The Children of Chinatown

Growing Up Chinese American in San Francisco, 1850-1920

Wendy Rouse

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9780807898581
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Asian American Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Revealing the untold stories of a pioneer generation of young Chinese Americans, this book places the children and families of early Chinatown in the middle of efforts to combat American policies of exclusion and segregation. Wendy Jorae challenges long-held notions of early Chinatown as a bachelor community by showing that families--and particularly children--played important roles in its daily life. She explores the wide-ranging images of Chinatown's youth created by competing interests with their own agendas--from anti-immigrant depictions of Chinese children as filthy and culturally inferior to exotic and Orientalized images that catered to the tourist's ideal of Chinatown. All of these representations, Jorae notes, tended to further isolate Chinatown at a time when American-born Chinese children were attempting to define themselves as Chinese American. Facing barriers of immigration exclusion, cultural dislocation, child labor, segregated schooling, crime, and violence, Chinese American children attempted to build a world for themselves on the margins of two cultures. Their story is part of the larger American story of the struggle to overcome racism and realize the ideal of equality.

1 THE IMMIGRATION OF CHINESE CHILDREN AND THE CHINESE QUESTION

I was eight years old when I went to China. Never was in the Plaza. Never seen a [streetcar]. I do not remember anything at all about San Francisco. But this is an American hat and pants. I had them when I went to China in 1881. When I was eight years old.

—LEE HIM, age fourteen

Lee Him arrived in San Francisco on the Steamer Rio De Janeiro on January 7, 1888.¹ The boy was only one of thousands of Chinese children who had passed through the port of San Francisco since the 1850s. Immigrants arriving from China in the 1850s and 1860s easily gained entry into the country. However, with the passage of the Page Act in 1875 and the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, the government erected substantial barriers to try to stop the immigration of Chinese prostitutes and laborers into the country. According to the 1882 law, only teachers, travelers, students, diplomats, and merchants qualified for entry under Section 6 of the Exclusion Act. In a series of cases in the years immediately following the passage of the Exclusion Act, the circuit court reinterpreted the law to allow the sons and daughters of natives and merchants access into the United States. In 1884 the circuit court also confirmed In re Look Tin Sing, which held that Chinese children born in the United States were American citizens under the law and therefore entitled to their right to reenter the country.² Although he claimed to have been born in San Francisco, Lee Him told the customs inspector that he had departed for China with his father in 1881, just prior to the passage of the Exclusion Act. He now desired reentry as a native-born citizen. However, customs officials were inclined to doubt the boy's testimony since hundreds of other children had similarly claimed native status in an attempt to circumvent the exclusion law. The burden of proof lay with the children, who had to conclusively demonstrate their status as American citizens. Regardless of their birth in America, Chinese children aroused the suspicion of immigration officials simply on account of their race. Lee Him's reference to his Western style hat and pants was not only an attempt to demonstrate his prior residence in San Francisco; it was also an effort to seize his fundamental rights as an American citizen in a society that had come to deeply resent its Chinese members.

JOURNEY TO AMERICA

The vast majority of Chinese immigrants to the United States in the nineteenth century came from the Guangdong province in southeastern China. In the mid-nineteenth century, this region of China experienced the ravages of the Opium Wars, internal rebellions, and natural calamities such as droughts, floods, typhoons, and crop failures. In addition, an increase in population of 79.5 percent from the late eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century in Guangdong created a crisis in the availability of cultivable land. Farmers also faced oppressive taxation from the struggling Qing government.³ These combined pressures encouraged the mass migration of individuals from China to various regions of the world during the latter half of the nineteenth century.⁴ Still, we must examine individual narratives fully to understand the motives behind Chinese emigration. Individuals weighed the substantial risks and costs of emigration and developed strategies that provided the most benefit for the entire family. The experiences of child immigrants prove especially useful in helping to understand why families would sacrifice the labor and risk the lives of their younger members in a journey halfway around the world.

Individual motivation for immigrating to the United States varied, although most child immigrants admitted that, like their adult counterparts, the lure of a living wage remained their primary motive. Young children listened attentively as neighbors returning home from the United States boasted of their newfound wealth. Lee Chew was inspired to come to America by a man who returned from Gold Mountain and hosted a big feast for the village to share his good fortune. He dreamed of attaining such wealth and sought his father's consent to journey to America in pursuit of his dream. He joined the rush, as thousands of other immigrants journeyed to California in the hope of making their fortune.⁵

Although Lee Chew enjoyed the luxury of choosing to travel to America, not all children exercised the same degree of freedom in determining their future. Ng Shui Cheuk and his brother decided they had to split up and travel to different parts of the world after their father's death had left the family struggling to make ends meet. The boys agreed to stay abroad for two to three years; the first one to find success would return home to care for their mother.⁶ Poverty also limited the choices of Yee Loon, whose farming parents did not earn enough money to feed the children. Debt forced his family to sell his brother, and his sister died from lack of medicine. The sixteen-year-old had to try to find work in America to help support his family in China. His father borrowed $1,000—$200 more than the value of the family farm—to buy a birth certificate and cover the travel expenses.⁷ Yee Loon bore a heavy burden on his shoulders as he made his way to the United States. The journey to America forced many children into adult responsibilities.

