The Chinese in America (66 page)

245
more than $8 million:
The Committee on Educational Interchange Policy,
Chinese Students in the United States, 1948-1955
(New York, 1956), as cited in Ting Ni, pp. 24, 94.

245
”Guomingdang-hired goon squad”:
L. Ling-chi Wang, p. 394.

246
”Communist bandits”:
Ibid.

246
”understanding” between the races:
Gloria Heyung Chun, p. 84.

248
bugged the headquarters of the Chinese Hand Laundry Alliance:
Renqiu Yu, p. 191.

249
white mob tore apart a Chinatown restaurant:
L. Ling-chi Wang, p. 333.

249-50
subpoenaed several staff members of the
China Daily News:
Renqiu Yu,
To Save China, to Save Ourselves,
p. 187.

250
Information on Eugene Moy:
Renqiu Yu, p. 188; Andrew Hsiao, ”100 Years of Hell-Raising,”
Village Voice,
June 23, 1998; L. Ling-chi Wang, pp. 439, 443; Him Mark Lai, ”China and the Chinese Community: The Political Dimension,”
Chinese America: History and Perspectives 1999,
p. 11.

250
interrogated Tan Yumin:
Renqiu Yu, p. 191.

250
”The FBI guy shouted back”:
Ibid., p. 187.

250
”fantastic system”:
Kitano and Daniels,
Asian Americans,
p. 43.

251
”destroy that system”:
L. Ling-chi Wang, p. 425.

251
J. Edgar Hoover: L.
Ling-chi Wang, p. 406; Roger Daniels,
Asian America,
p. 305.

251
”Only once before in modern times”:
L. Ling-chi Wang, p. 423.

251
” ‘criminal conspiracy’ ”:
Report from Drumwright on visa fraud. File 122.4732/12-955, Location 250/1/05/05, Box 720, Record Group 59, National Archives, Washington, D.C; L. Ling-chi Wang, pp. 422, 423. Wang provides an excellent summary of Drumwright’s charges.

251
”Chinatown was hit like an A-bomb fell”:
Ibid., p. 418.

252
”mass inquisition”:
Ibid., p. 422. It should be noted that during the Korean War, the Chinese American community lived under the threat of mass incarceration. In 1952, the federal government allocated $775,000 to establish six internment camps, in the states of California, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, and Florida. (L. Ling-chi Wang, p. 368.)

252
ten thousand Chinese confessed:
Ronald Takaki, p. 416.

253
some 120 Chinese intellectuals were detained:
Yelong Han, ”An Untold Story: American Policy Towards Chinese Students in the United States,”
The Journal of American-East Asian Relations,
Spring 1993. As cited in Ting Ni, p. 25.

253
Biographical details on Tsien Hsue-shen:
Iris Chang,
Thread of the Silkworm
(New York: Basic Books, 1995).

256
”That this government permitted this genius”:
”Made in the U.S.A.?,”
60 Minutes,
October 27, 1970, CBS Archives.

256
Information on Cameron House in the 1950s:
Author interview with Harry Chuck at Cameron House, March 17, 1999.

257
”many of my peers strove to be all-American”:
Judy Yung,
Unbound Feet,
p. 287.

257
passed an anti-gambling law:
Ben Fong-Torres,
The Rice Room: Growing Up Chinese-American: From Number Two Son to Rock’n‘Roll
(New York: Plume, 1995), p. 53.

257
New York State Housing Survey:
L. Ling-chi Wang, p. 515.

257
Information on William Chew:
Author interview with Bill Chew; Chew’s unpublished manuscript in his private collection.

258
the ”Chinese Rockefeller of Hawaii”:
Burt A. Folkart, ”Known as ‘Chinese Rockefeller’ of the Islands; Hawaii Multimillionaire Chinn Ho Dies,”
Los Angeles Times,
May 14, 1987.

258
Information on Delbert Wong:
Interview with Delbert Wong, interview #59, Southern California Chinese American Oral History Project; Sam Chu Lin, ”Historical Society Commemorates WWII 50th Anniversary,”
Asian Week,
November 11, 1994; K. Connie Kang, ”From China to California, a Six-Generation Saga: One Family’s Milestones and Challenges Tell the Story of a Changing World,”
Los Angeles Times,
June 29, 1997; Lillian Lim, ”Chinese American Trailblazers in the Law.”

