The Chinese in America (63 page)

162 Chin Lung:
Ruthanne Lum McCunn,
Chinese American Portraits: Personal Histories 1828-1988
(San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1988), pp. 89-97. For more details on his life, see Sucheng Chan,
This Bittersweet Soil: The Chinese in California Agriculture, 1860-1910
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1986), pp. 206-12.

163 roughly a quarter of all Chinese workers:
Out of 45,614 Chinese, 11,438 worked in restaurants.
Asians in America: Selected Student Papers,
Asian American Research Project, University of California at Davis, Working Publication #3, p. 31.

163 Chow mein:
Imogene L. Lim and John Eng-Wong, “Chow Mein Sandwiches: Chinese American Entrepreneurship in Rhode Island,”
Origins & Destinations,
pp. 417-35; Peter Kwong,
The New Chinatown
(New York: Hill and Wang, 1987, first edition, and 1996, revised edition), p. 34.

163 David Jung:
Chicago Tribune,
February 17, 1988.

164 “as a rule Caucasians”:
Tan Fuyuan,
The Science of Oriental Medicine, Diet and Hygiene
(Los Angeles, 1902), p. 11, as cited in Haiming Liu, “Between China and America,” Ph.D. thesis provided to author, p. 96.

164 Hu Yunxiao:
Haiming Liu, p. 89.

164 ran advertisements in English-language newspapers:
Ibid., p. 94.

164 twenty-eight Chinese herb doctors:
International Chinese Business Directory Co., Inc., Wong Kin, President,
International Chinese Business Directory for the World for the Year 1913
(San Francisco, 1913). As cited in Haiming Liu, p. 90.

164 Chang Yitang:
Haiming Liu, pp. 97-99.

165 believes he invented those credentials:
Louise Leung Larson,
Sweet Bamboo: Saga of a Chinese American Family
(Los Angeles: Chinese Historical Society of Southern California, 1990), p. 19.

166 “The [more] he was arrested”:
Ibid., p. 71.

166 Joe Shoong:
Thomas W. Chinn,
Bridging the Pacific,
pp. 185-86; “Joe Shoong, Chinese Merchant King, Dies,”
San Francisco Chronicle,
April 15, 1961; Ronald Takaki,
Strangers from a Different Shore,
p. 252.

166 “the richest, best-known Chinese businessman”:
Time,
March 28, 1938, p. 56.

166 Ray Joe:
Oral history conducted by Sam Chu Lin and provided to author.

166 “I sleep on two trucks pulled together for bed”:
Ibid.

167 kept a stick in their stores:
James W. Loewen, p. 33.

167 earn on average twice the white median income:
Ibid., p. 53.

168 almost 30 percent of all employed Chinese worked in laundries:
Betty Lee Sung,
The Story of the Chinese in America
(New York: Collier, 1971), p. 188.

168 out of a total of 45,614 Chinese workers, 12,559 were laundry people:
Asians in America: Selected Student Papers.
Asian American Research Project, University of California at Davis, Working Publication #3, p. 31.

168 scrub board, soap, and an iron:
Betty Lee Sung, p. 190.

168 “In the old days, some of those fellows were really ignorant”:
Paul C. P. Siu,
Chinese Laundryman: A Study of Social Isolation
(New York: New York University Press, 1987), p. 52.

168 charged at least 15 percent less:
Interview with Danny Moy, New York Chinatown History Project, archived in Museum of Chinese in the Americas, 70 Mulberry Street, New York City.

169 “My father used to joke”:
Judith Luk oral history interview with Tommy Tom, assistant manager of Wah Kue wet wash, January 9, 1981, New York Chinatown History Project, Museum of Chinese in the Americas, New York.

169 “I heard that some of them used a string to hang a piece of bread from the ceiling”:
Renqiu Yu,
To Save China, to Save Ourselves,
p. 26.

169 “In China in the old days”:
Interview with Loy Wong, April 26, 1982, New York Chinatown History Project, Museum of Chinese in the Americas, New York.

169 “became like balls”:
Ruthanne Lum McCunn, p. 155.