Chinese girls generally had little say in their futures. The patriarchal cultural values of Chinese society discouraged the immigration of Chinese women. Confucian ideology dictated that women limit their activities to the domestic sphere. In addition, the hierarchical social structure positioned women as subordinate to men, requiring a woman to obey her father at home, her husband after marriage, and her eldest son after the death of her husband.⁸ Daughters of merchants sometimes traveled to the United States to join their fathers. However, impoverished Chinese girls, like their working-class male counterparts, had very few choices. Poor families sometimes sold their daughters into domestic service or prostitution to help supplement the family income. The Chinese considered the mui tsai (domestic servant) system as a form of charity for lower-class children. Parents signed a contract agreeing to sell their children into service for a limited period of time. Chan Fung Chun recalled the sobs of her heartbroken mother as poverty forced her to sell her youngest daughter as a mui tsai. Fearing for her daughter's future, the mother begged the slave dealer not to sell the girl into prostitution. Chan Fung Chun's new owner shipped her off to America. The child remembered the long, tearful journey to San Francisco and the cruelty of the slave dealer, who punished her for thinking about home. Although she did work for several years as a domestic servant, her mistress ultimately decided to sell her into prostitution at age fourteen.⁹ Unscrupulous men and women sometimes lured girls to America with promises of gold, marriage, jobs, or education, only to sell them into prostitution.¹⁰

Although they had little choice in the matter, some girls tried to fight back. The father of six-year-old Lilac Chen (Wu Tien Fu) told her that he was taking her to meet her grandmother. However, on the steamer she discovered that her father had sold her: “[He] locked me in the cabin while he was negotiating my sale. And I kicked and screamed and screamed and they wouldn't open the door till after some time, you see, I suppose he had made his bargain and had left the steamer. Then they opened the door and let me out and I went up and down, up and down, here and there, couldn't find him.” Despite her objections, Chen was transported to San Francisco and resold as a servant to a brothel.¹¹ Chinese child immigrants, especially female children, were vulnerable to exploitation by adult relatives and slave traffickers interested only in making a profit from the labor of children.

Whether children immigrated to the United States by force or of their own free will, departing from home was a traumatic experience. Family and friends often offered gifts and bittersweet farewells to departing immigrants. Relatives showered some child immigrants with new clothing and supplies of special foods in preparation for their journey.¹² Huie Kin did not have the luxury of new clothes and sweetmeats. His baggage consisted of bedding and a basket with shoes, a hat, and some homemade biscuits that his mother had baked for him. He recalled his final emotional moments at home: “We said good-by at the doorsteps, and a minute later darkness closed around us and we could not see the folk standing there.”¹³ Children like Huie Kin experienced fear and uncertainty as they left behind parents and siblings, took on adult responsibilities, and embarked on their journey to California.

Although merchants’ families could afford to travel in style, the journey to America was far from pleasant for the majority of Chinese passengers. In 1867 the Pacific Mail Steamship Company began to run ships from San Francisco to China that carried approximately 250 first-class passengers and between 1,200 to 1,400 passengers in steerage. The trip took about a month, with a third-class ticket costing about $50.00. Steerage-class passengers were generally prohibited from frequenting the upper-class compartments. Ben Woo remembered that on his trip to San Francisco in 1911, third-class passengers ate in a mess hall, while first-class passengers enjoyed the luxury of a formal dining room. Third-class travelers packed into the holds of the steamers, where they slept on canvas bunk beds and had to supply their own bedding. The food was generally poor and bland, with water in short supply. Overcrowding and poor ventilation contributed to the uncomfortable conditions. Even children recognized the class distinctions.¹⁴

Historical studies of immigrant children have described the trauma associated with moving to a foreign land. The harsh conditions of travel, difficulties in finding basic sustenance, exposure to dangerous illnesses, and fear of death all combined to create a deep sense of loneliness.¹⁵ Pangs of seasickness, disease, and homesickness transcended class boundaries. Unfamiliar surroundings and food made the experience especially uncomfortable. Child immigrants traveling alone described a dreadful solitude that sometimes brought them to tears.¹⁶ In addition to the usual hardships of travel, poor children often suffered from the gnawing pains of hunger. Twelve-year-old Fong Sec remembered: “On board, we noticed fellow passengers about our own age whose baskets were brimful with fruits and cakes given by relatives and friends. As my family was poor, I had none. When I saw them eat the fruit and cakes, it made my mouth water. . . . [S]easick and unable to eat any rice, I longed all the more for fruits and cakes, and even became bold enough to beg others to give me some to eat.”¹⁷ Heightened in part by their young age and sense of homesickness, the realities of poverty made the trip even more traumatic for working-class Chinese children.

