many of the New Deal programs discriminated
against women and racial minorities in terms of direct relief, jobs, and
wages. One-fourth of the NRA codes, for example, established lower
wage rates for women, ranging from 14 to 3 0 percent below men's rates. Relief jobs went overwhelmingly to male breadwinners, and significant
numbers of female workers in the areas of domestic service, farming,
and cannery work were not covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act or
Social Security Act. Black, Mexican, and Asian women who were concentrated in these job sectors were thus denied equal protection from
labor exploitation and access to insurance benefits. Moreover, under federal guidelines, Mexican and Asian aliens could not qualify for WPA jobs
and were in constant fear of deportation.62 Nevertheless, considering
their prior situation, Chinese women had more to gain than lose by the
New Deal. For the first time, they were entitled to public assistance. At
least 350 families were spared starvation and provided with clothing,
housing, and medical care to tide them over the depression. In addition,
more than fifty single mothers qualified for either Widow Pension Aid
or Aid to Dependent Children.63 The garment industry-which employed most of the Chinese immigrant women-was covered by the
NRA. At the urging of the International Ladies' Garment Workers'
Union (ILGWU), sweeps through Chinatown were periodically made
to ensure the enforcement of the new minimum-wage levels, work hours,
banned child labor law, and safety standards.64 NRA codes, however, were
insufficient to change sweatshop conditions in Chinatown, as employers circumvented or nullified the imposed labor standards through
speed-ups and tampered records. Only when workers took matters into
their own hands, as in the case of the 193 8 National Dollar Stores strike,
were employers forced to comply with federal labor laws.

The New Deal did have a positive impact on the living environment
of Chinese families. A 19 3 5 study of Chinatown's social needs and problems sponsored by the California State Emergency Relief Administration
(CSERA) indicated that housing was woefully substandard, playground
space and hours of operation inadequate, and health and day child care
sorely lacking.65 Federal programs, staffed by Chinese American social
workers in cooperation with churches and community organizations,
were instituted to deal with these specific problems. Families were
moved out of tenement houses to apartments and flats close by. Playground hours were extended and street lighting improved. Immigrant
mothers learned about American standards of sanitation and nutrition,
particularly the importance of milk in their diet, and had access to birth
control and health care at the newly established public clinic in the community. They were also entitled to attend English and job-training classes
and, as in the case of Law Shee Low, enroll their children in nursery
school. As a result, not only did some immigrant women receive direct relief, but their overall quality of life was somewhat improved by the New
Deal.

Although in many quarters of the nation the issue of working wives
was controversial, it was not a problem in San Francisco Chinatown,
where wives and mothers had always had to work to help support their
families. On the contrary, as their economic and social roles expanded
and their families grew increasingly dependent on them during the depression, the community's attitude toward working women took a turn
for the better. According to the 1935 survey conducted by CSERA,
women's place in the work world outside the home was no longer questioned:

The Chinese women of today are much more fortunate and certainly
more independent than they were ten or twenty years ago. They are now
permitted by their husbands to work outside their homes and the fear of
mockery by their neighbors has ceased since it has become the vogue to
work, whether to help out the family finances or to have a little pin money.
Generally speaking, to help the family finances, since most of them are
hard pressed.66

Gender relations also improved in their favor, as reflected in newspaper
reports. In 1933, for instance, the Chinese Six Companies sided with a
widow whose relatives were trying to rob her of her inheritance and force
her to marry a man of their choice.67 CSYP published articles appealing
to husbands to treat their wives better: "Don't be a tyrannical lord over
her, but respect her opinions, speak to her gently, and involve her in all
your affairs."68 In another editorial, after praising Jane Addams's exemplary work with the poor and her involvement with the women's and
peace movements, the newspaper encouraged the modern Chinese
woman to be aware of her rights, become physically fit, satisfy her domestic duties, attend to the children, and serve the community.69

Jane Kwong Lee was one of the few Chinese women who fulfilled
this role of the modern woman in the 19 3 os. After becoming the mother
of two and upon graduation from Mills College, she decided to go back
to work, even though her husband still had his meat market in Oakland.
"To stay home and take care of my children was, of course, my primary
concern," she wrote in her autobiography, "but in the midst of the depression period, it was necessary for me to seek employment."70 Unable
to find work in white establishments because of racism, Jane finally secured a part-time job at the Chinese YWCA, at a time when bilingual
community workers were sorely needed. It was her responsibility to make home visits and to provide assistance to immigrant women regarding immigration, health and birth control, housing, domestic problems, and
applications for government relief. Until she was offered a full-time job
as coordinator two years later, she also taught at a Chinese school in the
evenings. How did she manage it all?