258
Median family income of $6,207:
Betty Lee Sung, p. 128.

259
$5,660:
Ibid., p. 128.

259
ruled unconstitutional the real estate convenants:
Ben Fong-Torres, p. 52. Yet many of the social barriers would remain. When future Nobel laureate C. N. Yang tried to purchase a house in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1954, the seller abruptly returned his down payment, telling Yang that the transaction would hurt his business. (Zhenning Yang,
Forty Years of Learning and Teaching
[Hong Kong: Sanlian Publishing House, 1985], pp. 11-12.)

259
moved in furtively:
Rodney Chow interview, interview #149, Southern California Chinese American Oral History Project.

259
”The first night, they broke my windows”:
Interview with Lancing F. Lee, Southern California Chinese American Oral History Project.

260
”the only Asian family”:
Interview with Alice Young,
Nightline,
ABC News, June 28, 1999.

260
nationwide study recorded twenty-eight American cities with Chinatowns:
Betty Lee Sung,
The Story of the Chinese in America,
p. 144.

260
fallen to sixteen:
Ibid., p. 144.

263
seventy thousand people:
Nicholas D. Kristof, ”Hong Kong, Wary of China, Sees Its Middle Class Fleeing,”
New York Times,
November 9,1987.

264
only a token 105 Chinese:
H. Brett Melendy,
Chinese and Japanese Americans,
p. 66.

264
Thanks to special legislation:
For details of the Refugee Relief Act of 1953 and legislation for immigrants with special skills, see L. Ling-chi Wang, ”Politics of Assimilation and Repression: History of the Chinese in the United States, 1940-1970,” unpublished manuscript, Asian American Studies Collection, Ethnic Studies Library, University of California at Berkeley.

264
threw up barbed wire:
Betty Lee Sung, pp. 92-93.

264
presidential directive:
Victor G. and Brett de Bary Nee,
Longtime Californ‘,
p. 254.

264
some fifteen thousand Chinese refugees:
Betty Lee Sung, p. 93.

265
”no basis in either logic or reason”:
John F. Kennedy,
Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964), pp. 594-97.

265
Statistics and political quotes regarding the Hart-Celler Act, or 1965 Immigration Act:
”Three Decades of Mass Immigration: The Legacy of the 1965 Immigration Act,”
Immigration Review,
No. 3-95, September 1995.

266
Lillian Sing:
Testimony of Lillian Sing, ”Chinese in San Francisco—1970.” Employment Problems of the Community as Presented in Testimony Before the California Fair Employment Practice Commission, December 1970, p. 15. As cited in Stanford Lyman,
Chinese Americans,
p. 143.

266
1969 San Francisco Human Rights Commission:
Victor G. and Brett de Bary Nee, pp. 302-3; Cheng-Tsu Wu, ed.,
”Chink!,”
p. 241.

267
”It’s really amazing how the Chinese exploit themselves”:
Ronald Takaki,
Strangers from a Different Shore,
p. 428. ”Here we are like the disabled,” one Chinese woman said of immigrant vulnerability. ”We’re deaf because we cannot understand the language. We’re dumb because we cannot speak it. We’re blind because we cannot read it. And we’re lame because we cannot find our way around.” (Ruthanne Lum McCunn,
Chinese American Portraits,
p. 151.)

267
”Your father has to work a long time”:
M. Elaine Mar,
Paper Daughter
(New York: HarperCollins, 1999), p. 98.

267
”We each slept on a small piece of plywood”:
Grace Pung Guthrie, A
School Divided,
p. 71.

268
greatest tuberculosis rate in the country:
Victor G. and Brett de Bary Nee, p. xxv; L. Ling-chi Wang, p. 509.

268
highest suicide rate:
Victor G. and Brett de Bary Nee, pp. xxv, 260.

268
labor in sweatshops for at least eight to ten hours a day:
Victor Low,
The Unimpressible Race,
p. 143.

268
”They work half the night”:
Ibid., p. 144.

268
”It began with the newcomers getting hassled”:
Bill Lee,
Chinese Playground: A Memoir
(San Francisco: Rhapsody Press, p. 1999), pp. 64-65.

269
”It was payback time”:
Ibid., p. 5.

269
Dressed in black from head to toe:
Stanford Lyman,
Chinese Americans,
p. 163; Bill Lee,
Chinese Playground,
p. 128.

269
”delinquency was too clinical a word”:
Ben Fong-Torres,
The Rice Room,
p. 193. The worst outbreak of gang violence occurred on September 4, 1977, when three masked men armed with shotguns and automatic weapons burst into the Golden Dragon restaurant in San Francisco Chinatown and fired randomly on customers, killing five people and wounding eleven.

269
asked for a community clubhouse:
Chiou-Ling Yeh, ”Contesting Identities: Youth Rebellion in San Francisco’s Chinese New Year Festival, 1953-1967,” in Susie Lan Cassel, ed.,
The Chinese in America: A History from Gold Mountain to the New Millennium, p.
336.

270
”They have not shown that they are sorry”:
EastlWest,
March 13, 1968, as cited in Chiou-Ling Yeh, ”Contesting Identities,” p. 336.

270
”Some of these kids are talking about getting guns and rioting”:
Ibid., p. 337.

270
Inter-Collegiate Chinese for Social Action:
Ibid.

270
Concerned Chinese for Action and Change:
Ibid., p. 338; L. Ling-chi Wang, p. 576; Nick Harvey, ed.,
Ting: The Caldron,
p. 101.

270
”I knew to expect stories about China”:
Ben Fong-Torres, p. 59.

271
”I was nine years old when the letters made my parents, who are rocks, cry”:
Maxine Hong Kingston,
The Woman Warrior. Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts
(New York: Alfred Knopf, 1976; Vintage international edition, 1989), p. 50.

271
”The aunts in Hong Kong”:
Ibid., p. 50.

272
”PIG INFORMERS DIE YOUNG”:
Ben Fong-Torres, p. 209.

273
”It seems obvious”:
Supreme Court opinion, delivered by Justice Douglas.
Lau
v.
Nichols,
No. 72-6530, Supreme Court of the United States, 414 U.S. 56, Argued December 10, 1973, Decided January 21, 1974.

273
Third World Liberation Front:
Nick Harvey, ed.,
Ting: The Caldron,
p. 103; William Wei,
The Asian American Movement
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993).

274
Red Guard Party:
Nick Harvey, ed.,
Ting: The Caldron,
p. 103; Stanford Lyman,
Chinese Americans,
p. 165.

274
I Wor Kuen:
Lori Leong,
East Wind
magazine 1:1 (1982); author interview with Corky Lee, November 2002; Rocky Chin, ”New York Chinatown Today: Community in Crisis,” in Amy Tachiki, Eddie Wong, Franklin Odo, and Buck Wong, eds.,
Roots: An Asian American Reader. A Project of the UCLA Asian American Studies Center
(Regents of the University of California, 1971). ).

275
”the blushing dawn of ethnic awareness”:
Gish Jen,
Mona in the Promised Land
(New York: Vintage, 1996), p. 3.

275
“‘You know, the Chinese revolution was a long time ago’”:
Ibid., p. 118.

276
Fred Ho:
Wei-hua Zhang, ”Fred Ho and Jon Jang: Profiles of Two Chinese American Jazz Musicians,”
Chinese America: History and Perspectives 1994
(Brisbane, Calif.: Chinese Historical Society of America, 1994), pp. 175-99.

276
Grace Lee Boggs:
Grace Lee Boggs,
Living for Change: An Autobiography
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998).

277
”Afro-Chinese Marxist”:
Frank H. Wu,
Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White
(New York: Basic Books, 2002), p. 331.

277
”Through sheer will”:
Letter, Louis Tsen to Grace Lee Boggs, May 22, 1996, in Grace Lee Boggs,
Living for Change,
p. xv.

277
Information on the social rise of the Chinese in the South
comes from James W. Loewen,
The Mississippi Chinese: Between Black and White
(Prospect Heights, III.: Waveland Press, 1988, 1971).

278
Black civil rights leaders asked Chinese grocers for financial donations:
Ibid., p. 171.

278
Sam Chu Lin:
Author interview with Sam Chu Lin.

279
”I didn’t go to the Chinese dances”:
James W. Loewen, p. 160.

279
Sam Sue:
Joann Faung Jean Lee,
Asian American Experiences in the United States: Oral Histories of First to Fourth Generation Americans from China, the Philippines, Japan, India, the Pacific Islands, Vietnam and Cambodia
(Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, 1991), pp. 3-9.