Chinese Americans in the Heartland: Migration, Work, and Community 9781978826328

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Chinese Americans in the Heartland •

Asian American Studies ­Today This series publishes scholarship on cutting-­edge themes and issues, including broadly based histories of both long-­standing and more recent immigrant populations; focused investigations of ethnic enclaves and understudied subgroups; and examinations of relationships among vari­ous cultural, regional, and socioeconomic communities. Of par­t ic­u ­lar interest are subject areas in need of further critical inquiry, including transnationalism, globalization, homeland polity, and other pertinent topics. Series Editor Huping Ling Truman State University Chien-­Juh Gu, The Resilient Self: Gender, Immigration, and Taiwanese Americans Stephanie Hinnershitz, Race, Religion, and Civil Rights: Asian Students on the West Coast, 1900–1968 Jennifer Ann Ho, Racial Ambiguity in Asian American Culture Helene K. Lee, Between Foreign and ­Family: Return Migration and Identity Construction among Korean Americans and Korean Chinese Huping Ling, Chinese Americans in the Heartland: Migration, Work, and Community Haiming Liu, From Canton Restaurant to Panda Express: A History of Chinese Food in the United States Jun Okada, Making Asian American Film and Video: History, Institutions, Movements Kim Park Nelson, Invisible Asians: Korean American Adoptees, Asian American Experiences and Racial Exceptionalism Zelideth María Rivas and Debbie Lee-­DiStefano, eds., Imagining Asia in the Amer­i­cas David S. Roh, Betsy Huang, and Greta A. Niu, eds., Techno-­Orientalism: Imagining Asia in Speculative Fiction, History, and Media Leslie Kim Wang, Chasing the American Dream in China: Chinese Americans in the Ancestral Homeland Jane H. Yamashiro, Redefining Japa­neseness: Japa­nese Americans in the Ancestral Homeland

Chinese Americans in the Heartland • Migration, Work, and Community

Hu p i n g L i n g

rutgers u niversity press new bru nswick, camden, and newark, new jersey, and london

 Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data Names: Ling, Huping, 1956–­author. Title: Chinese Americans in the heartland : migration, work, and community / Huping Ling. Description: New Brunswick : Rutgers University Press, [2022] | Series: Asian American studies t­ oday | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021058255 | ISBN 9781978826298 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781978826281 (paperback) | ISBN 9781978826304 (epub) | ISBN 9781978826311 (mobi) | ISBN 9781978826328 (pdf) Subjects: LCSH: Chinese Americans—­Middle West—­History. | M ­ iddle West—­ Emigration and immigration. | ­Middle West—­Ethnic relations. Classification: LCC F358.2.C5 L56 2022 | DDC 977/.004951—­dc23/eng/20220323 LC rec­ord available at https://­lccn​.­loc​.­gov​/­2021058255 A British Cataloging-­in-­Publication rec­ord for this book is available from the British Library. Copyright © 2022 by Huping Ling All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 106 Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law. References to internet websites (URLs) ­were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor Rutgers University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared. The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—­Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992. www​.­rutgersuniversitypress​.­org Manufactured in the United States of Amer­i­ca

 To Asian Americans in the heartland

Contents

A Note on Translation and Terminology ​ ​ ​i x

1 Introduction: Defining the Asian American Heartland and Its Significance ​ ​ ​1 PA R T I

Transnational Migration and Work

2 Transnational Migration and Businesses in Chinese Chicago, 1870s–1930s ​ ​ ​15



3 Building “Hop Alley”: Myth and Real­ity of Chinatown in St. Louis, 1860s–1930s ​ ​ ​42



4 The Intellectual Tradition of the Heartland: The Chicago School and Beyond ​ ​ ​66 PA R T I I

Marriage, F ­ amily, and Community Organ­izations

5 ­Family and Marriage among Chicagoland Chinese, 1880s–1940s ​ ​ ​81



6 Living in “Hop Alley,” 1860s–1930s ​ ​ ​99



7 Governing “Hop Alley”: The On Leong Chinese Merchants and Laborers Association, 1906–1966 ​ ​ ​123

vii

viii C o n t e n t s PA R T I I I

New Community Structures

8 The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act and the Formation of Cultural Community in St. Louis ​ ​ ​145



9 The Tripartite Community in Chicago ​ ​ ​163



10

Conclusion: Convergences and Divergences ​ ​ ​192 Acknowl­edgments ​ ​ ​195 Notes ​ ​ ​199 Selected Bibliography ​ ​ ​227 Index ​ ​ ​241

A Note on Translation and Terminology

Although the Pinyin phonetic system, based on Putonghua or Mandarin Chinese, has been more widely used in recent academic writings, the ­earlier Wade-­Giles system still persists. In this book I have used Pinyin whenever Chinese place-­names are encountered, except ­t hose preferred transliterations of certain proper nouns, such as Canton for Guangzhou (Pinyin). Regarding the names of Chinese p ­ eople covered in the book, however, the situation is more complicated. While the English-­ language government rec­ords, archival manuscripts, and newspapers recorded the names of Chinese p ­ eople based on their pronunciations from Cantonese or other local dialects without consistency, the Chinese-­language sources provided the names in Chinese characters that are consistent in writing. Such variants make consistency in spelling p ­ eople’s names nearly impossible. I have managed to bring some degree of consistency to the spelling of ­people’s names by using the original spellings cited in the English-­language sources and Pinyin spellings based on Putonghua from the Chinese-­language sources. However, inconsistency in some cases is inevitable. For example, the surname “Moy” in Cantonese pronunciation also appears in its Pinyin form “Mei” in the ­later chapters. In addition, both the singular form “community” and the plural form “communities” have been used to refer to the Chinese settlement in Chicago before and ­a fter 1912, respectively. Before 1912, it was primarily a single-­sited community, located in the Loop area around South Clark Street. A ­ fter 1912, when the majority of the Chinatown businesses and residents relocated to the Cermak-­Wentworth area, some remained in the South Clark neighborhood. Since the 1960s, the expansion of South Chinatown, the emergence of suburban communities, and the revival of North Chinatown have resulted in the multisited Chinese American communities. In addition, the plural form “communities” emphasizes the cultural, economic, linguistic, po­liti­cal, and social diversity among the Chinese in Chicago.

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Chinese Americans in the Heartland •

chapter 1

•

Introduction defining the asian american heartland and its significance

Locating the Asian American Heartland The term “heartland” in the American cultural context conventionally tends to provoke images of endless cornfields, flat landscapes, hog farms, and rural communities. It also links with ideas of conservatism, homogeneity, provincialism, and isolation. This region is composed of predominantly “red states,” with voters favoring Republican candidates in general elections. Th ­ ese are also referred to as “flyover states,” the lands viewed from airplane win­dows by busy coastal travelers during transcontinental flights.1 Against this backdrop, I began my doctoral program in one of the heartland universities and wrote my dissertation on Chinese American w ­ omen’s history. Upon completing my dissertation, I landed an assistant professorship at a midwestern liberal arts university, and I have lived in the region for more than three de­cades. During this time span I encountered rec­ords on Alla Lee, a Chinese immigrant from Ningbo, China, who came to St. Louis in 1857, where he opened a tea shop and married an Irish immigrant girl, thus becoming the first recorded Chinese St. Louisan. I also found materials on the three Moy ­brothers, who pioneered the Chinese community in Chicago in the 1870s. Besides learning about t­ hose newcomers to the heartland in the larger urban metropolises, I personally befriended many Chinese American professionals, business ­owners, and laborers who chose the heartland as their destination for a new life in Amer­i­ca. To systematically document their lives and histories, my students of Asian American Studies at my institution, Truman State University, and I interviewed hundreds of Asian Americans from major cities and small towns of the region and then meticulously recorded their stories. My research trips led me not only to numerous archives, libraries, and local museums but also to restaurants, grocery shops, laundries, clinics, accounting firms, newspaper offices, and even cemeteries. The findings of this research and investigation have powerfully shattered many popu­lar myths and perceptions. From its inception, Amer­i­ca’s heartland has been a land intertwined 1

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with American cap­i­tal­ist expansion and exploitation, machination and industrialization, continental and global commerce, and racial and ethnic complexity and confrontation. A good example of this narrative is Kristin L. Hoganson’s The Heartland: An American History (2019).2 Two midwestern metropolises, Chicago and St. Louis, stand out in par­tic­u ­lar as the best examples of the connectedness and interactions between the hinterland and the coasts, agriculture and industrialization, and urban centers and rural communities, as so elegantly narrated in William Cronon’s Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the G ­ reat West (1991) and Walter Johnson’s The Broken Heart of Amer­i­ca: St. Louis and the Violent History of the United States (2020). In this volume, I focus on individuals and social forces that are missing in t­ hese two and many other books, the Chinese Americans in the heartland.3

The Importance of the Heartland in Asian American Life New Demographic Trends In recent de­cades, a new demographic trend has developed as midwestern and southern states have experienced more rapid growth of the Asian American population than California, Hawaii, and New York, the states with the highest Asian American populations. B ­ ecause the 2010 U.S. Census for the first time made separate counts for the Asian population alone and the Native Hawaii and Other Pacific Islander (NHOPI) population alone, I list them accordingly in t­ able 1.1. From 2000 to 2010, the fastest Asian and NHOPI population growth occurred in the U.S. South and Midwest. Twelve states in the South (as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau) experienced a growth greater than 50 ­percent in both or e­ ither of the two groups: Alabama (71.0), Arkansas (78.5), Delaware (76.0), Florida (70.8), Georgia (81.6), Kentucky (64.5), Mary­land (51.2), North Carolina (83.8), South Carolina (64), Tennessee (61), Texas (71.5), and ­Virginia (68.5). Twelve states in the Midwest (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin) and one state in the Northeast (Vermont) experienced growth of nearly 45 ­percent in their Asian alone and NHOPI alone populations. In comparison, the growth of Asian alone and NHOPI alone populations in California, Hawaii, and New York all fell below 36 ­percent. Readers may immediately won­der why the heartland has attracted so many Chinese Americans and other Asian Americans. The empirical surveys I conducted along with my team point to three primary ­factors: a lower cost of living, a lower crime rate, and a favorable environment for raising c­ hildren. At the same time, the more favorable socioeconomic and cultural conditions in the heartland also require Chinese Americans and other Asian Americans who settled in the region to be more resourceful and adaptable, with more economic resources and the social capital of better education and professional training, unlike their counter­parts in the major Chinatowns on the coasts where less educated working-­class Chinese are the majority of the population.4

­table 1.1 change in the asian american population in southern and midwestern states compared with california, hawaii, and new york, 2000–2010 Asian alone % of population

Change (%)

Native Hawaii and Other Pacific Islander alone % of population

Change (%)

Southern states Alabama

1.1

71.00

0.1

117.00

Arkansas

1.2

78.50

0.2

251.50

Delaware

3.2

76.00

0.6

91.90

Florida

2.4

70.80

0.1

42.40

Georgia

3.2

81.60

0.1

42.40

Kentucky

1.1

64.50

0.1

71.30

Mary­land

5.5

51.20

0.1

37.10

North Carolina

2.2

83.80

0.1

65.80

South Carolina

1.3

64.00

0.1

66.20

Tennessee

1.4

61.00

0.1

65.20

Texas

3.8

71.50

0.1

50.00

­Virginia

5.5

68.50

0.1

51.50

Illinois

4.6

72.17

0.6

63.40

Indiana

1.6

73.30

0.4

77.00

Iowa

1.7

44.90

0.1

98.50

Kansas

2.4

44.80

0.1

70.40

Michigan

2.4

34.90

0.5

61.60

Minnesota

4.1

50.90

0.6

60.90

Missouri

1.6

59.20

0.1

97.00

Nebraska

1.8

47.20

0.1

53.00

North Dakota

1.0

91.60

0.4

67.80

Ohio

1.7

44.90

0.4

69.70

South Dakota

0.9

73.80

0.3

59.80

Wisconsin

2.3

45.60

0.4

59.10

Midwestern states

(continued)

4

C h i n e s e A m e r i c a n s i n t h e H e a r t l a n d ­table 1.1 change in the asian american population in southern and midwestern states compared with california, hawaii, and new york, 2000–2010 (continued) Native Hawaii and Other Pacific Islander alone

Asian alone % of population

Change (%)

% of population

Change (%)

California

13

31.50

0.4

23.40

Hawaii

38.6

3.20

10.0

19.30

7.3

35.90

0.8

28.20

New York

Source: Compiled by the author based on U.S. Census Bureau, “The Asian Population: 2010,” Population Change by State, 2000–2010, https://­w ww​.­census​.­gov​/­prod​/­cen2010​ /­briefs​/­c2010br​-­11​.­pdf (accessed April 5, 2021).

This demographic change prompts the Asian American community and academia to call for the field to expand beyond its traditional scope—­that is, a focus on the West and East Coasts and Hawaii—to incorporate the Midwest and the South into the Asian American experience.5 In the Midwest, the field of Asian American Studies f­aces a unique set of challenges and opportunities. The challenges manifest in a variety of bureaucratic and ideological constraints, such as less sympathetic administrations and academic discourses on the differences and connections between Asians and Asian Americans.6 Thus, Asian American Studies in the Midwest has to deal with a host of nuanced issues: How does the demographic and ethnic makeup of the region impact teaching and research? What issues are of special concern to midwestern Asian American communities? How do t­hese issues force the prac­ti­tion­ers of Asian American Studies to reconceive pedagogical and research proj­ects? What resources—­h istorical, cultural, and political—­can students and teachers in ­t hese regions draw upon to reframe their proj­ects?7

Manifestations of Asian American Studies Programs in the Midwest The growth of Asian American Studies (AAS) programs in the Midwest is a testimony to the expansion of the field. The program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-­Champaign was founded in 1997 and currently is one of the largest AAS programs in the Midwest, with fourteen core and ten affiliated faculty members. The histories of Asian American student organ­izations at the University of Illinois are varied. Several originated as clubs for Asian international students (e.g., the Indian Students Association and the Philippine Students Association) and ­later evolved into organ­izations for Asian American students, whereas several ­others ­were conceived primarily for Asian American students (e.g., the

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Asian American Association and the Taiwanese American Students Club). Re­ gardless of the origins of t­ hese student groups, it was the collaborative effort of the vari­ous Asian American student organ­izations and the faculty, staff, and administration that resulted in the formation of the AAS program. In the fall of 1997, the Asian American Studies Committee was or­ga­nized, with the charge to build an academic program in AAS. George Yu became the program’s first director and served a five-­year term. This academic program began offering classes in the fall of 2000, with six faculty positions filled. In the fall of 2002, the academic minor in AAS became available, and Kent Ono was hired as director of the program.8 The AAS program at the University of Minnesota followed suit. A state with a reputation for its pronounced German and Scandinavian presence (at the time of the 2010 U.S. Census, Americans of German ancestry constituted 38 ­percent of the state’s residents, and Americans of Scandinavian ancestry, 32 ­percent), Minnesota has been a magnet for immigrants from countries throughout Asia since the 1970s, when Chinese, Japa­nese, and Filipinos began migrating t­ here. In the late 1970s and the 1980s, Southeast Asians, including Hmong, Lao, Cambodians, and Viet­nam­ ese, further contributed to the state’s Asian population growth. In more recent de­cades, refugees from Tibet, Burma, and Thailand have also made Minnesota their home. The 2010 U.S. Census reported that Minneapolis and St. Paul had the greatest concentration of Asian Americans in the interior of the United States (7.2 ­percent).9 The burgeoning Asian American population makes Minnesota an exciting research site for studying and addressing the challenges faced both by new refugees and immigrants and by e­ arlier generations of Asian Americans. In 1998, faculty, staff, gradu­ate and undergraduate students, and artists, leaders, and activists in the Twin Cities or­ga­nized the Asian American Studies Initiative at the University of Minnesota. They recognized a need to reframe for Minnesota a discipline traditionally focused on the East and West Coasts and sought to establish an academic presence on campus. In 2003, that goal became a real­ity when the regents of the University of Minnesota voted to establish the Asian American Studies Program and an undergraduate minor.10 While the larger land-­grant universities in the Midwest established in­de­pen­ dent AAS programs (­table 1.2), in the 1990s, midwestern universities or colleges with fewer resources also established joint AAS programs in conjunction with ethnic studies or Asian studies. For instance, Truman State University, a public liberal arts institution in Kirksville, Missouri, launched a number of AAS courses in 1991 and fi­nally established a joint degree-­granting program in Asian and Asian American Studies in 2000, with concentrations in AAS, East Asian Studies, and South/Pan-­Asian Studies.11 In recent years, the Association of Asian American Studies (AAAS) has more frequently held its annual conference in the South and Midwest to reflect the demographic changes in ­t hose regions. The association’s annual conference was held in Atlanta in 2006, Chicago in 2008, Austin in 2010, New Orleans in 2011, Miami in

2008

2003

1999

Asian American Studies

Asian American Studies

Asian American Studies

Asian American Studies Program

University of Illinois, Chicago

Indiana University, Bloomington

University of Minnesota, Asian American Minneapolis Studies

Asian American Studies

University of Illinois at Urbana-­ Champaign

Northwestern University, Chicago

University of Wisconsin,Madison

Certificate

Minor, ad hoc major

Minor

Minor

Minor

Minor*

Degree offered

Lynet Uttal

Ji-­Yeon Yuh

Erika Lee

Purnima Bose

Mark Chiang

Lisa Nakamura

Director

First in the Midwest, offers an array of courses and sponsors many events

27/1

4/2/3

11

Curriculum, research proj­ects, and outreach work s­ haped by community interests and concerns Started with two core faculty, offers over twenty courses

17/2

9

14/8/2

Offers an undergraduate minor or certificate, with a major and PhD minor to be developed l­ ater

Offers interdisciplinary study of Asian American histories and experiences

Offers a minor, an interdisciplinary major, and a gradu­ate minor

Program description

Core faculty/ affiliated faculty/staff

Sources: Compiled by the author using information from the following websites: www​.­aasp​.­i llinois​.­edu​/­home​.­html; www​.­uic​.­edu​/­las​/­asam​/­; www​.­indiana​ .­edu​/­~aasp​/­; www​.­aas​.­umn​.­edu​/­; www​.­offices​.­northwestern​.­edu​/­detail​/­27; www​.­polyglot​.­lss​.­w isc​.­edu​/­aasp/ (accessed April 2020).