The realities of life and death were always close at hand on board the steamer. The close quarters of the ship encouraged the spread of a variety of contagious diseases, some of which proved deadly. Very young children and the elderly were especially vulnerable, although even healthy young men found themselves the victims of disease. Huie Kin described the death of his relative, Huie Ngou, who became sick with fever on board the steamer. Huie Kin and other boys watched as the body was wrapped in a sheet and lowered into the sea: “For hours afterwards, we stood by the side of the ship, gazing into the darkness, scarcely knowing what to think.” They wondered what was to become of them, and “there was an uneasy feeling that his death could not but cast an evil shadow upon our venture.”¹⁸ The children expressed anxiety and wondered about their future as the death proved a harsh reminder of human mortality.

For the most part, child travelers described the long days aboard the ship as excruciatingly boring. They spent the time gambling, playing, learning English, and memorizing their coaching books. Children immigrating as “paper” sons or daughters (those carrying false documents that identified them as children of exempt-class Chinese) often spent the time surreptitiously rehearsing the story they would have to communicate to immigration officials. Coached by adult companions, illiterate children simply repeated the story over and over again until they had committed it to memory.¹⁹ Ng Cheng and Ng Kay carried none of these burdens, since their status as first-class passengers and the sons of a prominent merchant practically guaranteed their admittance into the United States. The boys, therefore, used their leisure time and freedom to roam the ship. To alleviate the tedium of the trip, the boys teased and played pranks on seasick passengers. They fondly recalled these pranks as “harmless child mischief.”²⁰ By turning the ship into a playground, some children found a way to cope with the fears and uncertainties of immigration. However, during this early period of immigration, most Chinese children did not enjoy these freedoms. Most traveled as third-class passengers in steerage and suffered the harsh conditions of the voyage.

Despite the hardships of the trip, a child's sense of wonder may have helped to ease his or her adaptation to the dramatic changes inherent in the immigration experience. Young immigrants marveled at the sights on their journey and expressed excitement upon arrival in San Francisco. Lee Chew was awestruck by the power of the steamships: “The engines that moved the ship were wonderful monsters, strong enough to lift mountains.”²¹ Wen Bing Chung recalled “gazing at the blue expanse or watching a school of flying fishes disporting themselves. Occasionally, a whale spouting a column of water skyward would cause a flutter of excitement on board.”²² Chinese immigrants remembered overwhelming and indescribable feelings as they first set eyes on San Francisco.

Prior to the passage of the exclusion laws, customs officials searched Chinese immigrants for contraband and allowed them to go into town shortly after the steamer landed.²³ Albert S. Evans describes with great literary flourish the arrival of the steamer Great Republic from China in the early 1870s. Merchants’ wives and their children left the ship with no trouble. Customs agents, however, stopped male Chinese laborers and searched their luggage for opium. Agents of the Six Companies (an organization composed of representatives of Chinese District Associations that formed in San Francisco to assist Chinese immigrants, later known as the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association) then separated the men into groups, most likely based on district or family association. Policemen shouted orders and frantically attempted to organize the crowd. Evans describes the arrival of fifteen to twenty Chinese slave girls: “As they land, they are searched in no delicate manner by the officers, and then received by their purchasers, and delivered into the charge of the sallow old hags in black costume, with bunches of keys in the girdles of their waists, who are called ‘old mothers,’ and who will hold them in horrible bondage and collect the wages of their sin.” The girls endured heckling and jeers from the crowds as they passed and boarded express wagons to carry them to their destination.²⁴ Although Evans's account of these girls is tainted by the prejudices of his time, his description of the rough manner of the customs officials toward laborers and “slave girls” in contrast to the merchant class suggests the inherent class biases of these early immigration procedures. The exploitation of women and children proved an especially volatile issue in the debate over Chinese immigration. Anti-Chinese politicians drew parallels between the Chinese prostitution trade and African slavery and pointed to the sale of women and children as evidence to support the exclusion of the “heathen” Chinese. Over time, anti-Chinese rhetoric would culminate in restrictive laws designed to keep these girls from entering the country.

Immigrants, believing that the hardest part of the journey was behind them, soon discovered the reality of anti-Chinese hostilities. On arrival in San Francisco, Fong Sec hopped on top of the baggage wagon for the trip to Chinatown. He was amazed by the bustling sights of the city and especially enjoyed watching the streetcars. However, his moment of wonde...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• the children of chinatown
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• ILLUSTRATIONS
• TABLES
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• INTRODUCTION CONSTRUCTING CHILDHOOD IN EARLY CHINATOWN IMAGE VERSUS REALITY
• 1 THE IMMIGRATION OF CHINESE CHILDREN AND THE CHINESE QUESTION
• 2 RECENTERING THE CHINESE FAMILY IN EARLY CHINESE AMERICAN HISTORY
• 3 FOR THE FAMILY BACK HOME
• 4 CHALLENGING SEGREGATION
• 5 ARTICLES OF CONTENTION
• 6 CHILDREN OF THE NEW CHINATOWN
• CONCLUSION CONSTRUCTING THE FUTURE
• NOTES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX