Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco (60 page)

48. Whitfield, "Public Opinion," pp. 65-71. A "Survey of Social Work Needs
of the Chinese Population of San Francisco" published by the Community Chest
of San Francisco in 1930 (hereafter cited as Community Chest 1930 Survey)
concluded that "health conditions among the Chinese of San Francisco are
bad ... [because of] poor housing, poor sanitation, lack of sun, light and air,
poor recreation facilities and inadequate social opportunities," accounting for a
death rate among the Chinese that was almost three times as great as among the
general population of the City. The leading causes of death for the Chinese were
diseases of the heart and circulatory system and tuberculosis (p. 3).

49• See L. Ling-chi Wang, "An Overview of Chinese American Communities During the Exclusion Era, 1883-1943" (unpublished paper); and Helen Virginia Cather, "The History of San Francisco's Chinatown" (Master's thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1932), chap. 4.

50. Started by the Presbyterian minister Ng Poon Chew in 1goo, CSYPfa-
vored reform in China and advocated equal rights for all Chinese Americans,
including women. The daily newspaper enjoyed a wide circulation among Chinese Americans until its decline in the 1930s. See Him Mark Lai, "The Chinese
American Press," in The Ethnic Press in the United States: A Historical Analysis
and Handbook, ed. Sally M. Miller (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987), pp.
27-43; Corinne K. Hoexter, From Canton to California: The Epic of Chinese Immigration (New York: Four Winds Press, 1976); and Yung, "Social Awakening."

51. "Story of Wong Ah So," p. 31.

52. Cameron, "Story of Wong So," p. 171.

5 3. Wong Ah So, letter to her mother, file z6o, Cameron House, San Francisco.

54• Cameron, "Story of Wong So," p. 171.

5 5. "Story of Wong Ah So," pp. 3 2-33,

56. Wong Ah So, letter to Donaldina Cameron, October z4, 1928, file 258,
Cameron House, San Francisco; Pascoe, Relations of Rescue, pp. 163-65.

57. Donaldina Cameron, "New Lives for Old in Chinatown," Missionary Review of the World 57 (July-August 1934): 3z9.

58. Hirata, "Free, Indentured, Enslaved," p. 24. The figures for 1900, 1910,
and 1920 are based on my computations from the U.S. National Archives,
Record Group 29, "Census of U.S. Population" (manuscript), San Francisco,
California (hereafter cited as 1900, 1910, or 1920 manuscript census). There
were 28o prostitutes listed in 1900, and another 59 women were probably also
prostitutes, judging from their living arrangements-three or more single young
women living in all-female households. No prostitutes were listed as such in the
191 o census, but I suspect 92 were prostitutes again based on their living arrangements (see appendix table 6). 1 am indebted to Sucheng Chan for sharing her
data on Chinese women in San Francisco from the 1900 and 1910 manuscript
schedules. Any computational errors are mine.

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:
Holt, 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.