Note: Only six universities among the Big 12 have AAS programs. * Undergraduate interdisciplinary minor.

1991

2007

1997

Program name

University name

Year established

asian american studies programs at the big 12 research universities in the midwest

­table 1.2

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2016, and Madison, Wisconsin, in 2019. ­These conferences brought scholars and community activists to rapidly expanding Asian American population centers in the Midwest and the South, where they learned about the development and concerns of the local Asian American communities, discussed strategies to address ­t hese concerns, and laid out research agendas for the field. The demographic changes, the rapid development of academic programs in midwestern higher educational institutions, and the historiographical review of sources indicate that the abundant social, economic, cultural, and po­l iti­cal resources in the Midwest enable the field of AAS to be more diverse, dynamic, and inclusive. This volume is an effort to promote that endeavor, and I look forward to more students and colleagues joining the forces.

Structure and Significance of this Volume Structure Riding on the wave of the emerging scholarship in AAS in the Midwest, this book is a culmination of my research and writing over the past three de­cades. It garners the multifaceted experiences of Chinese Americans in the region and the most significant findings from empirical studies of oral history interviews, surveys, census data, archival manuscripts, court and municipal rec­ords, memoirs and autobiographies, archaeological sites and artifacts, and digital rec­ords. Reflecting the most acute and urgent concerns in AAS and American immigration policies and practices from both academic circles and the general population, this volume focuses on three areas—­immigration and work, ­family and community, and the structural construction and reconstruction of Asian American communities—­that correspond to the book’s three parts. Part I: Transnational Migration and Work. Since the 1990s, a growing number of scholars have noted that immigrants have conducted their lives across geographic borders and maintained close ties to the country of their birth. Many social scientists have begun to use the term “transnational” to describe such cross-­national, cross-­ cultural phenomena. Nina Glick Schiller, Linda Basch, and Cristina Blanc-­Szanton, anthropologists who have analyzed and conceptualized transnational migration in more precise language in their coedited book ­Towards a Transnational Perspective on Migration, define transnationalism as “the emergence of a social pro­cess in which mi­grants establish social fields that cross geographic, cultural, and po­liti­cal borders. Immigrants are understood to be transmigrants when they develop and maintain multiple relations—­familial, economic, social, orga­nizational, religious, and political—­that span borders. . . . ​The multiplicity of mi­grants’ involvements in both the home and host socie­ties is a central ele­ment of transnationalism.”12 Other writers from vari­ous disciplines have further delineated and evaluated the theorization of transnationalism.13 As the concept of transnationalism has become a compelling theoretical framework for interpreting manifestations of international migration, a number of historians have also endorsed the idea in their monographs.14 To historians, the concept of transnationalism better interprets Chinese migration by focusing on

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both native place and host society. At the same time, scholars have cautioned against the overuse or misuse of the term.15 This study finds that Chinese Americans in the American heartland have been closely linked with the transnational migration network. From the very beginning, Chinese ethnic businesses w ­ ere closely connected to the transnational ethnic economy. As shown in chapter 2, for all aspects of business, including capital accumulation, procurement of inventory, business operations, and distribution of merchandise, Chinese Chicagoans have depended on the transnational ethnic network. Although they are located in the hinterland, the Chinese in Chicago have been connected to their homeland and to other Chinese communities across the country. The Chinese ethnic economy in Chicago has also served as a vital socioeconomic link to other Chinese communities in the Midwest, thanks largely to the city’s transportation advantages and transnational connections. Chapter  2, “Transnational Migration and Businesses in Chinese Chicago, 1870s–­1930s,” examines the transnational economic activities of Chicago’s Chinatown. Without the English-­language and other skills necessary for competition in the city’s larger ­labor market, the earliest Chinese residents carved out niche businesses, primarily hand laundries, grocery and general merchandise stores, and restaurants and chop suey shops. Transnational ethnic networks ­were essential for the sustenance and success of ­t hese businesses. Consistent with Chicago’s unique position as a transportation hub, the Chinatown businesses also served as a center for regional socioeconomic development. Similarly, as described in chapter 3, “Building ‘Hop Alley’: Myth and Real­ity of Chinatown in St. Louis, 1860s–1930s,” the Chinese in St. Louis exhibited similar characteristics. The Chinese pioneers in this city faced much the same prejudice and discrimination as did Chinese in other localities, and they engaged in similar entrepreneurial activities—­hand laundries, restaurants, grocery stores, tea shops, and opium shops. Their resilience enabled them to survive in an alien environment. This chapter further emphasizes the substantial contribution the Chinese made to the overall industrial and urban development of the city of St. Louis. Chapter 4, “The Intellectual Tradition of the Heartland: The Chicago School and Beyond,” explores the intellectual contributions made by students and scholars in Chicago beginning in the 1920s. It examines the lit­er­a­ture on Chinese Chicago from three distinct periods: the pioneering period (1920s–1950s), when the Chicago School of sociology spearheaded studies of urban ethnic and working-­class neighborhoods; the expansion period (1960s–1990s), when sociologists w ­ ere joined by scholars from other disciplines, including anthropology, education, geography, and history; and the blooming period (2000–­pre­sent), when scholars have been producing high-­quality monographs, anthologies, and articles on Asian American communities in the heartland. Part II: Marriage, F ­ amily, and Community Organ­izations. Like Chinese businesses, the ­family lives of Chinese in the heartland have also been impacted by transnational migration. Transnational connections with the homeland have made it pos­si­ble for immigrants to support their transpacific families, with money remit-

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ted to the homeland sustaining f­ amily members t­ here and making it pos­si­ble for them to purchase land and construct new ­houses. To cope with marital separation caused by immigration, a special marital arrangement has been practiced within many families. Chapter 5, “­Family and Marriage among Chicagoland Chinese, 1880s–1940s,” discusses the marriage patterns and ­family structures of the community. Three marriage patterns emerged among Chinese families: transnational split marriages (my conceptualization), in which a man had both a Taishanese “­widow” who remained in China and a concubine who accompanied him to Amer­i­ca; traditional Chinese marriages; and American urban marriages, involving love ­union, interracial marriage, and ­widow remarriage. The chapter also argues that the first two marriage types w ­ ere characterized by a large f­amily size and a large age difference between the members of married c­ ouples. Life in Amer­i­ca also elevated the position of most Chinese ­women to that of female ­family heads, co-­ providers, and joint decision makers. Chapter 6, “Living in ‘Hop Alley,’ 1860s–1930s,” examines how the social ele­ ments of class, gender, race, religion, and sexuality defined the lives of residents in St. Louis’s Chinatown, known as Hop Alley. While the wives of affluent Chinese merchants enjoyed some of the leisure and comforts of American middle-­class life, working-­class Chinese w ­ omen had to cope with the difficulties of daily survival. As a result of the uneven sex ratio (with many more Chinese men than w ­ omen residing in the city), the Chinese ­were involved in interracial marriages and sexual relations, yet few of t­ hese arrangements w ­ ere accepted by the larger society. Meanwhile, Christian institutions encouraged social interactions between the Chinese and Eu­ro­pean Americans that in some cases promoted the upward social mobility of Chinese youths. Recreational activities in Hop Alley helped ease the daily drudgery of laundry work, and Chinese social organ­izations attempted to improve the social conditions of the Chinese. The stories of the Chinese in Hop Alley w ­ ere further told by the burials in Wesleyan and Valhalla Cemeteries where the Chinese men fi­nally rested. Chapter  7, “Governing ‘Hop Alley’: The On Leong Chinese Merchants and Laborers Association, 1906–1966,” examines the rise and decline of the On Leong Chinese Merchants and Laborers Association, or­ga­nized to help Chinese merchants cope with the discriminatory environment they faced on the East Coast and in the Midwest. Although tainted with ste­reo­t ypical imaging of criminal acts of tong fighting and drug smuggling, the St. Louis On Leong worked arduously to protect the commercial interests and l­egal rights of Chinatown residents. Part III: New Community Structures. This part compares and contrasts two unique yet representative recent Asian American community structures—­t he cultural community model in St. Louis, Missouri, and the tripartite division in Chicago, Illinois. Chapter  8, “The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act and the Formation of Cultural Community in St. Louis,” defines the nature and scope of the cultural community model through chronological and thematic treatment and pinpoints the significance and applicability of the model to Chinese American settlements elsewhere in the United States. As demonstrated in this chapter,

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C h i n e s e A m e r i c a n s i n t h e H e a r t l a n d

urban renewal efforts from the 1960s to the pre­sent repeatedly halted the attempts by the Chinese in St. Louis to rebuild a Chinatown. The newly arrived Chinese professionals had l­ imited incentive to re-­create a Chinatown. Meanwhile, the dispersion of the Chinese restaurant businesses made it difficult and impractical to form a new Chinatown. The perspective of a cultural community concentrates on a community’s social-­spatial par­ameters. A wide array of community organ­ izations, ethnic language schools, ethnic religious institutions, cultural agencies, and cultural cele­brations and gatherings constitute a cultural community, which can serve as an alternative model for understanding the ever-­changing multifaceted American society. Chapter 9, “The Tripartite Community in Chicago,” reveals Chicago Chinese communities as the battleground where interest groups with diverse and sometimes competing cultural, geographic, lineal, social, and po­liti­cal orientations have clashed, compromised, and collaborated. The earliest divides and conflicts emerged among the major clans of the community, the Moys, Chins, and Wongs, in their competition for economic gains and po­liti­cal influence from the 1870s to the 1900s. The lineal divides soon evolved into orga­nizational competitors for community power structures from the 1900s to 1970s (the On Leong Chinese Merchants and Laborers Association versus the Hip Sing Merchants’ Association) and (the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association versus the newer community ser­v ice organ­izations). While all power groups vied for the attention of the major po­liti­ cal parties in the homeland, ­whether the Emperor Protection Association (Baohuang Hui) or the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) prior to 1949, the retreat of the Nationalist Party and government to Taiwan and the founding of the P ­ eople’s Republic of China by the Communist Party in 1949 resulted in divided loyalty among the Chinese in Chicago, similar to what tran­spired in other Chinese communities across the United States. The post-1949 po­liti­cal confrontation between Taiwan and mainland China also divided the Chinese American community into pro-­Taiwan or pro-­Nationalist groups and pro-­China groups. The influx of ethnic Chinese refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos following the fall of Saigon in 1975 further complicated the situation, contributing to the expansion of the multiethnic transnational Chinatown on Chicago’s North Side. The geographic diversity continued to evolve as suburban Chinese Americans formed cultural communities beginning in the 1970s, and a working-­class Chinese community in Bridgeport expanded South Chinatown in the 1990s. The tripartite division of South Chinatown, North Chinatown, and suburban cultural communities has resulted in Chinese communities in Chicagoland that are complex and diverse.

Significance of this Volume The rapid growth in the Asian American and Pacific Islander populations in the U.S. heartland in recent de­cades has required a response both from the larger society and from academia. The concept of the Asian American heartland is a breakthrough in the theoretical development of the historiography of AAS, and similarly in other regional studies on immigration, ethnicity, economics, and society, and

I n troduction

11

so forth. It is hoped that the publication of this volume ­will inspire and invite more intellectual dialogues on the topics it has explored. The significance of the heartland in American history and real­ity is increasingly recognized by both politicians and regular citizens. Consequently, more and more scholars are devoting attention to the area. However, due to the heartland’s socioeconomic differences and diversity and the past neglect of the region in research and writing, scholarly research on the region w ­ ill take time to catch up with the demand. An anthology on Chinese Americans in the heartland is both necessary and useful. As more writers have recognized the importance of scholarship on m ­ iddle Amer­i­ca to the public understanding of Asian Americans beyond the traditional regions of the West Coast and New York, books on the American heartland, e­ ither monographs or anthologies, are valuable for readers. While a monograph focuses on a single locale and on certain aspects of a subject, an anthology provides comparisons of multiple sites and broader perspectives on the subject. Both genres are equally impor­tant, with dif­fer­ent effectiveness and purposes, but all serving as intellectual inquiries. In addition, for at least three reasons, this work is significant to the study of regional history, urban history, Asian American history, and urban policy making. First, it is difficult to understand Chicago or St. Louis without understanding the multiethnic character of their populations, with a significant part being foreign-­ born. Numerous volumes have been published that depict the multicultural and multiethnic aspects of Chicago and St. Louis and explore ­these cities’ African, German, Irish, Italian, and Jewish heritage. Among ­t hese works, however, only a few deal with Chinese in the region, with a majority of them merely presenting compilations of data.16 The underrepre­sen­ta­tion of Chinese in scholarly works reflects the marginalized existence of Chinese in the past and the lack of recognition of the significance of Chinese Americans to the region in the pre­sent. Second, a study of Chinese in midwestern states is needed for a more complete understanding of AAS. Although the majority of Asian Americans still reside in  the larger urban communities on the West and East Coasts, a demographic trend emerged in the 1950s, with midwestern states seeing a rapid increase in their Asian American populations. This book commits to broadening the scope of Asian American Studies from a coast-­centered perspective to one that also includes the midwestern states. Third, this book contributes to ethnic urban studies in the American heartland. Its data and interpretations provide refreshing and invaluable resources on midwestern Amer­i­ca that ­w ill be of use to scholarly research, to public understanding, and to governmental or private policy making on urban planning and development.

PA RT I

•

Transnational Migration and Work

chapter 2

•

Transnational Migration and Businesses in Chinese Chicago, 1870s–1930s Each time I roam Chicago is calling me home . . . Chicago is one town that w ­ on’t let you down It’s my kind of town —­Frank Sinatra, “My Kind of Town” (lyr­ics by Sammy Cahn, ­music composed by Jimmy van Heusen)

Chicago is a city of hope and promise. Situated in the heart of Amer­i­ca, favored with land, w ­ ater, rail, and air transportation advantages, and populated by vibrant multiethnic communities, it attracts thousands of p ­ eople from across the country who seek to realize their dreams. Barack Obama, a gradu­ate of Columbia University in New York City, moved to Chicago in the summer of 1985 and worked as a community or­ga­nizer on the city’s South Side, thus starting his po­liti­cal journey to the presidency. His historic victory in the 2008 presidential election was a spectacular manifestation of the fulfillment of the American dream through the promise of Chicago. The vast opportunities presented by Chicago ­were evident to newcomers even more than a ­century ago. The city has attracted thousands of immigrants from around the world; beginning in the mid-­nineteenth ­century, Canadian, German, En­glish, Irish, Scottish, Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, and Italian immigrants have poured into the city making it a truly multiethnic community. For the Chinese who first arrived in the 1870s, Chicago offered a growing and attractive economic landscape. H ­ ere, the Chinese initially established a small but lively community in the downtown Loop area (the downtown business district coinciding with the old cable car ser­v ice area). Chinese grocery stores, laundries, restaurants, and community associations sustained the residents of the early Chinatown. The anti-­ Chinese sentiments prevalent in the country, formalized in the Chinese exclusion laws beginning in the 1880s, affected the relations between the Chinese and the larger society. In the 1910s, the downtown property o ­ wners raised rents, making it 15

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difficult for Chinese businesses to survive and forcing the vast majority of the Chinese to move to the South Side of the city where properties ­were cheaper. ­There, the Chinese soon established a new Chinatown, t­ oday known as South Chinatown, a major tourist attraction. Starting in the 1970s, the influx of ethnic Chinese from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia revitalized the Argyle Street area on the North Side that emerged as North Chinatown. Meanwhile, the suburban Chinese communities also kept growing rapidly. ­Today, the more than 100,000 Chinese Americans living in the Chicago area are an impor­tant and integral part of the multiethnic and multicultural city. From the Chinatown gift shops, grocery stores and supermarkets, restaurants and bakeries, herb stores, medical clinics, insurance agencies, real estate brokerages, and accountants to the suburban Argonne National Laboratory, Fermilab, Abbott Laboratories, Motorola, University of Chicago, Northwestern University, Illinois Institute of Technology, and many other research institutions, universities, and colleges in the area, Chinese Chicagoans provide valuable ser­vices to the larger society. While some ­earlier studies have yielded valuable information on the Chinese in Chicago up to the 1950s (e.g., Tin-­Chin Fan’s dissertation, “Chinese Residents in Chicago” [1926], Paul C. P. Siu’s dissertation, “The Chinese Laundryman: A Study of Isolation” [1953] and its published version from 1987 that was edited by John Kuo Wei Tchen, and Adam McKeown’s Chinese Mi­grant Networks and Cultural Change: Peru, Chicago, Hawaii, 1900–1936 [2001]), this ethnic community has not received much scholarly attention. Building on existing works and utilizing primary sources in both En­glish and Chinese—in par­tic­u­lar the Chicago Chinese Case Files (CCCF) of the Immigration and Naturalization Ser­v ice (INS), the Ernest Watson Burgess Papers held in the Special Collections Research Center at the Regenstein Library at the University of Chicago, local newspapers, sources from the Chinese American Museum of Chicago, Chinese gazetteers, genealogies, overseas Chinese magazines, and government statistics—­this chapter argues that the Chinese community in Chicago served as a vital link within the transnational migration and business networks and as a center of commerce and trade in the Midwest from the 1870s through the 1930s, when the ethnic Chinese economy in Chicago, like the economy of the rest of the country, experienced steady growth before being hit by the ­Great Depression.