169 in the thirty-eight years she worked in a laundry, she left it only three times:
Yen Le Espiritu,
Asian American Women and Men,
p. 38.

169-70 “Some of these old-timers”:
James Dao interview with Andy Eng, manager of the Wing Gong laundry, New York Chinatown History Project, Museum of Chinese in the Americas.

170 enjoyed an astounding 90 percent literacy rate:
Renqiu Yu, p. 38.

170 yishanguan:
Renqiu Yu, p. 28.

170
1920s correspondence between Hsiao Teh Seng:
Translated by Paul C. P. Siu and archived in the Ernest Burgess Papers, Regenstein Library Special Collections, University of Chicago. An excellent description of these letters can be found in Adam McKeown, “Chinese Migrants Among Ghosts: Chicago, Peru and Hawaii: The Early Twentieth Century,” Ph.D. dissertation in history, University of Chicago, 1997, pp. 80-86.

172
L. C. Tsung’s
The Marginal Man:
Jack Chen,
The Chinese of America,
pp. 158-59.

173 100,686 men and 4,779 women:
1880 U.S. Census.

173 seven Chinese men for every Chinese woman:
Diane Mei Lin Mark and Ginger Chih,
A Place Called Chinese America,
p. 173. According to the 1920 U.S. Census, there were 53,891 Chinese males and 7,748 Chinese females.

174 only about one hundred fifty Chinese women:
Origins & Destinations,
p. 89.

174 not a single Chinese woman:
Victor G. and Brett de Bary Nee,
Longtime Californ’,
p. 25; Jack Chen,
The Chinese of America,
p. 176.

175 “My parents wanted us to become professionals”:
Interview with Herbert Leong, interview #141, Southern California Chinese American Oral History Project, sponsored by the Asian American Studies Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California.

175
“You can make a million dollars”:
Victor G. and Brett de Bary Nee, p. 151.

175
“baboons”:
Victor Low,
The Unimpressible
Race, p. 15.

175
shut down a public school for Chinese children:
Victor Low, p. 14.

175
segregate Asians, American Indians, and blacks:
Ibid., pp. 20-21. For instance, the 1864 School Law stated, “Negroes, Mongolians, and Indians shall not be admitted into the public schools; provided, that upon the application of the parents or guardians of ten or more such colored children, made in writing to the Trustees of any such district, said Trustees shall establish a separate school for the education of Negroes, Mongolians, and Indians, and use the public school funds for the support of the same.”

176
new California state law granted separate public education for blacks and Indians:
Ibid., pp. 26-27.

176
Chinese children were the only racial group to be denied a state-funded education:
Victor Low, pp. 37, 49.

176
“the association of Chinese and white children”:
Judy Yung,
Unbound Feet,
p. 48.

176
“filthy or vicious habits”:
Victor Low, p. 50.

176
“dangerous to the well-being of the state”:
Ibid., p. 60.

176
rather go to jail:
Ibid., p. 61.

177
adopted a resolution:
Ibid., p. 61.

177
punish the board members with contempt citations:
Ibid., p. 63.

177
“urgency provision”:
Ibid., p. 66.

177
“May you Mr. Moulder”:
Ibid., p. 71. The letter, dated April 8, 1885, was published in the
San Francisco Daily Alta California
newspaper on April 16, 1885.

177
Lum Gong:
James Loewen, pp. 65-68; Sucheng Chan, p. 58.

177
A few Chinese American children managed to find ways to attend Caucasian schools:
In places like San Jose, California, and Hawaii, Chinese American children were integrated into white schools. There, the law stipulated that they could attend white schools as long as no white parents complained. Darlene T. Chan, “San Jose’s Old Chinatown, Heinlenville, 1850-1930: A Historical Study,” Ph.D. dissertation in education, University of San Francisco, 1994, p. 26.

178
a group of white parents at Washington Grammar School:
Victor Low, pp. 109-10.

178
a Chinese boy graduated at the top of his class:
Author interview with Sam Chu Lin, November 2002; Cheng-Tsu Wu, ed.,
“Chink!,”
p. 147.