Historizing Chicago Chinatown: The Moy ­Brothers and the Early Community The anti-­Chinese movement, compounded by the economic depression on the West Coast in the last de­cades of the nineteenth c­ entury, contributed to the re­distribution of the Chinese immigrant population in the United States. Centrally located and as a base for land, ­water, rail, and ­later air transportation, Chicago had served as a hub for Chinese immigrants in North Amer­i­ca. Among the dispersed Chinese laborers, a man named Moy Dong Chow (梅宗周 Mei Zongzhou in Pinyin, aka Hip Lung; see figure 2.1) was particularly inter-

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Figure 2.1. ​Moy Dong Chow, one of the earliest Chinese in Chicago, in an outfit as a fourth-­rank official awarded by the Qing government, prob­ably for his community ser­v ice, 1900s. Ruth Moy Collection, Chinese American Museum of Chicago.

ested in the Windy City. As a member of the Moy clan in Taishan County, the coastal Guangdong Province of China where most of the early Chinese immigrants in the Amer­i­cas came from, Moy Dong Chow was known among his countrymen for his stubbornness, resourcefulness, and shrewdness. The rare photos of Moy show him as a man with a commanding presence and a stern face that reveals his determination.1 Moy Dong Chow arrived in Chicago in the mid-1870s, and his two younger ­brothers, Moy Dong Hoy (梅宗凯 Mei Zongkai in Pinyin, aka Sam Moy) and Moy Dong Yee (梅宗瑀 Mei Zongyu in Pinyin), followed soon afterward. Encouraged by the more accommodating reception in Chicago, in 1878 Moy Dong Chow wrote to his countrymen in San Francisco, asking them to also come to Chicago.2 As a result, by 1880 t­ here w ­ ere a hundred Chinese in the city. Moy Dong Chow also continuously sent for his ­family members from the homeland. By 1885, forty members of the extended Moy ­family from his native village ­were living in Chicago. By the end of 1890, ­t here w ­ ere more than 500 Chinese living on South Clark Street, the first Chinatown in Chicago.3 Laundries, grocery stores, and restaurants constituted the early Chinatown. In the mid-1870s, two Chinese laundries in the Loop, a few other businesses, and a Chinese church provided the early structure of the Chinatown in Chicago. Among the Chinese businesses, laundries ­were the easiest to operate ­because they required minimal skill and very l­ittle capital. All a laundryman needed to operate a laundry was a tub, a washboard, soap, an iron, and an ironing board. Chinese laundrymen could canvass a neighborhood, seek out a low-­rent location, and open a business. As a result, Chinese hand laundries developed rapidly. In 1874, ­there

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T r a n s n at i o n a l M i g r at i o n a n d   W o r k ­table 2.1 chinese population in chicago, 1870–2020 Year

Number

Increase

1870

1

0

1880

172

171

1890

584

412

1900

1,179

595

1910

1,778

599

1920

2,353

575

1930

2,757

404

1940

2,018

−739

1950

3,334

1,316

1960

5,082

1,748

1970

9,357

4,275

1980

13,638

4,281

1990

22,295

8,657

2000*

34,370

2,075

2010*

43,228

8,858

2020*

56,676

13,449

* The figure does not include Taiwanese. Source: The 1870–2010 figures are from U.S. Censuses. The 2020 figure is from “Chicago Population,” http://­ www​.­populationu​.­com​/­cities​/­chicago​-­population (accessed April 6, 2021).

­were eigh­teen Chinese laundries in operation, of which fifteen ­were in the Loop (the area of Madison Street and Roo­se­velt Road), two ­were on the near West Side, and one was on the near South Side. Less than a de­cade l­ater, in 1883, the number of Chinese laundries had grown tenfold, to 198. While more than half of them (107) ­were still concentrated in the Loop, the rest w ­ ere scattered across the city. In 1893, the number decreased slightly to 190, but ­t hese ­were more widely spread around the city than had been the case a de­cade e­ arlier.4 The geographic dispersion of the Chinese laundries in Chicago resembled the pattern in other major American cities.5 Along with the development of Chinese laundries, the Chinese population in Chicago grew rapidly. Within two de­cades, it had increased to nearly 600 according to the U.S. Census (­table 2.1), although the local media estimated the popula-

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tion at that time was 2,000.6 On the weekends, the Chinese would congregate in the South Clark Street area to meet kinsmen, eat au­then­tic Chinese meals, and relax by playing fan-­tan (a popu­lar gambling game of the time) or smoking cigars or opium. The Chinese New Year cele­brations w ­ ere the most memorable and joyous events for the Chinese. On New Year’s Day, which often falls in early February of the solar calendar, Chinese men donned their quilted silk robes, put on their immaculate white stockings and thick-­soled shoes, uncoiled their long braids of hair, and hurried to the South Clark Street district to celebrate. The growing presence of Chinese in Chicago had caused discomfort and suspicion among the city’s white residents, who ­were especially uncomfortable with the interactions between Chinese males and white females at the Chinese missions where white female teachers taught En­glish to Chinese male laborers, mostly laundrymen. Unlike the violent anti-­Chinese outbreaks that occurred in New York, Boston, or Milwaukee at the turn of the ­century, the opposition to the Chinese in Chicago took a dif­fer­ent form—­economic sanctions.7 In 1905, a movement to boycott American goods occurred in China to protest the ill-­t reatment of Chinese immigrants in California. Agitated by the boycott of American trade, the property o ­ wners in Chicago’s Loop drastically raised rents to drive out Chinese businesses or tenants. In the early 1910s, the monthly rent for medium-­sized Chinese grocery stores in the South Clark Street area, such as Quong Yuan Chong Kee and Com­pany, was $225, while for the same amount of space on West Twenty-­Second Street on the South Side, rents ranged from $125 to $190 a month.8 Thus, by 1910, about half of the Chinese population was forced to move from Clark Street and into the area immediately south of the Loop.9 In February 1912, On Leong, the dominant community organ­ization consisting of Chinese merchants and laborers, and the businesses associated with that organ­ization, moved from Clark Street to Twenty-­Second Street and Went­worth and Cermak, and the area was immediately proclaimed the “New Chinatown.” While economic pressure seems to have served as the chief force that drove the Chinese out, writers have also speculated that other ele­ments, such as internal rivalry between On Leong Tong and Hip Sing Tong and the construction of a new federal building in the South Clark area, ­were ­causes ­behind the Chinatown removal.10 The new Chinatown on Twenty-­Second Street from Clark Street to Prince­ton Ave­nue was prob­ably one of the city’s dirtiest areas in 1912. It was ­here that the Chinese built a commercial and residential community sheltering at least one-­t hird of the more than 2,000 Chinese in the city during the first de­cades of the twentieth ­century. Following two de­cades of growth and expansion, especially benefiting from the general prosperity of the 1920s, by the 1930s, Chicago’s Chinatown was well established as a distinctive and sizable Chinese American urban community. The development of Chinatown was consistent with the city’s growth. Beginning in 1890, Chicago became known as Amer­i­ca’s “second city” (­after New York) and the largest city in the developing West (at the time, the Midwest was considered part of the West).11

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Theorizing Chicago’s Chinatown: A Vital Link of Transnational Migration and Regional Development In the “second city,” stockyards and factories absorbed the bulk of the workforce. In 1919, more than 70 ­percent of the 400,000 wage earners in Chicago factories worked in companies of at least a hundred employees, and nearly a third of them labored in factories with more than a thousand workers. A typical laborer in Chicago in the 1920s worked for one of the g­ iant employers, such as Armour and Swift in the stockyards; Inland Steel; the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Com­pany; U.S. Steel; the Pullman Com­pany Works; International Harvester plants; Western Electric’s Hawthorne Works; and Hart, Schaffner and Marx, a maker of men’s clothing. Ethnic succession followed similar patterns among meatpackers and steelworkers. The earliest workers in meatpacking factories and steel plants came from Ireland and Germany, and ­later from Bohemia. As skilled work declined and sources of immigrant workers altered, Poles, Lithuanians, and Slovaks, along with Blacks, filled the ranks of a workforce that had become overwhelmingly unskilled and semiskilled.12 However, as of the mid-1920s, only one ethnic group from Asia, the Filipinos, had joined the ­labor force in the post office and the Pullman Com­pany.13 Unlike immigrant workers from other ethnic groups, the Chinese in Chicago did not join the workforce of corporate employers but instead focused on the economic niches of groceries, restaurants, and laundries, ethnic enterprises that had prevailed in other parts of the country with concentrated Chinese populations. A number of scholarly works on the Chinese in Chicago have offered meaningful accounts of Chinese businesses. Although Tin-­Chin Fan’s dissertation, “Chinese Residents in Chicago,” based on surveys among several community organ­izations, provided ­limited narrative and l­ ittle analy­sis of Chinese business, Paul C. P. Siu’s dissertation, “The Chinese Laundryman: A Study of Isolation,” offered a useful theoretical framework that pre­sents the Chinese laundryman as a “sojourner.” Siu’s account of the sojourner’s “back and forth movement” between two shores of the Pacific Ocean could be seen as the earliest work on transnationalism.14 His observation of Chinese laundrymen’s “in-­g roup tendency” is also one of the earliest descriptions of Chinese ethnic kinship networks (Siu’s work is discussed further ­later in the chapter).15 Historian Adam McKeown’s book Chinese Mi­grant Networks and Cultural Change, a comparative study of Chinese migration in three locales, also focuses on the kinship connections and mi­grant networks in Chicago’s Chinatown.16 While Siu and McKeown contributed theoretical frameworks for understanding Chinese in Chicago, neither examined business operations through data from INS rec­ords or impor­tant sources such as Chinese gazetteers, genealogies, local magazines, or government statistics.17 Recognizing the significance and validity of this e­ arlier scholarship, this chapter considers how transnational kinship networks played out in vari­ous aspects of Chinese businesses in Chicago through an examination of the transnational Chinese businesses of the period from the 1870s through the 1930s. A number of char-

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21

acteristics of the Chinese businesses in Chicago during this period deserve par­tic­u­lar attention. First, the grocery businesses in Chicago ­were well connected with transnational ethnic networks and supplied Chinese laundries and chop suey h ­ ouses not only in the city but also in nearby areas and neighboring states. In addition, b ­ ecause Chicago was a transportation hub, many Chinese w ­ ere able to move between it and other U.S. cities, making Chicago a center for Chinese transnational migration and regional socioeconomic development. Second, the city’s metropolitan atmosphere cultivated ambition, a sense of modernity, and a taste for extravagance among Chinese restaurateurs, who helped initiate the trend of Chinese fine dining in the country at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Third, Chinese hand laundries in Chicago not only provided livelihood for thousands of Chinese immigrants but also served as a vast and abundant field for Siu’s research on the Chinese laundryman. Chinese laundries in Chicago (as well as ­t hose in San Francisco and New York) became prototypes for laundries in other midwestern cities and towns. Fourth, Chinese businessmen in Chicago, from the Moy ­brothers to Chin F. Foin and Hong Sling, w ­ ere transnational in their business orientation and operations, serving as examples of early Chinese transnational mi­grants.

Wholesale Centers and Traveling Stores Went­worth Ave­nue and West Twenty-­Second Street, the main thoroughfares of Chinatown, hosted most of the businesses and community organ­izations: 65 on Went­worth Ave­nue and 60 on West Twenty-­Second Street, out of a total of 156 Chinese establishments listed in local Chinese directories in the 1930s.18 The majority of the businesses in Chinatown ­were grocery stores, selling retail and ­wholesale imported goods from China. An advertisement for the Chinese Trading Com­pany, for example, listed products imported from China, such as sesame oil, soy sauce, bamboo shoots, candies, dried foods, and cooking ingredients. The Sam Lung Com­pany, an establishment located in the old Chinatown area of South Clark Street that had been in operation before 1900, sold Chinese groceries, herbs, and silk and other fabrics.19 The larger and more prominent grocery stores (in chronological order based on each store’s period of operation) included Hip Lung Yee Kee at 2243 Went­worth Ave­nue, owned by the three Moy ­brothers; the Wing Chong Hai Com­pany at 281 South Clark Street, owned by Chin F. Foin; Tai Wah and Com­pany at 303 South Clark Street; Quang Yuan Chong Kee and Com­pany at 509 South Clark Street; the Chinese Trading Com­pany at 2214 Archer Ave­nue; and the Sam Lung Com­pany at 431 South Clark Street, owned by Hong Sling. A close examination of some of  the older, established firms in Chicago offers a good picture of the Chinese transnational grocery business in terms of capital investment, partnership, orga­nizational structure, dividends and salaries, daily operation, and business volume. Transnational ethnic networking dominated vari­ous aspects of the Chinese grocery businesses in Chicago. Ethnic networks ­were essential for the large Chinese

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firms for raising capital to start a business, in procurements of merchandise, in recruitment of employees, and in both ­wholesale and retail transactions. Almost without exception, the Chinese business o ­ wners garnered funds through business partnerships with kinsmen and friends rather than obtaining loans from banks, the conventional practice in the United States and other Western socie­t ies for acquiring capital to initiate a business. Numerous immigrant testimonies have described this method of venture capital accumulation. Typically, the large Chinese grocery stores and restaurants would have ten to thirty partners, each investing about $1,000 in the firm. The largest shareholder and or­ga­nizer of a firm usually served as its man­ag­er.20 Members of the Moy, Chin, and Lim clans had largely benefited from kinship networks, as exhibited in the cases of Hip Lung Yee Kee and Com­pany, the Wing Chong Hai Com­pany, Tai Wah and Com­pany, and Quang Yuan Chong Kee and Com­pany. Hip Lung Yee Kee, or Hip Lung for short, the oldest Chinese com­pany in Chicago, was started by an unknown Chinese immigrant by the 1870s. Moy Dong Chow bought it in the late 1870s and named it Hip Lung Yee Kee and Com­ pany. He moved the store to 323 South Clark Street in 1880, and again to 2243 Went­ worth Ave­nue in 1912 when Chinatown relocated to the South Side; the business was known as Hip Lung Yee Kee in the 1930s. The three Moy ­brothers cleverly and strategically divided responsibilities among themselves to operate the transnational ­family business. Moy Dong Chew, the most charismatic of the b ­ rothers and “the oldest Chinese in town,” handled public relations for the business, negotiating with the mainstream media and the Chinese community on behalf of the Moys. Moy Dong Hoy, steady and calm, oversaw the com­pany’s operations, serving as its man­ ag­er beginning in 1885. With his fluent En­glish, Moy Dong Hoy often appeared at the office of the immigration inspector to testify for fellow partners of the com­ pany. Moy Dong Yee, handsome and shrewd, managed the transnational f­amily business on the other side of the Pacific, traveling between Chicago, San Francisco, and Hong Kong. In 1904, Hip Lung had thirty-­five partners, among whom nine, all of them members of the Moy clan, actively participated in the store: Moy Dong Chow, Moy Dong Hoy, Moy Dong Yee, Moy Ben, Moy Lee, Moy Toy, Moy Quan, Moy Hen, and Moy Loy. Of the total capital of $41,000, more than $10,000 was in stock. Two years ­later, in 1906, the nine partners of the firm included the original three Moy ­brothers and also Moy Ham, Moy Shuk, Moy Choon, Moy Han, Moy Gun, and Moy Lee. The store’s worth was $30,000 in goods, apart from bills due to it and goods ordered but not yet received. Moy Dong Chow and Moy Dong Hoy served as man­ag­ers, while Moy Dong Yee was the assistant trea­surer, earning forty dollars a month besides his dividends. When Moy Dong Yee was in China, Moy Toon, a nephew of the Moy b ­ rothers, served as acting trea­sur­er.21 This information reveals some impor­tant points. First, it confirms that the kinship business partnership was essential in the establishment and growth of a business in order to secure both venture capital and growth capital. Second, though t­ here w ­ ere some fluctuations, the com­pany’s valuation and partnership remained within the kin-

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23

ship network. Third, to be competitive, a large firm tended to be transnational in its operation. Chinese sources further reveal that the Moys enjoyed the most extensive transnational migration networks among the major Chinese clans in Chicago. The Chicago Moy Shi Kung Sow (Moy ­Family Association), founded in 1898 as the second Moy branch association in North Amer­i­ca (the first was founded in 1894 in New York), had the largest membership of all the ­family associations in Chicago. A global organ­ization, Moy Shi Kung Sow embodies a transnational network with connections and influences throughout North Amer­i­ca and the world. The Chicago Moys emerged as the leaders of Moy Shi Kung Sow in Amer­i­ca as early as the 1920s. The Chicago Moy Shi Kung Sow hosted the first triannual national Moys Convention in 1927 and several successive ones.22 ­Those broad national and international connections doubtlessly helped the Chicago Moys build their early businesses and reinforced their economic power over time. Transnational ethnic networking was also essential in the recruitment of employees. The Chinese business o ­ wners in Chicago would send for their f­ amily members, kinsmen, or fellow villa­gers, and they would work as paid or unpaid helpers in stores ­after arriving in the city. The major Chinese grocery stores in Chicago normally hired kinsmen as employees. While the Moy ­brothers and members of the Moy clan operated Hip Lung Yee Kee, the Chin clan established a rival firm, the Wing Chong Hai Com­pany, at 381 South Clark Street, by the 1890s. Chin F. Foin, a wealthy, flamboyant merchant in town, served as its assistant man­ag­er from 1895 to 1900 and became manger in 1900. He hired twenty employees to keep the store r­ unning. In 1908, twelve partners, exclusively Chin kinsmen (Chin F. Foin, Chin Yen Quai, Chin F. Toy, Chin See, Chin Hor, Chin Leng, Chin Wing Yuen, Chin Der, Chin Wing, Chin Fung, Chin Sun Cheong, and Chin Lee), jointly owned the firm and also worked as its employees. The store normally had $25,000 worth of goods at any time and sold $50,000 to $60,000 worth of goods annually in the 1910s. Chin F. Foin earned a monthly salary of $120 in addition to dividends in 1908, while Chin Wing Yuen, who had been a member of the firm since 1893, with a share of $1,000, and who worked in the store’s herb section preparing and packing medicine, was paid $60 a month and dividends.23 Clearly, as in the case of Hip Lung Yee Kee, the Wing Chong Hai Com­pany also largely depended on kinship networks for financing and operating the business. The volume of sales of the two firms was comparable. Tai Wah and Com­pany was prob­ably the third-­oldest Chinese grocery store in Chicago. Founded in 1896, it had about $20,000 worth of goods in stock in 1907. Eleven partners, mostly Moy clan members, invested in the com­pany, including Moy Sam (man­ag­er), Moy Lum You, Moy Mon, Lee Park, Moy Yee, Moy Hor, Moy Son, Moy Yoke, Moy Yee Wing, Moy Dung, and Moy Sue Hing. The com­pany’s salesmen w ­ ere paid $35 a month. The store hired experienced employees such as Moy Dung, who worked in a Chinese grocery store, Quong Yuen Sing, in New York prior to his employment at Tai Wah. Clearly, the Chinese business benefited from

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the transnational ethnic network, from which it could recruit better employees. Meanwhile, the network also provided Chinese immigrants with job mobility. As a large and reputable firm, Tai Wah also served as a virtual bank, taking part in  numerous lending transactions and managing savings for many Chinese laborers.24 The dual feature of the large Chinese businesses as both merchandise firms and banks grew out of the practices of moneylending between Chinese kinsmen and friends that occurred in the grocery stores. The moneylending within kinship networks was highly personal and informal. Chinese immigrants generally regarded lending their savings to kinsmen as ­either a familial obligation or a form of investment. In neither case was the lending documented formally and properly. Interpersonal moneylending often took place in the Chinese grocery stores, where close kinsmen or distant “cousins” loaned money to one another while purchasing goods or socializing.25 In such transactions, as “a Chinese custom,” no receipt or other lending documentation was necessary for the Chinese kinsmen.26 For instance, Lum Joy, a laundryman, loaned his cousin Lem Quai $600 in 1903 and another cousin, Lem Dock, $600 in 1904. By the time Lum Joy was planning to go to China for a visit, Lem Quai had paid back $115 and Lem Dock had paid back $45. Both loans took place at the Quang Yuen Com­pany, and the transactions w ­ ere only recorded in the store’s book, while the lender, Lum Joy, did not possess any documentation.27 As the informal moneylending took place in grocery stores more and more frequently, the reputable Chinese stores operated by prominent merchants began serving as banks or investment brokerages for clan members and customers, with the numerous monetary transitions that occurred being regarded as part of the stores’ operations. Many Chinese laborers deposited savings in large firms that would use the funds in their business operations, and therefore would pay a certain percentage of the business’s profit as return. Moy Kee Doy’s case provides a good example in this regard. Moy Kee Doy was born in China in 1871 and came to the United States in 1881. In 1902 he moved to Chicago, where he worked as a cook for military officers at Fort Sheridan for two years. Of his earnings from that job he saved $500, which he put into the hands of Moy Lung You, the bookkeeper of Tai Wah, the grocery store discussed e­ arlier; l­ ater he asked Moy Lung You to invest his $500 savings in the Wee Ying Lo restaurant when it opened in 1903. For this investment he received $7  in dividends for each $100.28 The 7  ­percent return, although modest, was lucrative enough to attract investors among kinsmen and friends. In addition to money management for clan members and customers, some stores also handled sending remittances to families and relatives in China on behalf of their clients. Transnational ethnic networking was more indispensable in the procurement of merchandise. Chinese grocery stores depended largely on imports from China, as the stores carried mostly dry goods, cooking ingredients, herbs, teas, and fabrics produced in China. In her study on Chinese transnationalism and migration, Madeline Y. Hsu notes that the need for Chinese groceries overseas generated the

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businesses called jinshanzhuang, or Gold Mountain firms, in Hong Kong to ­handle the demand. Jinshanzhuang started as early as the 1850s with close links to Chinese businesses overseas that ­were run mostly by kinsmen or fellow villa­gers. On behalf of the Chinese merchandise firms overseas, man­ag­ers of jinshanzhuang took ­orders for Chinese goods and arranged for their shipment. By 1922, t­ here ­were 116 jinshanzhuang in Hong Kong that w ­ ere d ­ oing business with Chinese firms in North Amer­i­ca. Due to the increasing demand, by 1930 the number of jinshanzhuang had more than doubled, to 290.29 Merchandise such as tea, dried foods, cooking ingredients, herbs, fabrics, and porcelains ­were transported from Hong Kong by sea to San Francisco, and then by train to Chicago. The Chinese grocery stores would also dispatch representatives directly to China to purchase goods. Au Tat was one such representative. Born in Ng Woo village, Kaiping District, Guangdong Province, in 1884, Au Tat came to the United States in 1911, arriving first in San Francisco and then taking a train to Chicago. In 1917, he joined the newly established Quong Hong Chong and Com­pany at 219 West Twenty-­ Second Street. With a total capital of $12,000 and annual sales of $80,000, the store sold Chinese groceries and medicine. Having a $1,000 interest in the business, Au Tat served as the store’s bookkeeper and from time to time also procured goods in Hong Kong. In 1919, for instance, he traveled to Hong Kong on a business trip, returning the following year. While in Hong Kong, he placed business ­orders for his com­pany in Chicago with the Quong Loon Chung store at No. 1 Bonham Strand.30 Reflecting the city’s unique economic position as a retail and ­wholesale g­ iant, the Chinese grocery businesses in Chicago served as central suppliers distributing goods to other cities and small towns in the hinterland. Unlike the large firms mentioned e­ arlier, which all handled both ­wholesale and retail business, Quang Yuan Chong Kee and Com­pany supplied goods to stores in small towns of the region. Opened in 1906, it was initially located in the old Chinatown at 509 South Clark Street, where it paid $225 per month for rent. In 1913, along with many other Chinese businesses on South Clark Street, it moved to the South Side at 241 West Twenty-­Second Street, where it paid a monthly rent of $190. By 1913, it had twenty-­ five partners, mostly from the Lim clan, with a total capitalization of $30,000. Eight of the partners worked in the store (Lim Bon with a $2,500 interest, Lim Chong $2,500, Lim Foo and Lim Shrar Lett $2,700, Lim Guy $1,000, Lim Ying $1,000, Toy Hung Chuck $1,000, and Lim Yee $700). Lim Shear Lett, who had the largest share of the firm, had served as the man­ag­er since the store opened, and Toy Hung Chuck served as the bookkeeper. Lim Yee worked as a salesclerk with a monthly salary of $35, selling goods in the store or traveling in the neighboring states of Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin and in smaller towns in Illinois for the firm. He often traveled to ­Battle Creek and Lansing in Michigan, and to Indianapolis, Kokomo, Fort Wayne, and Peru in Indiana to take o ­ rders for goods and collect debts from the local grocers. An image-­conscious man, Lim Yee purchased his suit and hat in Peru, Indiana, when he saw them in a store on one of his business trips.31 While the case of Quang Yuan Chong Kee and Com­pany illustrates how the larger merchandise companies served as ­wholesale centers to the Chinese grocers

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in other cities in the Midwest, Annie Leong’s f­ amily history offers an example of how smaller grocers in midwestern cities benefited from the business connections with Chicago. Annie Leong’s ­father came to St. Louis in 1920 and established a successful Chinese restaurant. Four years l­ ater, he brought his bride to St. Louis from his hometown, Xinhui, Guangdong, in China. Leong and her two older ­brothers ­were all born and grew up in Hop Alley, the Chinatown in St. Louis. During the 1920s and 1930s, the Leong ­family owned a Chinese restaurant in downtown and a grocery store in Hop Alley. The Leongs ordered merchandise for their grocery store from w ­ holesalers in Chicago, San Francisco, and New York. All the c­ hildren spent their time ­after school working in the ­family grocery store. Many years ­later, Annie Leong recalled her childhood experiences retailing goods: “We got them on credit, and we have thirty days to pay. If you d ­ on’t have a good credit, you have to pay right away. They gave us ­wholesale price, and we retail them. The ­whole ­family helps to do the business. ­After the operation, what­ever is left is our profit.”32 The major Chinese grocery stores in Chicago generally had tight operational structures, with a clear job description for each employee. Quong Hong Cheng and Com­pany at 219 West Twenty-­Second Street, a medium-­sized store that sold Chinese groceries and medicines, had twelve business partners, each owning a share of $1,000. The six active members employed in the store had the following work division: Jack Sam Tsai as man­ag­er, Au Tat as bookkeeper, Dea Hawk Woon as trea­ surer, Dea Mer Quong as salesman, Yee Woi Wah as Chinese druggist, and Dea Sung as En­glish correspondent and interpreter.33 While the large grocery stores in the heart of Chinatown enjoyed steady patrons, many Chinese grocery stores located on the brink of or outside of Chinatown depended more on w ­ holesale business with Chinese chop suey shops and laundries. Mr. Fung was a farmer in China who came to Amer­i­ca in the 1890s. ­Because his grocery store in Chicago was not located in the center of Chinatown, his business depended chiefly on ­wholesale transactions, primarily selling chop suey supplies of meats and vegetables delivered daily by his car to chop suey ­houses and laundries run by his cousins.34 In addition to the regular grocery stores, ­there w ­ ere also traveling grocery stores that emerged at the end of World War I but developed rapidly in the 1920s and 1930s due to the increase of Chinese laundries and chop suey ­houses in the city and throughout the country. Paul C. P. Siu counted twenty-­five trucks that ran daily in the 1930s, making deliveries to Chinese laundries and chop suey ­houses throughout Chicago. They carried laundry supplies, meats, vegetables, cooking ingredients, imported and locally produced food supplies, and h ­ ouse­hold miscellanies. Some traveling stores sold primarily fresh meats, poultry, vegetables, and Chinese delicatessen foods. O ­ thers that w ­ ere dispatched by the larger stores in Chinatown carried a more complete inventory, including not only foods but also laundry supplies. The laundryman usually did his food shopping on Sundays, the only day he took off from his business. He could carry some dried foods, and even fresh foods, back home with him that might last a few days. By the ­middle of the week, however, he was out of fresh foods and would have to

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buy more from the traveling stores. Such demand soon generated a growing business of traveling stores. A similar situation occurred in the Chinese chop suey h ­ ouses. A chop suey ­house could buy dry ingredients from the Chinese ­wholesale stores, but perishable foods had to be purchased daily. Since the chop suey ­houses used a considerable quantity of meats, poultry, fish, and vegetables, the daily supplies of the fresh foods w ­ ere essential to the business operation. As the largest Chinese urban center in the Midwest, Chicago witnessed a swelling number of Chinese chop suey ­houses in the 1910s when the trend was spreading across the country. The majority of the 250 Chinese restaurants in the city w ­ ere chop suey h ­ ouses. One smart man first noticed the demand and started a traveling grocery business. When he became successful, many more soon followed the suit, and traveling grocery stores or delivery businesses turned into a significant sector of the grocery business. A typical traveling storekeeper would first purchase a truck. He would then buy grocery items from grocery stores and fresh meats and vegetables from local suppliers at ­wholesale prices and drive his truck across the town to his customers. A key to the success of a traveling store was the own­er’s kinship networks. If a traveling storekeeper had a large circle of “cousins,” e­ ither by lineage or by geographic region of his ancestral village, and relatives, he could make a decent living from the business. Siu noted the importance of kinship networks in his examination of a four-­man laundry on Chicago’s far North Side. He observed that seven traveling grocers ­stopped at the laundry in sequence each week, selling foods and laundry supplies. The laundry’s account books indicated that the traveling grocers who ­were relatives of the laundrymen had the most steady sales, whereas traveling grocers who w ­ ere strangers had only sporadic and random sales.35 The traveling store model was also practiced in other midwestern cities, such as Oriental Tea in St. Louis in the 1920s. Bigger than most grocery stores with single owner­ship, Oriental Tea had several partners to finance and operate the store, and it sold supplies to Chinese laundries and restaurants. Richard Ho’s ­father was a partner of the store, who brought then 10-­year-­old Richard from Canton, China, to St. Louis in 1928. Richard Ho l­ater worked for the store as a driver of a small panel truck that delivered ordered goods to Chinese laundries and restaurants and accepted new ­orders from t­ hese customers for the next round of deliveries.36 ­These cases indicate how the sale of merchandise by Chinese businesses relied on transnational ethnic networks to varying degrees, depending on the type and size of a given business. While the larger Chinese mercantile companies dealt in ­wholesale transactions with Chinese business o ­ wners from other cities in the midwestern region as well as retail sales to local residents, the petty grocers or traveling stores relied heavi­ly on retail sales to kinsmen and friends, who felt obligated to patronize t­ hese businesses. In e­ ither case, the transnational migration networks ­were indispensable. In addition to their regular business operations, the Chinese grocery stores and other food ser­v ice businesses provided temporary or long-­term lodging for

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Chinese laborers, thus serving as boarding facilities or h ­ otels. For instance, in 1906, Louie Yap, a hired laundryman, lived in the store of the Sam Lung Com­pany at 299 South Clark Street.37 Gong Dock Death, a restaurant worker, lived in the Hong Kong Noodle Factory at West 152 Twenty-­Second Street in the 1910s and 1920s.38 Hip Lung, run by the Moy b ­ rothers, also served as a h ­ otel.39 The Chinese grocery stores constituted a significant part of the Chinatown businesses and provided 600 individuals, or one-­seventh of the Chinese population in Chicago in the 1920s, a livelihood largely through kinship connections. The multiple functions of Chinese grocery stores as w ­ holesalers and retailers, banks, and ­hotels diversified and increased the businesses’ profit margins and provided necessary ser­v ices within the transnational mi­g rant network. More impor­tant, the economic significance of the grocery stores went far beyond Chinatown in Chicago, since they served as suppliers of merchandise to numerous smaller stores in cities and towns of the midwestern region. A local Chinese marveled at the sales volume of the Chinese grocery stores that tightly lined Twenty-­Second and South Clark Streets in the 1920s, saying that the stores may look small, “but this is not a basis to estimate the volume of their business. Indeed they do much more business in t­ hese stores than can be estimated by an outsider.” 40

Pioneers of Chinese Fine Dining Chinese restaurants ­were the second impor­tant type of business in Chinatown. In 1926, ­t here w ­ ere about 250 Chinese restaurants located at “­every con­ve­nient point along the principal thoroughfares.” 41 By 1930, t­ here w ­ ere at least eleven established Chinese restaurants located in South Chinatown. The following w ­ ere located on Went­worth Ave­nue: Mee Hung Restaurant at 2125, Guey Sam Restaurant at 2205, Tin Dong Restaurant at 2206, Eastern Star Restaurant at 2225, Won Kow Restaurant at 2235, and Wah Ying Lo Restaurant at 2254. On West Twenty-­Second Street could be found San Lee Yuan Com­pany at 158, Pagoda Inn Restaurant at 202, L ­ ittle Pomroi Restaurant at 208, and G ­ reat China Restaurant at 225. In addition, Foo Chow Restaurant was located at 411 South Clark Street, in the old Chinatown.42 Situated in a hub of land, ­water, and rail transportation, where foreign dignitaries, international celebrities, and rich businessmen often visited or s­ topped over while in transit, Chinese restaurants in Chicago may have contributed to the rise of upscale Chinese fine dining. The Chinese restaurateurs with vision, a taste for elegance, and a sense of modernity had emerged in Chicago’s Chinatown. Chin F. Foin (see figure 2.2) was arguably the first and exemplary modernized Chinese restaurateur in Chicago. Born in Sin-­ning (Xinning, whose name was changed to Taishan in 1914) County, Guangdong Province in 1877, Foin came to Amer­i­ca in 1892 as a 15-­year-­old and arrived in Chicago three years l­ater. Young and adaptable, he quickly picked up the En­glish language and American ways of life. It was believed that he could speak German fluently, and he lived a life rivaling that of wealthy, trendy American businessmen. He rode h ­ orse­back, owned an automobile when cars first became available for consumers, joined an exclusive social club, and had connections with both Chinese ministers and influential Chicagoans.

Figure 2.2. ​Chin F. Foin and his wife, 1906. Chin F. Foin was arguably the first and exemplary modernized Chinese restaurateur in Chicago. National Archives and Rec­ords Administration–­Great Lakes Region (Chicago).

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When Kang Youwei, the eminent Chinese reformer and royalist, visited Chicago, Foin was t­ here to escort him.43 By 1905, in addition to owning the grocery store Wing Chong Hai Com­pany, Foin was the owner of King Yen Lo Restaurant at 277–279 South Clark Street, one of the finest Chinese American restaurants in Chicago at the turn of the ­century. Located in the original old Chinatown at the corner of Clark and Van Buren Streets, the restaurant was filled with sumptuous furniture made in China. The wooden t­ables had mother-­of-­pearl decorations and w ­ ere topped with marble, a popu­lar style of the time. The restaurant was patronized by visiting Chinese officials and other prominent Chinese, as well as upper-­class Chicago socialites.44 As in his Chinese grocery business, the Wing Chong Hai Com­ pany, Chin F. Foin also had a number of partners who invested in the restaurant, among whom kinsmen Ham Sam had invested $1,300 and Hum Sing $1,200.45 Chin F. Foin ­later also invested in the King Joy Lo Mandarin Restaurant, prob­ ably the most extravagant Chinese American restaurant in Chicago established at the turn of the c­ entury. Also located in the Loop area at 277–279 South Clark Street at the corner of Van Buren Street, it ­adopted all the amenities that ­were fash­ion­able in fine Western restaurants of the time.46 It featured a live orchestra and dance floor and provided American customers with Western-­style silverware. Its menu guaranteed satisfaction and provided extra assistance to customers who w ­ ere unfamiliar with Chinese cuisine, stating, “If you experience difficulty in making se­lection, the floor walker w ­ ill cheerfully aid you.” 47 A 1930s photo­graph shows the restaurant decorated with elegant Chinese artwork. The downstairs dining room was spacious and stylish, with a pleasant, clean appearance. The wide staircase was divided by large, ornate columns. Carved banisters displayed skilled Chinese workmanship, and the walls and ceiling ­were adorned with carvings and paintings of Chinese themes.48 ­These concerted efforts reveal Chin F. Foin as an ambitious, visionary businessman who aspired to create the best dining experiences for his customers. Another upscale restaurant, Guey Sam Restaurant, which opened in 1901, was first located in the South Clark Street area; ­later, along with most other Chinese businesses, it moved to South Chinatown. ­There, in the 1930s, it was located at 2205 Went­worth Ave­nue, on the second floor at the corner of Went­worth Ave­nue and Cermak Road.49 A postcard of the restaurant in the 1920s shows its interior with modern decor and Western-­style round t­ ables covered with starched table­cloths and napkins. The spacious restaurant was air-­conditioned and could hold more than a hundred guests at once. The restaurant changed hands in 1950 but kept the same name. Its tableware, which was custom-­made by the Shenan Com­pany in New ­Castle, Pennsylvania, was decorated with a logo boasting the restaurant’s name. Similarly, the Hoe Sai Gai Restaurant at 85 West Randolph Street in the Loop was also decorated in the fash­ion­able art deco style of the 1930s, which distinguished it from most other Chinese restaurants.50 The Pagoda Inn Restaurant at 202 West Twenty-­Second Street, on the other hand, was furnished with Chinese decor and a Chinese shrine. It was preferred and patronized by community organ­izations such as the progressive Young China Club, which celebrated its third anniversary at the restaurant in 1936.51

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Like Chin F. Foin, the Moy b ­ rothers also invested in and operated restaurants. Moy Dong Hoy was the primary shareholder and man­ag­er of the Wee Ying Lo and Song Ying Lo restaurants. Opened in 1903 and located at 174 South Clark Street, Wee Ying Lo had $30,000 in capital investments.52 Following the success of Wee Ying Lo, Moy Dong Hoy and his partners opened a branch restaurant, Song Ying Lo, in the same year with $40,000 in capital. The two restaurants jointly had twenty-­ five partners with a total investment of $70,000. The restaurants’ cooks ­were paid $55 to $60 a month.53 Although no evidence is available that documents the appearance of ­t hese restaurants, the capital investment easily suggests their decor and furnishings w ­ ere comparable to t­ hose of their rival restaurants, such as King Yen Lo and King Joy Lo, run by Chin F. Foin. Tom Lok was another visionary Chinese restaurateur. Born in Canton City, China, in 1868, he came to the United States in 1881, landing in San Francisco as a 13-­year-­old teen, possibly as a “paper son” of a Chinese merchant (this was a practice during the Chinese exclusion era, from 1882 to 1943, of using a false document to identify a male as a “son” of a merchant so that he could enter the country). Ten years ­later he went to New York to learn the restaurant business, and at the turn of the c­ entury he moved to Chicago. He became interested in a property at 349 South Clark Street, where an Italian restaurant owned by Tom Cincho was in operation. ­After Cincho’s death in 1916, Tom Lok bought the business from Cincho’s wife and heirs for $15,000 and converted it into a large chop suey restaurant with a seating capacity of 200. Unlike ­owners of other large Chinese restaurants who accumulated capital from kinsmen and fellow villa­gers, Lok was the sole proprietor. In 1923, the volume of the business was $100,000, of which $3,000 was Lok’s net profit. He employed fifteen ­people: seven cooks in the kitchen, six waiters in the dining room, and two white men who worked closely with the restaurant. Charles F. Hille, an attorney at 109 North Dearborn Street, came to the restaurant once a month. H. L. Henson, a salesman of w ­ holesale groceries and rice at 251 East Grant Ave­nue, visited the restaurant once a week to take ­orders and collect payments. In 1924, eight years ­a fter he bought the business, Lok estimated that its worth had more than doubled, to $40,000.54 The large Chinese restaurants in Chicago at the turn of the ­century not only ­were extravagant in appearance but also had large seating capacities, indicating the growing demand for Chinese food ser­v ices in the area. The Golden Pheasant Inn at 72 West Madison Street, opened in 1916, was reportedly the largest Chinese restaurant in Chicago in the 1920s. It had a capitalization of $75,000 from thirty shareholders, each of whom received 10  ­percent dividends, twice as much as was paid out by smaller Chinese restaurants. With 175 t­ ables and 75 employees, the Golden Pheasant Inn may have been one of the largest restaurants at that time. ­Because of its high volume of diners and large number of employees, the restaurant required effective management and well-­defined responsibilities for employees. Eng Gow, president of the com­pany and general man­ag­er, oversaw the operations and procured supplies from Henson. Ng Gar Chung, one of the shareholders with an investment of $1,250, was first hired in 1917 as a checker,

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essentially a kitchen man­ ag­ er, whose primary responsibility was to prevent ­mistakes by making sure the items on the order matched the food on the trays before they ­were carried out by waiters. A year and half l­ater, Ng Gar Chung was promoted to the position of dining room man­ag­er, making a monthly salary of $75.55 His promotion suggests the importance of management in the restaurant’s operation and success. While the Chinese restaurants in Chinatown offered more au­t hen­tic Chinese food and catered largely to Chinese clientele, ­t hose outside the bound­aries of Chinatown seemed to serve more non-­Chinese diners; their mixed menus offered Western dishes such as sirloin steak and Americanized Chinese dishes such as chop suey (fried rice with meats and vegetables) and chow mein (fried noodles with meats and vegetables). A restaurant guide dated from around the 1930s lists Chicago restaurants in alphabetical order, providing a good idea of the cultural mix of the cosmopolitan city at the time. For example, Bamboo Inn at 11 North Clark Street, specializing in Cantonese food, served “AA” club sirloin steak ($3.00) and fried chicken and bacon ($1.50), along with beef chop suey or chow mein ($1.60) and chicken chow mein ($2.00). Hoe Sai Gai at 75–85 Randolph Street listed egg rolls ($0.85), boiled filet mignon ($2.85), hon su gai (chicken fritters and Chinese vegetables) ($1.85), and fried half chicken, club style ($1.45). The Nankin Restaurant at 230 North Dearborn Street, featuring Cantonese food, served beef rice ($1.35), chicken subgum chow mein (Nankin special) ($1.65), and fried tender half chicken, disjointed ($1.65).56 Even the Chinese restaurants beyond Chinatown’s bound­aries w ­ ere not necessarily small. The Canton Café at 9146 Commercial Ave­nue on the South Side of Chicago, for instance, had a seating capacity of 100. Kong Ming and Charlie Get ­were the joint partners of the restaurant, with capital of $10,000. Eight employees worked ­t here, including Kong Ming, who served as the man­ag­er. In 1923, the restaurant reported $40,000 to $50,000 worth of business.57 Joe Hing Lo at 2020 West Madison Street was another Chinese restaurant outside of Chinatown. Wong Lung was the sole owner since 1913, but he sold half of the restaurant’s interest, $1,000, to Joe Leong in 1920. Joe Hing Lo had nineteen t­ ables and six employees, including Wong Lung, who served as the man­ag­er and bookkeeper; Joe Leong, the assistant man­ag­er; two waiters; and two cooks. Wong Lung paid himself $80 a month plus 5 ­percent dividends, and the cooks ­were paid $70 to $80 a month. The restaurant’s annual business value was $30,000.58 ­These cases clearly illustrate the fast growth and economic significance of Chinese restaurants in Chicago during the last de­cades of the nineteenth ­century and the first de­cades of the twentieth ­century. The annual business volume of $30,000 for small restaurants and $100,000 or more for large restaurants would amass to about $1.6 million (the equivalent of $310 million t­ oday) as the total annual business value for the 250 Chinese restaurants in town. With such financial capacity, it is no won­der that Chicago’s prominent restaurateurs could make their establishments the finest and most extravagant of the time.

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The Chinese entrepreneurs in Chicago w ­ ere deft and savvy in promoting their enterprises through lavish investment, as was apparent in Chinese participation in the two world’s fairs in Chicago in 1893 and 1933–1934, respectively. The World’s Columbian Exposition, held in 1893, provided an early, positive exposure to Chinese and Chinese Americans for many Americans. ­Because the Chinese Qing government boycotted the fair in protest of the Chinese exclusion laws, Chinese participation in the exposition was sponsored by Wah Mee Corporation, a private com­pany formed solely for the purpose of participating in the fair. The three man­ ag­ers and main investors of the com­pany w ­ ere all prominent Chinese businessmen in Amer­i­ca. Its president, Dr.  Gee Woo Chan, was originally a Chinese government official who arrived in 1884 to observe the New Orleans Exposition. He overstayed his visa ­after his official commission expired and remained in the country. He first practiced Chinese herbal medicine in San Francisco, then invested his money in real estate and a “higher standard of business enterprises.”59 The second investor, Hong Sling, was a young but wealthy newcomer to Chicago. He previously lived in Omaha, Nebraska, and invested heavi­ly in real estate, particularly in railroads as a contractor on the West Coast. He moved to Chicago before the 1893 fair, anticipating that it would be a good business opportunity. As a wealthy owner of the Sam Lung Com­pany, he was believed to have played a major role in the Chicago Chinese community up to the 1930s. Although his En­glish was not as proficient as Dr. Chan’s, he was well connected and had close associations with several American civic leaders in Chicago. An experienced restaurateur, he was also reportedly the one who introduced chop suey to the Midwest. The third investor and trea­surer of the com­pany was Wong Kee, the owner of a grocery store on South Clark Street. Although he was believed to be the richest Chinese in Chicago, Wong Kee was low-­key about his fortune.60 The Wah Mee Corporation created a Chinese Village consisting of a Chinese theater, a joss ­house (or Chinese ­temple), a tea­house, and a shopping bazaar. The participation of Chinese businessmen in the 1893 exposition was motivated partly by nationalistic pride and partly by practical business instincts. The fair proved to be an effective venue to arouse Americans’ curiosity; to educate the American public about Chinese architecture, culinary culture, customs, philosophy, religion, and theatrical art; and to promote the Chinese restaurant businesses throughout the country and particularly in the Midwest. The historian Mae M. Ngai has made a similar observation about the commercial efforts of Chinese entrepreneurs who participated in the fair: “The Chinese village was an early prototype for Chinese American efforts to develop urban Chinatowns as tourist destinations, a trend that began in San Francisco in the 1910s.” 61 The Chinese Café in the Chinese Village was believed to be one of the first Chinese restaurants in the Midwest to cater to non-­Chinese diners. The o ­ wners imported 2,000 pairs of ivory chopsticks from China but also thoughtfully provided knives and forks. Low Luck, “the best cook of Hong Kong,” was hired as the chief chef of the restaurant at the fair, but his culinary talent was mainly displayed

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at the banquets for VIP visitors. At one such banquet, “a feast was spread which demonstrated much perfection in the art of cookery . . . ​a ll sorts of Chinese delicacies w ­ ere served with American soups and meats, as well as some strong rice wines and brandies and whiskies.” 62 The menu lists a well-­t hought-­out combination of Chinese food and Western soups and steaks, revealing the Chicago Chinese businessmen’s conscious efforts to introduce Chinese cuisine to non-­Chinese diners at this large venue. The enormous efforts by Chinese entrepreneurs ­were also noted by members of the American public. William Walton, in his book Art and Architecture (1893), marveled at the endeavors of the Chinese American entrepreneurs: Much was hoped by the Exposition authorities in the way of a worthy exhibit from China, but unfortunate international legislation intervened to prevent that government from taking any official part in the Fair. The Chinese village in the Midway Plaisance is the enterprise of a syndicate of [Chicago-­based] Celestial merchants, and the buildings w ­ ere designed by a Chicago architect. They include a theatre, restaurant, Joss ­house from which the Joss has departed, and bazaar; some of the tea offered for sale is priced at a hundred dollars per pound, only a few leaves being required to make a pot of the beverage. In the pavilion in the Manufactures Building are exhibited the well-­k nown industrial and artistic productions of the empire, porcelains, ivory carvings, embroideries, textile fabrics, ­etc.; and in the Transportation Building a number of models of Chinese boats and other modes of conveyance.63

Compared with the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893, Chinese participation in the 1933–1934 C ­ entury of Pro­gress, also held in Chicago, was a concerted joint effort by the Chinese government; private Chinese and Chinese American merchants; a Swedish explorer, Dr. Sven Hedin, who brought a replica of the Golden Lama ­Temple of Jehol (Rehe) to the fair; and the Japa­nese government, promoting its newly acquired Manzhouguo, a puppet state in Manchuria, China (which was frowned upon by the Chinese in Chicago). The Chinese display featured a jade pavilion, Foochow lacquerware, and, in 1934, the Street of Shanghai. Although the display was not as extravagant as t­ hose in 1893, it showed off the efforts of the local Chinese business community. Since the site of the fair was about a mile from Chinatown, many local merchants financed the concessions t­ here, and many Chinatown residents worked at the fair. The Street of Shanghai in 1934 was completely financed by Chinese merchants in Chicago. The highlight of Chinese participation in the fair was a parade held on October 1, 1933, and or­ga­nized by the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, commonly known as Zhonghua Huiguan. The parade consisted of floats, bands, Boy Scouts, and beautiful girls wearing Chinese costumes. It started at Michigan Ave­nue, then moved through the fair along the Ave­nue of the Flags and the Golden Lama ­Temple and the Chinese Village.64 Chinese participation in the 1933–1934 fair was the most effective promotional effort by the Chicago Chinese merchants.

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Although the promotion of Chinese businesses through cultural exoticism may have reinforced the American public’s ste­reo­t yped notions of Chinese ­people and their culture, its effectiveness in attracting non-­Chinese patrons was undeniable. Chinese participation in the two world’s fairs demonstrates the vision and strategies of the Chinese business community in Chicago. The successful participation was only pos­si­ble when members of Chicago’s Chinese business community consciously employed their transnational ­human and financial resources.

Paul Siu’s Laundryman and Beyond Like grocery and restaurant businesses, laundry work was one of the niche occupations for Chinese in Chicago and has been meticulously documented in Paul C. P. Siu’s study The Chinese Laundryman: A Study of Social Isolation. This book, originally a dissertation that took Siu twenty-­five years to complete and was fi­nally published in book form in 1987, a year ­after Siu’s death, exhaustively investigated all the pos­si­ble aspects of a Chinese laundryman’s life. This empirical study provides invaluable, detailed, and vivid sources on Chinese laundrymen. Upon its publication, it seemed that ­t here was nothing more to be done on the topic. My research on INS immigration rec­ords, the Ernest Watson Burgess Papers (which contain some of Siu’s essays for classes and interview notes), and other primary sources, however, indicates other­w ise. Paul Siu’s own f­ amily history, as told by John Kuo Wei Tchen in his editor’s introduction to Siu’s book, is a compelling tale of transnational migration and of the Chinese laundryman. Paul Siu was born in 1906 as Siu Chan Pang (Xiao Chenpeng), the oldest son of the f­ amily in a village with 300 families of the Siu clan in the Taishan County of the coastal Guangdong Province of China. Like most Taishanese, his f­ ather came to the United States through the migration chain of clansmen. His modest hand laundry in St. Paul, Minnesota, supported a ­family of eight back home and made it pos­si­ble for his oldest son, Chan Pang, to attend a Guangzhou missionary school named Piu Ying School, an American-­run m ­ iddle school. Chan Pang received his Christian name, Paul, at the Piu Ying School, and a­ fter graduating he taught for a year in China. In 1927, Paul C. P. Siu was brought to the United States by his ­father to further his education. For a year he stayed in his ­father’s laundry, where he encountered the harsh life of a laundryman. Then he went to Chicago, a bustling and growing industrial metropolis, in search of better opportunities. As a poor immigrant student, he had to work at chop suey h ­ ouses during the day and attend school at night. A few years l­ater, his ­father moved to Chicago and opened a laundry. Paul and his f­ ather socialized with clansmen at the Siu f­ amily clan association in Chicago’s Chinatown on Sundays. ­Because Paul was busy making a living at the laundry and chop suey h ­ ouses, his schooling was g­ oing so slowly and badly that he was ready to quit. In the summer of 1932, an old classmate from the Piu Ying School introduced him to Ernest Watson Burgess, a professor of sociology at the University of Chicago who specialized in urban studies. Impressed by Siu’s intelligence and his connections with the Chinese community,