179
“I remember rushing home from school”:
Ruthanne Lum McCunn,
Chinese American Portraits,
p. 133.

179
Bernice Leung:
Interview with Bernice Leung, interview #137, Southern California Chinese American Oral History Project.

179
“I was brought up purely Caucasian”:
Huping Ling,
Surviving on the Gold Mountain,
p. 78. Original citation: Arthur Dong,
Forbidden City, U.S.A.,
color video, 56 minutes, 1989, in
The American Experience.

179
“There was endless discussion”:
Victor Wong, ”Childhood II,“ in Nick Harvey, ed.,
Ting: The Caldron: Chinese Art and Identity in San Francisco
(San Francisco: Glide Urban Center, 1970), p. 71.

180
“We have never lived in Chinatown”:
“Interview with Lillie Leung,” by Wm. C. Smith, Los Angeles, August 12, 1924. Major Document #76, Box 25, Survey of Race Relations, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University.

180
“Well, you read all right”:
”Story of a Chinese College Girl,” p. 4, Major Document 54, Box 24, Survey of Race Relations, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University. Also Judy Yung,
Unbound Voices,
p. 301.

180
“In grade school I was fairly successful”:
Interview conducted October 13, 1924, in Los Angeles, unnamed participant. Major Document #233, Box 28, Survey of Race Relations, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University.

180
“When we came to the study of China”:
Ibid.

181
“Mother watched us like a hawk”:
Oral history interview with Alice Sue Fun, in Judy Yung,
Unbound Voices,
p. 269.

181
“a lot of housework”:
Ibid.

181
“When we grew up”:
Grace Pung Guthrie,
A School Divided: An Ethnography of Bilingual Education in a Chinese Community
(Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1985), p. 63.

182
Some fifty Chinese-language elementary schools and a half dozen Chinese-language high schools:
Haiming Liu, p. 19.

182
“an ordeal that I grew to hate”:
Louise Leung Larson,
Sweet Bamboo,
p. 65.

182
“totalitarian attitude”:
Interview with Rodney Chow, interview #149, Southern California Chinese American Oral History Project. Sponsored by the Asian American Studies Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California.

183
“It was not that I was entirely unwilling to learn”:
Pardee Lowe,
Father and Glorious Descendant
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1943), p. 140.

183
“I had to learn the Chinese language”:
“Interview with Mrs. C. S. Machida,” by Wm. C. Smith, Los Angeles, August 13, 1924. Major Document #73, Box 25, Survey of Race Relations, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University.

183
almost all of the Chinese American children in San Francisco:
Judy Yung,
Unbound Feet,
p. 151.

184
very first Boy Scout troop:
Thomas W. Chinn,
Bridging the Pacific: San Francisco Chinatown and Its People
(San Francisco: Chinese Historical Society of America, 1989), pp. 122-25.

184
“Take it all in all”:
Victor Low, pp. 112-13.

185
“It is almost impossible to place a Chinese or Japanese”:
Betty Lee Sung, p. 236.

185
“You Chinee boy or Jap boy?”:
Pardee Lowe,
Father and Glorious Descendant
(Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1943), pp. 191-92.

186
“Everywhere I was greeted with perturbation”:
Ibid., pp. 146-47.

186
“‘Sorry,’ they invariably said”:
Ibid., p. 147.

186
“Recently two friends of mine”:
“Life History and Social Document of Fred Wong,” p. 6. Date and place given on document, August 29, 1924, Seattle, Washington. Survey of Race Relations, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University.

187
a Los Angeles bank:
Interview with Clarence Yip Yeu, interview #102, Southern California Chinese American Oral History Project.

187
“Don’t you have an accent?”:
Victor Low, p. 170.

187
Information on Frank Chuck:
Connie Young Yu,
Profiles in Excellence: Peninsula Chinese Americans
(Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford Area Chinese Club, no date listed, possibly 1986), pp. 19-23.

188
Information on Chan Chung Wing; found it very difficult to defend my clients“:
Lillian Lim, “Chinese American Trailblazers in the Law,” unpublished paper presented at the Sixth Chinese American Conference, July 9-11, 1999.