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Burgess offered him a scholarship. Thus began the long-­term student-­mentor relationship between the two men.65 While Siu’s study on Chinese laundrymen in Chicago has been recognized as a significant work, Siu did not utilize the abundant sources from the INS rec­ords. The INS rec­ords on the Chicago Chinese Case Files from 1898 to 1940 consist of more than 6,000 files. Early files often document admission denials to Chinese laborers who w ­ ere alleged offenders of laws. ­Later files, especially a­ fter 1920, refer mainly to applications for return certificates or for student status. Th ­ ese case files provide further information to supplement Siu’s study, especially on capital investments, business volume, and wages and profits. As government rec­ords of affidavits, entry and departing documents such as ship tickets, birth certificates and resident certificates, and testimonies of cross-­interrogations of Chinese immigrants or residents and their witnesses, the CCCF manuscripts have been regarded by historians and other scholars as primary sources that tend to be more objective, and with greater credibility and accountability, than participant observations and personal interviews, which w ­ ere the primary methodologies and sources employed in Siu’s study of Chinese laundrymen in Chicago. The following cases from the INS rec­ords provide a profile of a laundryman’s life in Chicago at the turn of the ­century. Many laundrymen started businesses with loans from friends or kinsmen or ­else took over a laundry business from a friend or a kinsman by owing the debt to the former owner. Generally, a one-­man laundry was worth $550 and could take a monthly business volume of $200, and a two-­man laundry would have double that value and business. For instance, Moy Lun borrowed $550 in 1907 from his cousin Moy Gee Nie to invest in a laundry on Cottage Grove Ave­nue.66 Chin Wing and Chin Teng jointly owned a laundry at 3223 Cottage Grove Ave­nue in 1906. Their laundry was worth $1,100, and it did a weekly business of about $110; they paid a monthly rent of $32.50. In 1907, Chin Wing turned his half of the laundry, valued at $550, over to his friend Chin Show without getting payment; instead, Chin Show owed the $550 to Chin Wing.67 Mark Do Wea’s and Chan Wing’s cases provide good examples of the operation of Chinese laundries. Mark Do Wea was born in China in 1860 and ran a laundry at 5631 Went­worth Ave­nue in the 1910s. His laundry, with a worth of $500, was equipped with tubs, irons, and a gas-­powered ironing machine for ironing collars, cuffs, and shirts; its average weekly business volume was about $50.68 Similarly, Chan Wing started his laundry on Sixty-­Third Street in 1900 with $500 in capital. Three years ­later, Charlie Chin joined the laundry and took charge of the bookkeeping for the business. When the laundry was closed at night, Charlie Chin took and looked a­ fter the money made during the day. He reported the account to Chan Wing on a weekly or biweekly basis. In 1905, when Chan Wing was planning to visit China, he sold the business to Chin Leung Dum for $1,380.69 Whereas the ­owners of small, one-­or two-­man laundries worked in their laundries as laborers, the ­owners of larger laundries did not work ­there but instead hired workers to do the ­actual laundering. For instance, Goon Pon Sing bought a laundry at 105 Lake Street in Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago, from Moy Chong in 1904

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at the price of $1,400. Goon Pon Sing only came to the laundry e­ very Saturday to pay wages to each of the four laundrymen who worked for him: Goon Toon, who was paid $17; Yik Loon, $13; Fook Seu, $14; and Goon Dai, $14. He also had a bookkeeper, Goon Toon Pak, to keep accounts and pay all other expenses. Goon Pon Sing took in about $120 to $140 worth of business each week, from which he drew a profit of $30. He also owned a horse-­drawn wagon and paid $3 to $4 a week for the stable where he kept the ­horse.70 Interracial coexistence was also evident in the operation of Chinese laundries. Some Chinese laundry operators hired non-­Chinese employees, as illustrated in the business owned by the f­ ather of David Lee. David Lee’s f­ ather came to San Francisco in 1918; in 1924 he moved to Chicago, where he operated a hand laundry to support his large ­family. He hired a Black ­woman, a white ­woman, and a Mexican ­woman to help with the washing and ironing.71 The earnings from a laundry w ­ ere meager, about $50 a month, or 20 ­percent of the normal business volume in the 1910s. For instance, Kong Choon owned half of a laundry at 4626 Cottage Grove Ave­nue in the 1900s. His share was $620, and he could make $50 to $80 a month.72 With a frugal lifestyle, however, many laundrymen could save about $1,000 ­after five years of toiling in the business. For example, Louis Fook came to the United States in 1879. By 1906, he had saved $1,000 from his laundry at 299 South Clark Street, which he had owned for five years.73 Lum Joy was born in China in 1864 and came to the United States in 1881. In 1905, he was a laundryman in Chicago making on average $55 a month. From this salary he was able to save more than $1,000 and loaned his savings to two of his cousins.74 Moy Len also saved $1,000 from his laundry at 2036 West North Ave­nue and deposited it at the G ­ reat Lakes Trust Com­pany, arguably the only mainstream Chicago bank that served Chinese immigrants at the time.75 The more enterprising laundrymen would invest their savings in Chinese restaurants for profit. In 1903, for instance, Hum Sing, a laundryman, invested his savings of $1,200 in the King Yen Lo Restaurant and received dividends.76 Not all laundrymen, however, could amass savings from their meager earnings. In 1907, Moy Dun owned half of a laundry at 307 East Forty-­Th ird Street, from which he could make only enough for his living expenses. When his f­ amily in China was about to build a h ­ ouse and needed money from him, he had to borrow $500 from a friend to send to his ­family for the ­house construction.77 Owning a laundry business was not just a significant means to sustain the Chinese; the owner­ship of a laundry also served as a basis for a Chinese laborer’s request for a return certificate before departing for China, as immigration regulations required possession of a minimum $1,000 worth of property or debts as a basis for the right for a return certificate.78 For instance, Goon Pon Sing claimed the owner­ ship of his laundry, worth $1,400, at 105 Lake Street, Oak Park, as entitling him to a laborer’s return certificate when he was planning a visit to China in 1907.79 Numerous cases from the INS rec­ords also indicate some Chinese laundrymen turned over their businesses to kinsmen or friends, which became credits for them to claim a right for a return certificate. For instance, Chin Wing was applying for a

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laborer’s return certificate in 1907, based on the claim that ­people owed him more than $1,000; he had loaned $550 to Chin Show, in the form of the half share of the laundry that Chin Show took over from him, and $500 to Chin Mon Pon, who put the sum into a separate laundry.80 The Chinese hand laundry also served as an indispensable vehicle that enabled the eco­nom­ically disenfranchised Chinese to move around in search of better economic opportunities. Laundry work was clearly demonstrated to be a portable occupation, as seen in domestic migration between Chicago and other cities. St. Louis, as the second-­largest city in the Midwest, was a favored destination of remigration for many Chinese laundrymen from Chicago; the reverse movement also occurred occasionally, as illustrated in the example of Lam Lap Goey, a laundryman in St. Louis for some years. In 1901, he moved to Chicago to look for a new business, in the meantime working in a laundry to support himself. Planning to start a laundry, he borrowed $650 from Lam Chee Dai, a laundryman and friend he had known since he came to Chicago.81

Earnings for Transnational Families The INS rec­ords provide firsthand information on vari­ous aspects of the operations of Chinese businesses in Chicago. Tin-­Chiu Fan’s empirical investigation supplements that information with data on trade distribution and earnings of Chinese laborers. Fan surveyed 161 Chinese male adult students from the area schools, 245 Chinese YMCA members, 1,215 members of the Mon Sang Association (a ­labor ­union for Chinese waiters in Chicago), and 3,001 members of the Chinese Association, using the membership cards of the Chinese YMCA, rec­ords of the Chinese Association, weekly publications of the Chinese YMCA, and monthly publications of the Mon Sang Association, as well as the Chinese Daily News. While the survey of members of the Chinese YMCA shows a slightly smaller percentage (84 ­percent) engaged in trade (merchants, dealers, and store helpers) and ser­v ice (laundrymen, restaurant keepers, cooks, and waiters), the surveys on the 161 Chinese students, the 1,215 Mon Song Association members, and the 3,001 Chinese Association members all indicate more than 90 ­percent of them belonging to the categories of trade and ser­v ice.82 The wage distribution data for Chinese laborers indicate monthly earnings of $160 for cooks, $117 for laundrymen, $100 for waiters, and $50 for store helpers in 1926, which is consistent with data from the INS rec­ords.83 Many Chinese laborers not only ­were able to sustain themselves on t­ hese meager wages but also kept part of the income as savings. Some of their savings w ­ ere deposited in banks, lent to kinsmen, or hidden in a truck at their residence, but a substantial share was sent home to China.84 In their testimonies, numerous Chinese immigrants stated that they sent money to their families in China. The amounts of t­ hese remittances are difficult to calculate, as they w ­ ere made in a variety of forms: postal money ­orders, checks, and drafts. According to Madeline Hsu, from 1903 to 1937, the estimated annual remittances from overseas Taishanese to China increased from 110 million to 517 million Chinese dollars.85 In the

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1920s and early 1930s, remittances from the United States to Taishan constituted one-­tenth of all money sent to China from abroad.86 ­These remittances enabled families back in China to purchase land, build ­houses, make charitable donations, and enjoy a lifestyle unlike the Chinese tradition of thrift and frugality. The construction of diaolou (fortresslike buildings) and yanglou (Western-­style buildings) was widespread in the villages of Taishan in the 1920s and 1930s, when the region was plagued by social instability and turmoil due to local bandits and natu­ral disasters. The frequent bandit attacks and summertime floods caused ­great concern among the overseas Chinese for the safety of their families left ­behind in the homeland. To ease their worry, they sent money home to ­family members for construction of fortresslike buildings as protection from ­t hese menaces. To effectively defend residents from bandits and floods, such a building was normally six to seven stories tall, often with merutrieres (murder holes) on the top. Having lived abroad for an extended period, Chinese immigrants ­were influenced to varying degrees by Western architecture. They often designed the buildings themselves while living abroad, combining Western architectural styles with Chinese ones and then sending the blueprints back home along with their remittances.87 Meijia dayuan (the Moy ­family compound) was typical of the Western buildings in Tingjiang, Taishan. Remittances from the Moys in Chicago and other places abroad in the 1920s and 1930s paid for t­ hese buildings.88 Constructed in 1932, the compound included more than a hundred Western-­style buildings erected on eighty mu (thirteen acres) of land. The buildings ­were two or three stories tall, uniform in height, and neatly arranged around a huge rectangular courtyard that served as a local market.89 Wengjialou (the Weng f­ amily compound) in the village of Miaobian, Duanfen Town, Taishan, offers another example. Five ­family buildings w ­ ere constructed between 1927 and 1931 by Weng Songping’s grand­father, who made his fortune in Hong Kong as an owner of jinshanzhuang. Three of the five buildings ­were named ­after the heroes in the classical Chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The architectural design was artistic but practical, combining Eastern and Western styles—­traditional Chinese tiled roofs atop Western-­style buildings. Unlike traditional homes in Guangdong, which feature a broad, covered front porch, Weng­ jialou bears more of a resemblance to buildings in Eu­ro­pean and American cities. The kitchen and storage rooms are in the basement, while the living room and bedrooms are on the first, second, and third floors. The tall, narrow buildings ­were easier to protect from flooding or plundering bandits. Th ­ ese brick and concrete buildings have withstood many years of weathering and are still in good shape.90 In 2002, they ­were registered and listed as an official historical site by the Taishan city government. Meijia dayuan and Wengjialou have been featured in a number of tele­vi­sion programs and magazine articles in China.91 They exemplify and concretize the transnational ties between the Chinese overseas and the homeland and demonstrate the profound social and economic consequences of transnational migration.

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The tall, modern, brick and concrete buildings provided protection from natu­ral disasters and social instability for members of the extended ­family back in China. Their modern design and amenities also improved the residents’ living conditions, while introducing Western customs and cultural habits to China, such as Western types of toilets, bathrooms, and kitchens, together with a more hygienic way of life. Remittances from overseas Chinese ­were also responsible for establishing the numerous elementary and secondary public schools in Taishan beginning in the early twentieth ­century. By the end of the Qing dynasty, Western influence had penetrated most parts of China, and the zeitgeist was dominated by ideas and experiments that emphasized Western learning, resulting in the establishment of Western schools throughout the country. Taishan, as the premier native place in Guangdong for overseas Chinese, experienced a surge of new elementary and secondary schools funded by donations from overseas Chinese. Between 1907, when the first Western elementary school was founded, and 1919, eigh­teen local schools ­were established. The rate accelerated in the 1920s, when forty-­t wo schools ­were built, prob­ably as a result of economic prosperity in the United States, which benefited the overseas Chinese. Eigh­teen new schools ­were added during the 1930s, and seventeen more ­were built in the 1940s.92 The remittances not only benefited ­those who ­were back home in China but also provided psychological and emotional satisfaction to ­t hose who lived overseas. Many of the grandiose fortresslike and Western-­style buildings ­were the equals of multimillion-­dollar mansions of the pre­sent day, conspicuously displaying the wealth possessed by successful Chinese immigrants. That they ­were willing to  invest substantial amounts of money in real estate back in China suggests the importance of the homeland in their minds. For many Chinese immigrants, the ultimate goal and highest form of success was to return home rich or to be recognized, honored, and/or envied by fellow villa­gers for their monetary contributions to the native place. Such a mentality was instilled and deeply rooted in the minds of most Chinese immigrants and provided a strong motivation for their maintenance of social, economic, and emotional ties with the homeland.

Conclusion In the past c­ entury and a half, especially prior to the 1960s, the survival and success of the Chinese in the United States have chiefly depended on their penetration into niche ser­v ice industries—­laundries, ­wholesale and retail groceries, and restaurants—­t hat required minimal English-­language skills and often are unattractive to many in the mainstream population. In Chicago ­t hese three occupations have without exception remained the pillars of the ethnic Chinese economy. ­These niche businesses, however, w ­ ere not just menial, low-­skill trades that w ­ ere shunned by more privileged Americans, contrary to conventional beliefs held by the general public. Instead, many ethnic Chinese businesses, especially the large, complex ones, ­were deliberately created, sophisticated transnational businesses run

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by individuals with vision, practical skills, and long-­term goals. Th ­ ese businesses made effective use of transnational networks to raise the necessary capital to get started, to procure merchandise, and to recruit employees, and their business operations served the interests of Chinese communities at both ends of the transnational migration network. Chicago’s central location and easy access by w ­ ater, land, and rail enabled the Chinese grocery businesses to become ­wholesale suppliers to small grocers throughout the Midwest. Its metropolitan atmosphere cultivated pioneers of Chinese fine dining. And the Chinese laundries in Chicago served as prototypes for t­ hose in other midwestern cities and towns. ­These unique features suggest that the ethnic Chinese communities in Chicago served as a vital link in Chinese transnational and translocal migration and as a center of commerce and trade in the midwestern region of Amer­i­ca. The shrewd business sense, practicality, and ingenuity of the Chinese entrepreneurs contributed not only to their individual business success but also to the collective survival, sustenance, and success of the Chinese communities both in the Midwest and in the homeland.

chapter 3

•

Building “Hop Alley” myth and real­ity of chinatown in st. louis, 1860s–1930s Meet me in St. Louis, Louis Meet me at the fair ­Don’t tell me the lights are shining Any place but t­ here —­“Meet Me in St. Louis” (­music and lyr­ics by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane)

Since the mid-­nineteenth c­ entury, mi­grants from Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Rus­sia, and the American South gathered in the booming city of St. Louis, Missouri. In the streets, peddlers of dif­fer­ent nationalities sold coal, wood, and ice from dilapidated carts, giving the city a worldly appearance. Around this time, Chinese began arriving in St. Louis. By the end of the ­century, the Chinese community had grown to about 300 residents, for most of whom life centered on “Hop Alley.” Along Seventh, Eighth, Market, and Walnut Streets, Chinese hand laundries, dry goods stores, groceries, restaurants, and tea shops served Chinese residents and the rest of the ethnically diverse city of St. Louis, which at the time was the fourth-­largest city in the United States. This chapter discusses how the Chinese came to St. Louis, what life was like in Hop Alley, and how other St. Louisans perceived the Chinese. It describes the efforts by the first Chinese in St. Louis to build a community that would enable them to survive in an alien environment. Th ­ ese pioneers faced much the same prejudice and discrimination as Chinese in other American cities and engaged in similar economic activities—­hand laundries, restaurants, grocery stores, tea shops, and opium parlors. Their financial success and their disproportionate contributions to the city’s economy did ­little to allay the suspicions of other residents. In this regard as well, their experience mirrored that of Chinese elsewhere in the United States.

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Early Arrivals: From the Golden State to the Mound City Alla Lee was the first Chinese to ­settle in St. Louis. According to scarce rec­ords, he was born in Ningbo, a city near Shanghai, in 1833. He came to Amer­i­ca in his early twenties with a missionary of the Episcopal Church, who intended to minister to the Chinese working in California’s gold and silver mines and agricultural fields, with Alla Lee as his interpreter. With the help of church and business networks, Lee traveled to the East Coast. In 1857, he arrived in St. Louis, where he set up a small tea shop on North Tenth Street that brought him a modest income.1 Alla Lee associated mostly with Irish immigrants in the area. Within a year he married a young Irishwoman, Sarah Graham, in the Second Presbyterian Church.2 The ­union produced several c­ hildren.3 Regarding his unusual first name, “Alla,” one speculation holds that Alla is the first-­person singular pronoun in the Ningbo dialect. When responding to a request for a f­ amily name, a Ningbo native would say, “Alla [I am] Lee.” Alla Lee chose “Alla” as his first name b ­ ecause it was easy for non-­Chinese to pronounce, and the sound of it reminded him of his identity.4 It is more likely that when he entered the United States on the West Coast, he responded to the immigration officer’s question “What is your name?” by saying, “Alla Lee [I am Lee].” His response was officially recorded as his name, and thus he became Alla Lee. ­There is no way to verify this speculation; however, the frequent alteration of foreign names into more familiar Western ones (e.g., “Smith” from “Schmidt” and “Yanni” from “Mastroianni”) at the entry ports has been well documented.5 Alla Lee kept a fairly low profile ­until 1869, when around 250 Chinese came to St. Louis from San Francisco in search of work. Many stayed in the city to toil in the local factories and mines. The Chinese immediately became objects of curiosity, and other St. Louisans flocked to Market Street to catch a glimpse of them. The Chinese w ­ ere just as astonished at the reaction they generated among St. Louisans.6 To satisfy local curiosity, several reporters visited Alla Lee, the resident expert. In this way more details about him entered the public rec­ord. According to the news reports, Alla Lee was “quite a fine, intelligent looking Celestial” with “rather more than the usual height.” He was “a thrifty Chinaman” “with a frank, open face, eyes that indicated a man pretty wide awake to most ­t hings.” The paper described his Irish wife, Sarah Graham, as a “handsome Irish lady,” a “buxom Irish lass,” and a “Celtic beauty.”7 Apparently the ­couple won the newspapers’ approval. Alla Lee answered reporters’ questions about the customs of the “Celestials” with temperate and insightful information and explained why Chinese men wore the queue—it was a sign of submission to the non-­Chinese Manchu rulers.8 A few weeks l­ ater, in January 1870, another group of Chinese arrived in St. Louis from New York. According to the report, they w ­ ere procured by F. A. Rozier and Com­pany, a Missouri coal-­mining com­pany, and adapted well. Among the new arrivals w ­ ere some Chinese w ­ omen, who took charge of the boarding­houses for the Chinese men.9

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­These accounts make an impor­tant point about the early Chinese presence in St. Louis: many new arrivals ­were “remigrants” seeking new opportunities ­after their situations deteriorated elsewhere in the country. In the rather hostile socioeconomic climate of the United States, ­t hese immigrants had to keep moving to survive. Their paths to the Mound City—­St. Louis’s nickname (the early Native Americans had built many enormous burial mounds nearby)—­were determined largely by religious connections, kinship networks, and the recruitment efforts of factory and mine o ­ wners. The stories of Alla Lee and the Chinese workers in St. Louis are not unusual. Individual Chinese had been immigrating to Amer­i­ca since 1785.10 Then the discovery of gold in California in 1849 brought a wave of them. In the following three de­cades, about 300,000 Chinese entered the United States, mainly to work as gold miners, laundry and grocery operators in urban communities, farm laborers in agricultural areas, or fishermen in coastal villages in California.11 Although California continued to hold the majority of Chinese in the United States, the proportion of Chinese in California’s total population slowly and steadily declined from 9.2 ­percent in 1860, to 8.7 ­percent in 1880, and to 3.1 ­percent in 1900.12 The anti-­Chinese movement on the West Coast, which was given extra impetus by economic depression in the final de­cades of the nineteenth ­century, contributed to the re­distribution of Chinese immigrants. Economic discrimination in the form of special taxes and levies targeted the Chinese. For example, in the 1850s a tax on foreign miners discouraged Chinese in par­tic­u­lar,13 and a San Francisco ordinance from 1870 taxed laundrymen who did not use ­horses for their delivery wagon (i.e., Chinese with small operations).14 Anti-­Chinese sentiment also subjected immigrants and their businesses to physical attacks and abuse.15 The completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869 also contributed to the dispersion of Chinese laborers. During the last stages of the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad, 90 ­percent of the workforce of 12,000 was Chinese. ­After work on the railroad was finished, the availability of so many Chinese laborers heightened the competition between them and Eu­ro­pean Americans. Although most of the discharged railroad workers found jobs in agriculture in California, many o ­ thers migrated to the south and east, to work on southern plantations or in new booming towns such as St. Louis in the Midwest.16 The Missouri Republican, a local newspaper, reported that approximately 250 Chinese railroad veterans visited St. Louis on December 30, 1869, and that curious residents swarmed Market Street to glimpse t­ hese “John Chinamen.”17 Many of t­ hese former railroad workers stayed in St. Louis to work for a wire factory.18 ­After the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act banned the immigration of laborers, a few Chinese resorted to trafficking in ­human beings. The profits for smugglers w ­ ere very high. How Chun Pong, a Cantonese immigrant, first landed in Vancouver, Canada, in 1899. He worked as a laundryman for four years and then was smuggled to New York City by train. ­Later he moved to St. Louis, where he ran a hand laundry ­until he was arrested in 1913 for allegedly smoking and selling opium. In his testimony, he described his illegal entry to Harry C. Allen, the U.S. immigration inspector:

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45

I boarded the train with a white man at Montreal. It was quite dark, and when I got in the car ­t here was no one t­ here except the white man and myself, when the train run about several hours u ­ ntil daylight and then the train s­ topped I d ­ on’t know the name of the station. I was put in a small room on the train first and then I was brought out in the car where t­ here [­were] other passengers. And I left the train at New York City. . . . ​[I paid] $130 to the Chinese smuggler [in Montreal] and he paid the white man.19

Chinese on the West Coast ­were attracted to the American cities that w ­ ere undergoing rapid industrial expansion. By the end of the nineteenth c­ entury, the country was producing three times as many manufactured goods as in 1860; e­ very major American city was growing rapidly. The 1870 census shows that the population of St. Louis had reached 310,864, making it the fourth-­largest city in the United States, b ­ ehind New York, Philadelphia, and Brooklyn.20 Ambitious boosters like Logan Reavis, the owner of a local newspaper, the St. Louis Daily Press, even started a campaign to move the national capital to St. Louis and published a book, St. Louis: The ­Future ­Great City of the World, which was widely distributed in Eu­rope.21 Although the effects of such efforts cannot be traced, they clearly ­were aimed at promoting the city’s reputation and growth. During the last de­cades of the nineteenth ­century, St. Louis became a city of rich ethnic diversity. Immigrants from other continents made up one-­t hird of the city’s population.22 Most of the ethnic communities ­were crammed into the northern and southern sections by the river and surrounded by the city’s business district. In the north, Biddle Street, which ran for twenty-­six city blocks from the river on the east to Jefferson Ave­nue on the west, was home to German, Irish, Jewish, and Italian immigrants, as well as African Americans.23 In the south the Chinese had formed Hop Alley, a commercial, residential, and recreational center with a population of about 300–400 among the city’s population from the 1910s to the 1930s (­table 3.1).

The Myth of Hop Alley and Institutionalized Discrimination Hop Alley, a small back street ­running between Walnut and Market Streets, was lined with boarding­houses and apartment buildings that ­were mostly occupied by Chinese residents. The origins of its name are obscure. “Hop” sometimes refers to drug use (“hop” means opium, thus “hopheads” or “hopped up”). It might be related to the American pronunciation of Cantonese names such as Hop Sing. Some Chinese settlements in Nevada and California w ­ ere also called Hop Alley.24 What­ ever its source, the name for St. Louis’s Chinatown apparently reflected the cultural and racial bias of the larger society, and it was eventually used for the entire Chinese quarter beyond the original alley. Hop Alley first appeared in public rec­ords in 1896, in the St. Louis Police Department annual report.25 ­After the turn of the ­century it was widely used in newspaper stories and other accounts to refer to the Chinese business district in downtown St. Louis where Chinese hand laundries,

46

T r a n s n at i o n a l M i g r at i o n a n d   W o r k ­table 3.1 chinese population in st. louis compared with the total population, 1870–1930 Chinese males

Chinese females

1

1

n.a.

350,518

91

91

n.a.

1890

451,770

170

164

6

1900

575,238

312

310

2

1910

687,029

423

n.a.

Several

1920

772,897

328

n.a.

n.a.

1930

820,960

350

n.a.

n.a.

Year

Total population

1870

310,864

1880

Chinese total

Note: n.a. = no data available. Sources: Compiled using data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the St. Louis Globe-­ Democrat.

general stores, grocery stores, herb shops, restaurants, and clan association headquarters w ­ ere located. Hop Alley, like many Chinese communities in other parts of the country, was generally considered mysterious and dangerous and was associated with opium dens, tong wars, and murder. Most news stories about Chinatown in the St. Louis papers ­were sensational accounts of horror. In 1875, the St. Louis Globe-­Democrat, a major daily newspaper in St.  Louis, reported that “Police throughout the nation ­were alerted for renewal of warfare between Chinese ‘tongs’—­secret fraternal and commercial socie­ties. A six-­month truce ended with the murder of a Boston man who set up a restaurant in a rival tong’s area. Within hours, shooting erupted in several cities, including St. Louis, where the ‘king’ of Chinatown was shot down by six gunmen.”26 In 1883, the so-­called Highbinder murder case took place in St. Louis’s Chinatown. An African American man named Johnson was killed in “an alley between the Seventh and Eighth and Market and Walnut Streets” (namely, Hop Alley), and ­later his head was found in a basket of rice. The local police believed that the murder was the result of a conflict between the African American man and a Chinese gambler who was connected with the Highbinders (Chinese secret socie­ties allegedly associated with many murders in large Chinese communities).27 Though ­there ­were no witnesses, the police arrested six Chinese men from Hop Alley as suspects in the murder. ­These men ­were prosecuted vigorously, but due to the lack of evidence, they w ­ ere not convicted.28 Not only ­were the local police quick to suspect Chinese as criminals, but the news media regarded all Chinese in St. Louis as High-

Bu ilding “Hop A lley”

47

binders. The St. Louis Globe-­Democrat estimated in 1892 that ­t here w ­ ere “about three hundred Highbinders in St. Louis.” That number was practically the entire Chinese population in St. Louis at the time.29 Aroused by the sensational media reports and guided by the Chinese exclusion mentality,30 St. Louis law enforcement agencies assumed that t­ here w ­ ere many illegal laborers and criminals among the Chinese in the city and relentlessly targeted the entire Chinese population. The year 1895 and the years from 1905 to 1911 ­were the peaks of police arrests of Chinese.31 Unsurprisingly, the heightened police harassment of Chinese coincided with the renewals of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1892, 1902, and 1904. Media reports confirmed the arrest data. According to the St. Louis Globe-­Democrat, on August 25, 1897, St. Louis police rounded up all 314 Chinese in St. Louis at the request of a government agent who was investigating reports that illegal Chinese immigrants had been smuggled into the city. Thirteen Chinese men w ­ ere found without proper l­egal documents and w ­ ere arrested to 32 await deportation. In the first two de­cades of the twentieth ­century, the St. Louis police repeatedly raided Hop Alley and apprehended scores of Chinese individuals, charging them with smuggling, manufacturing, and selling opium.33 Immigration authorities launched a nationwide roundup to identify illegal Chinese. The data for St. Louis from the 1890s to 1910s are worth comparing to t­ hose for Boston in 1903, when the police and the Immigration Bureau jointly searched Boston’s Chinatown for the tong murderers who had allegedly killed a member of a rival tong, and for Cleveland in 1925, when police arrested ­every Chinese in the city following a series of Chinatown murders.34 The negative media reports and the institutionalized l­ egal actions that followed in their wake effectively demonized Chinatown and alienated its residents. One local resident recalled, “When I was a boy it was a g­ reat stunt for the older boys to tell the younger ones ‘tall’ stories about ‘Hop Alley’ and display their bravery by escorting them through the forbidden passageway.”35

Real­ity in Hop Alley: Businesses What was life r­ eally like in Hop Alley? The absence of firsthand written rec­ords by Chinese residents has created difficulty for scholars. Critical reading of media reports and use of archival manuscripts and oral history materials, however, enable us to restore a more realistic picture of life in Hop Alley in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1894, Theodore Dreiser, the author of the novel ­Sister Carrie (1900), who was then a twenty-­t hree-­year-­old reporter for the daily St. Louis Republic and still unknown to the general public, went to Hop Alley and afterward wrote a sensational and somewhat biased article about Chinese in St. Louis. The following is an excerpt: Within the confines of St. Louis at pre­sent ­there are about 1,000 Chinese. Within the same confines t­ here are nearly half as many laundries operated by Chinamen.

48

T r a n s n at i o n a l M i g r at i o n a n d   W o r k The public is familiar with the Chinese laundry and the Chinese method of ­labor. It knows how they toil, is fully aware of their manner of clothing themselves and has read endless accounts of what they eat or are supposed to eat. ­Dissertations on social life in China, like that on the discovery of roast pig by Lamb, are common library familiarities, and the movements of the Chinatown at the Golden Gate have been recorded and re-­recorded. St.  Louis has no Chinatown and no specific Chinese quarters. The red and white signs one can stumble across almost anywhere between De Hodiamont and East St. Louis. She has no high-­class opium-­joint abominations and no progressive Chinese emporium to which upper tendom [sic] pays homage and money at one and the same time. She has, however, what it is difficult elsewhere to find— a Chinese rendezvous. In this rendezvous, restaurants, lounging and smoking rooms, a few Chinese families and general sociability prevail; and more, this rendezvous has the patronage and good w ­ ill of the entire Chinese ele­ment in this city. When a St. Louis Chinaman wishes to “blow himself” he takes the requisite cash and saunters down that portion of South Eighth Street lying between Wal­ ere he finds e­ very opportunity to dispose of his week’s nut and Market streets. H wages or profits, or, perhaps, his laundry—­for laundries have been lost and won in this block. Sundays and Mondays are days off in the laundry business. At noon Sundays all the laundries in the city are closed for the day, and in a short time the dif­fer­ent car lines begin dropping Chinamen by ones and twos in the vicinity of Eighth and Market streets. Some straggle around on foot, and by 2 ­o’clock, it is safe to say, t­ here are several hundred Mongolians in this block enjoying themselves in a way peculiarly Chinese. The crowd shifts and changes all after­ noon and eve­ning, but never grows less. As far as one sporty John “goes broke” at the game of fan-­tan another takes his place, and the broken one stoically gazes on while the winner keeps on winning and the loser drops out. The more pretentious of the resorts in this neighborhood have restaurants as side issues, a meal partaken at one of which ­w ill form the subject of a ­later discussion. The more pretentious keepers of ­t hese more pretentious resorts have wives and oblique-­eyed babies, who are occasionally permitted to disport themselves, clad in the tiniest ­little blue frocks, on the front steps of the paternal dwelling. It is usually when the morning sun is streaming its genial rays into Eighth street that ­these ­little codgers may be seen, and then for a not over-­length period. John has discovered “lat Melicans” are deeply interested in t­ hese queer ­little babies and are entirely too fond of stopping to enjoy their com­pany.36

Dreiser’s article indicates the economic significance of the early Chinese settlement in St. Louis as a peculiar component of the ethnically diverse city and reveals a ­great cultural curiosity (and bias as well) about the Chinese among the general population in St.  Louis. Wading through references to “Celestials,” “Mongolians,” “Chinaman,” and “heathen,” popu­lar terms referring to Chinese that ­were widely used by writers of the Victorian age, one can find a ­great deal of information that offers a starting point for the following discussion.

Bu ilding “Hop A lley”

49

Hand Laundries Dreiser’s report is the first to describe the Chinese laundries in St. Louis. Certainly, Chinese hand laundries ­were ubiquitous in St. Louis in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the hand laundry was the primary trade and profession for the Chinese t­ here, as in many other cities. It is, however, questionable w ­ hether the Chinese population had reached 1,000 and ­whether about 500 Chinese ­were operating laundries by the end of nineteenth ­century as described in Dreiser’s story. Other sources, fortunately, could easily verify that ­t here w ­ ere more than 300 Chinese dwelling in the Chinatown area and that most of them ­were working in Chinese hand laundries in Hop Alley and the peripheral area.37 Court rec­ords further note laundry as the primary trade for Chinese in St. Louis prior to the 1930s. In the first de­cades of the twentieth ­century, St. Louis police raided Chinatown frequently and arrested Chinese laborers without certificates of residence. Most of ­t hese laborers worked in Chinese laundries.38 In addition to the court rec­ords, the census also reveals information, though laconic, about the Chinese laundrymen. The 1890 census recorded a Chinese man named Amon Donn who ran a hand laundry in the St. Louis downtown area.39 If t­ hese sources still seem to be sporadic or anecdotal about the Chinese hand laundrymen, the Gould’s St. Louis Directory provided systematic, significant data on the Chinese hand laundry business in the city. Chinese hand laundries first appeared in Gould’s St. Louis Directory in 1873 (­table 3.2). In that year, six Chinese laundries w ­ ere listed among the thirty laundries in the city: Ah Wah at 810 and 811 Pine Street, Hap Kee at 511 Market, Lee Yee at 623 Locust, Sing Chang at 12 South Sixth Street, Wah Lee at 320 Chestnut Street, and Yet Sing at 112 North Seventh Street.40 In the following year, ten Chinese laundries w ­ ere listed among the thirty-­ 41 six laundries of the city. The number of Chinese laundries continued to increase ­until 1888, when seventy-­three w ­ ere listed; then, starting in 1889, Chinese laundries suddenly dis­appeared from the directory for reasons unknown.42 According to Gould’s St. Louis Directory, the sixteen years from 1873 to 1889 constituted the initial stage of the Chinese hand laundry business in St. Louis. During this period, laundries not only increased in number but also gradually spread beyond the bound­aries of Hop Alley. From 1873 to 1879, all Chinese laundries ­were located within Chinatown, mainly clustering along Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Market, Chestnut, Pine, Locust, and Elm Streets. A ­ fter 1880, a few laundries opened on Chinatown’s periphery such as on Washington and Chouteau Ave­nues.43 Chinese hand laundries started to reappear in Gould’s St. Louis Directory in 1911, and the laundry business continued to be the primary occupation of the Chinese ­until the end of the 1930s. Th ­ ese three de­cades witnessed the heyday of the Chinese hand laundry business. During this period, two distinctive features of clan domination and geographic dispersion characterized the hand laundries. The surnames Kee, Lee, Leong, Sing, Wah, and Wing appeared most frequently in the directories.44 The Lee, Lung, Sing, and Wah clans ­were predominant in the 1910s and ­were joined in the 1920s by the Kee, Leong, Lum, Wing, and Yee clans. In 1927,

­table 3.2 chinese hand laundries in st. louis, 1873–1944 Year

Chinese laundries

All laundries

1873

6

30

1874

10

36

1875

4

45

1876

12

62

1877

11

65

1878

9

90

1879

10

85

1880

13

131

1881

22

118

1882

28

118

1883

36

138

1884

44

153

1885

50

159

1886

70

170

1887

59

128

1888

76

173

1889

0

89

1890

0

89

1891

0

84

1892*

0

90

1911

36

n.a.

1912

56

153

1913

53

164

1914

83

194

1915

97

n.a.

1916

108

150

1917

102

246

1918

112

206

1919

102

189

1920

98

n.a.

1921

100

186

Bu ilding “Hop A lley”

51 ­table 3.2

chinese hand laundries in st. louis, 1873–1944 (continued) Year

Chinese laundries

All laundries

1922

91

201

1923

96

200

1924

114

220

1925

140

256

1926

148

258

1927

149

267

1928

143

337

1929

165

278

1930

161

278

1931

155

231

1932

128

221

1933

123

n.a.

1934

123

n.a.

1935

104

214

1936**

123

269

1939

89

173

1941

78

169

1944

48

63

Notes: n.a. = no data available. * From 1893 to 1910, the total number of laundries was not tallied, ­ ere listed during this period. as no Chinese laundries w ** The years 1937, 1938, 1940, 1942, and 1943 have been omitted from this ­table as they pre­sent the similar patterns. Source: Compiled using data from the Gould’s St. Louis Directory for the years 1873–1944.

Gould’s St. Louis Directory began to list Chinese hand laundries ­under a separate heading as they accounted for more than 60 ­percent of the total laundries in the city. In the listings, Lee and Sing stood out as two most frequent surnames. The predominance of certain clans in the Chinese laundry business illustrates at least two impor­tant implications regarding patterns of immigration and urban ethnic adaptation. First, it reveals that many Chinese laundrymen came to Amer­i­ca as links within chain immigration; common surnames indicate the blood tie or lineage

52

T r a n s n at i o n a l M i g r at i o n a n d   W o r k

among the laundrymen, although they could also reflect the fact that many Chinese came as “paper sons,” a practice to get around the Chinese exclusions. Second, it speaks of the necessity of ethnic networking in initiating and operating a business, as illustrated ­later in the cases of the Gee ­brothers and Lum Hey. Geographic dispersion was also evident among the Chinese hand laundries from the 1910s to 1930s. Unlike the early stage of the Chinese laundry business when most laundries w ­ ere concentrated in the Chinese business district, now they w ­ ere scattered throughout the city. The geographic dispersion was partly a result of the self-­governance of the Chinese community to prevent competition among the laundries. On Leong Merchants and Laborers Association, the primary Chinese business organ­ization founded in 1909 and the de facto Chinese government in St. Louis, ruled ­t here could be only “one Chinese laundry within the perimeter of  a mile,” and a violator could encounter unexpected catastrophe or murder.45 Intimidated by On Leong’s power, Chinese laundrymen abided by the order. More impor­tant, the Chinese laundrymen followed the rule of the market—­supply and demand—to operate a laundry wherever ­there was a demand or a lack of a Chinese laundry. ­Because non-­Chinese ­were the primary clientele, it was natu­ral for Chinese laundries to spread out in the city to meet the demand. This pattern was also found in other Chinese urban communities of San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and Milwaukee.46 The Chinese laundry as a predominant trade among the Chinese in St. Louis also reflects the occupational segregation of Chinese nationwide. In San Francisco, Chicago, and New York, laundries have been a primary Chinese business, as documented in works by Victor G. Nee and Brett de Bary Nee, Paul C. P. Siu, and Renqiu Yu.47 This occupational segregation was largely a result of the socioeconomic conditions of Chinese immigrants during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Most Chinese immigrants came from villages in Guangdong Province. Few could speak En­glish prior to immigration or possessed any skills required by the industrial world. Without marketable skills or knowledge of En­glish, they ­were readily excluded from the mainstream ­labor market and could only engage in trades that mainstream laborers ­were unwilling to embrace. Laundry seemed to be such a trade, as washing clothes was tedious, time-­consuming, and backbreaking, and only working-­class h ­ ouse­w ives endured the drudgery of d ­ oing this work for their own ­house­holds. Laundry was also a practical option ­because it required ­limited skill and very ­little capital, as described in chapter 2. The predominance of hand laundries among Chinese businesses in St. Louis was also a result of the immigration and settlement patterns of Chinese ­here as most immigrants came from major Chinese communities of San Francisco, New York, or Chicago and had maintained ethnic ties with ­these places through business networks or social contacts with relatives and friends.48 When Chinese immigrants fled the social prejudice and economic competition of the larger cities, they brought their capital and previous working experiences with them to the city of their new destination.

Bu ilding “Hop A lley”

53

Figure 3.1. ​Gee Hong (in the foreground) and Gee Sam Wah, owners of the Sam Wah Laundry, at home (the back of their laundry), St. Louis Post-­Dispatch, November 12, 1978. Courtesy of Missouri Historical Society.

Consequently, in many ways the Chinese hand laundries in St. Louis resembled t­ hose in other Chinese communities across the country. According to Siu, the typical interior arrangement for a Chinese laundry consisted of four sections. First, the front section usually occupied one-­t hird of the space, functioning as the office and workshop of the laundryman. H ­ ere the laundryman ironed, labeled laundry, waited on customers, and kept the necessities for his business: the ironing board, the abacus, the laundry shelves, the lock ­counter, and a secret cash drawer. Second, immediately ­behind the curtained doorway at the center of the building, and usually between the laundry shelves, ­were the living quarters. Third, the drying room, located in the center or rear part of the building, held an old-­fashioned coal stove and was used for drying the wet laundry. About a dozen strong wires ­were strung across the room in parallel lines to hang up the drying laundry. Fi­nally, the rear section contained almost all the laundryman’s equipment, including a washing machine, a washing sink, and a steam boiler.49 The Sam Wah Laundry in St. Louis (figure 3.1) was almost a replica of the Chinese laundry described by Siu. Sam Wah opened the laundry in 1887 at 329 Market Street. He seemed to be d ­ oing well in the business; a­ fter 1912, he opened two more laundries, at 1408 North Jefferson Ave­nue and 4298B Finney Ave­nue; ­after 1915, he was ­running four to five laundries si­mul­ta­neously, including one at 4381 Laclede Ave­nue that survived u ­ ntil 1986. In 1922, the aging Sam Wah brought his two nephews, Gee Kee One (also known as Gee Sam Wah) and Gee Hong, from

54

T r a n s n at i o n a l M i g r at i o n a n d   W o r k

Canton, China, to join him. Gee Kee One and Gee Hong initially arrived in San Francisco, where they learned the laundry business. Then the Gee ­brothers went to Chicago to open a laundry. Unaccustomed to the cold weather in Chicago, they moved to St. Louis to join their ­uncle.50 They first worked for him in the laundry at 4381 Laclede Ave­nue and l­ater inherited the laundry a­ fter Sam Wah died. The ­brothers operated the laundry u ­ nder the same name and using more or less the  same techniques ­until it fi­nally closed in 1986 ­after both proprietors passed away.51 A story of the laundry published in the St. Louis Post-­Dispatch on November 12, 1978, provides a graphic picture: The Sam Wah Laundry is on Laclede Ave­nue, a few hundred feet east of Newstead and a turn north through a door into St. Louis, a half c­ entury ago. Inside—­after passing u ­ nder a rubber tree plant that grows westward along a system of ceiling hooks and jerry-­built supports, a plant that soars out of its pot near the wall and achieves the form of a dragon—is the shop of the ­brothers Gee Sam Wah and Gee Hong, long out of Canton, China. Wah is 88 years old, Gee is 86. With its worn wooden washtubs, its drum dryer powered by a noisy and archaic direct current motor, its naked light bulbs and sagging wooden floors, the Sam Wah Laundry seems ready to stand for a spot in the Smithsonian Institution, or at least the Museum of Westward Expansion, this paint-­peeling and dusty memorial to a part of the Chinese role in American history. . . . ​The Gee ­brothers live and work in Spartan quarters. They apparently sleep on mats near an old stove. The walls of the laundry are adorned in places by an odd mixture of pictures and photo­graphs—­religious art, mostly Jesus Christ at vari­ous ages, a newspaper photo of Chairman Mao and former President Gerald R. Ford shaking hands, 1962 calendars from the Canton Market and the Wing Sing Chong Co. Inc., both of San Francisco, and a glossy photo of a standing room hockey crowd at the Checkerdome. ­There are numerous snapshots of weddings and assembled families. Gee Sam Wah still uses an antique hand atomizer when he irons shirts. He has had the atomizer since his days in Canton, which prob­ably means at least 80 years or more. Despite the appearance of disor­ga­ni­za­tion, regular customers do not need a ticket, said Wah. The launderers have a system of numbering the bundles and remembering the ­faces. They do not forget regular customers, and no one, apparently, has had reason to complain. Not-­so-­regular customers get a ticket. Every­t hing is lettered in Chinese. Gee Hong and Gee Wah, by western standards, are certifiable workaholics. Even in their 80s, the two are up ironing and washing early in the morning and are at it still late at night, say longtime customers. They had a tele­v i­sion set, presumably for relaxation, but it has been broken and unused for some time. ­There is also a sickly-­looking radio on the premises.52

Even though the washing machine had already been in­ven­ted and introduced into middle-­class ­house­holds in the last de­cades of nineteenth ­century, Chinese

Bu ilding “Hop A lley”

55

hand laundries had a widespread reputation of being inexpensive and making clothing last longer, and therefore enjoyed a large number of patrons. In the 1920s, the Sam Wah Laundry charged fifteen cents for men’s shirts and twenty cents for ­women’s shirtwaists.53 In the early 1930s, the J. H. Lee Laundry, a hand laundry run by Jung Chooey and his u ­ ncle, charged only ten cents to launder a shirt, a lower price than that charged by many Chinese laundries due to its location in an African American neighborhood.54 While mainstream businesses sought customers largely through advertising, recognized as a key for business success since the beginning of the twentieth ­century, Chinese laundries maintained and expanded their clientele primarily through the quality of their ser­v ices and word of mouth of their loyal customers. Few Chinese laundries w ­ ere listed in the Business Directory and Mercantile Register from 1903 to 1910.55 The low price of Chinese laundries was made pos­si­ble by their ­owners’ extremely frugal way of life. To minimize their expenses, they lived in the back of their laundries. Mrs. Lillie Hong, one of the few surviving residents of Hop Alley at the time I interviewed her in 1999, came to St. Louis in 1924 from Canton at the age of 5 with her m ­ other and spent most of her working years in the f­ amily laundry a­ fter her marriage in 1935. She recalled her life in the laundry: “We did the ironing in the front, and in the back part, we had a ­couple of bedrooms . . . ​a nd the kitchen was in the back.”56 Tak Jung, another old-­timer of Chinatown, migrated to the city at age 9 in 1930 from Canton to join his f­ather, who was r­ unning a laundry on Acad­emy and Delmar Ave­nues. Like the Hongs, Jung’s ­family also lived in the back of their business. Using bunk beds, they managed to fit a ­family of eight, Tak Jung’s parents and six ­children, into two back rooms.57 In large families, teenage ­children often slept in the laundry. James Leong, a con­ temporary of Hong and Jung, was born into his f­ amily laundry in St. Louis at 4360 Lee Ave­nue in 1924. During his high school years, he slept on a cot in the laundry in a room that was extremely hot and humid in summer and freezing cold in winter.58 Many laundry operators without families simply combined their living quarters with the laundry. The Gee b ­ rothers lived in their laundry throughout their long, hardworking lives, sleeping on mats near a gas stove and cooking in the back part of the building.59 Chinese laundry workers had to ­labor long hours to increase their profit margins. Most Chinese laundry operators worked from early morning to late at night at their monotonous, repetitive tasks. The hardship of laundry work was publicly recognized, as is apparent from its portrayal in a newspaper article from 1900: “Work in laundry is so arduous that two or three times each year the laundryman is compelled to knock off for a ­couple of weeks.” 60 The ­family history of some Hop Alley residents further testifies to the drudgery of ­labor in a laundry. Lillie Hong recalled her typical working day: “We got up at six ­o’clock to do washing. We had an old washing machine made of wood. We had to hang up clothes on wires and let them dry in one room. We heated the iron in a stove. If it was too hot, we dunked

56

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it in a bucket of w ­ ater. We worked from six or seven in the morning till late night with no rest, no break. You ­were on your feet all day long.” 61 As exemplified in ­these cases, the Chinese hand laundries ­were ­family ventures. The low price of their ser­v ice and the hard work required a collective effort by the entire f­ amily. Not only parents but also c­ hildren of all ages participated in the work. Lillie Hong’s nine ­children all worked in their ­family laundry during their childhood. “­After school,” she recalled, “my ­children came back to home and they all helped in the laundry. They iron front and back of sleeves, and front and back of shirts. I then folded them.” 62

Other Businesses: Grocery Stores, Restaurants, Tea Shops, Opium Shops, and Barbershops Although Dreiser’s story failed to mention them, Chinese grocery stores had already emerged as another impor­tant Chinese business in St. Louis to provide ingredients for Chinese cooking and laundry supplies for hand laundries. Gould’s St. Louis Directory listed two Chinese grocers in 1888: Lung Wah at 813 South Market Street and Wah Quong Sun at 714 Market Street.63 In the following year, Lung Quong On at 25 South Eighth Street and Jeu Hon Yee, a Chinese w ­ oman grocer at 924 Locust 64 Street, w ­ ere also added to the listing. From the 1890s to 1900s, the number of grocers grew to six.65 The years between 1912 and 1914 witnessed a sudden increase of Chinese grocers, with a total of a dozen.66 In the 1920s, the number of Chinese grocers decreased first but then remained steady, with a half dozen listed regularly.67 As the Chinese grocery businesses expanded, they consequently attracted media attention. On July 29, 1900, the Sunday magazine section of the St. Louis Republic featured an article entitled “The Chinese Colony of St.  Louis,” written by Dick Wood. It portrayed a few respectable merchants who ran Chinese grocery stores such as Quong Hang Choung and Com­pany at 722 Market Street, Quong On Lung at 17 South Eighth Street, and Quong Sun Wah and Com­pany at 23 South Eighth Street, the three most established and stable stores, which ­were listed in Gould’s St. Louis Directory consistently from 1906 to 1910.68 According to the article, most of t­hese affluent merchants had acquired a thorough En­glish education at Sunday schools during their youth in Amer­i­ca. Lee Mow Lin, the owner of Quong On Lung, elaborated in fluent En­glish a quite sophisticated view on the Boxer Rebellion in China.69 Unlike Chinese hand laundries that primarily served non-­Chinese and ­were dispersed across the city, grocery stores catered to the Chinese community and consequently clustered around the Chinese business district, resembling the pattern in other urban Chinese communities.70 According to Wood’s story, ­t hese stores sold merchandise imported from China, including native-­made Chinese cloth with intricate embroidery, tea, cigars, and Chinese ingredients for cooking. They also sold locally produced fresh fruits, vegetables, and meats, necessary ingredients for Chinese cooking. Crawfish, watermelons, and fresh vegetables in bunches w ­ ere delivered t­ here daily by Chinese farmers from the other side of the river in Illinois. Some of the Chinese stores also ordered and shipped supplies to Chinese laborers in the southern and southwestern states.71

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The Oriental Tea and Mercantile Com­pany at 22 South Eighth Street was a typical grocery store in operation from the 1910s through the 1930s. The o ­ wners and operators w ­ ere two b ­ rothers, Hom Yuen Sit and Gan Sit, who came to St. Louis from a village near Xinhui, Guangdong Province in the 1910s. It sold tea, spices, dried foods, preserved duck, salted fish, and porcelain imported from China, along with supplies for laundries and restaurants. Gan Sit, trea­surer and sales clerk, drove a panel truck throughout the city to deliver supplies to Chinese businesses and take ­orders for the next deliveries.72 A similar pattern of ­running a grocery store was often found in the southern states, as illustrated by Miller Chow’s ­family history. Chow’s parents went to Earle, Arkansas, in 1937 a­ fter having lived in St. Louis for six years working in a hand laundry. Like most of the Chinese in the South who ­were making their livings by ­running grocery stores, they owned two groceries. Miller Chow, who worked as a librarian at a St. Louis public school, recalled her childhood experience: They [her parents] went to [the] South to run grocery stores. They had two stores, one in the city, one in the country. They w ­ ere mom-­pop stores with help from ­children. Mom ran one, Dad ran the other. Dad also bought a farm of 160 acres growing cotton and soybeans. When Dad went to farm, we c­ hildren ran the store. We sold dry goods and all kinds of groceries like a general store. E ­ very day a­ fter school we worked in the grocery store and did our homework when the business was slow. Earle is a small town with 2,000 ­people. Th ­ ere ­were two Chinese families in the town. ­There was a Black part of the town, and a white part of the town. Our grocery stores ­were in the Black area of the town. ­There are many small towns in Mississippi, and ­t here is always a Chinese f­ amily in each town. Most Chinese ran grocery stores ­because they ­were not accepted too much in other ­t hings. We ­were called names by both whites and Blacks.73

The operation of a grocery business in St.  Louis also resembled that of the smaller grocery stores on the West Coast and in Hawaii. Many Chinese grocery stores in California ­were run as ­family businesses, with unpaid ­family members providing ­labor. Wives and c­hildren worked along with their husbands and ­fathers, packing, stocking, and selling goods. As indicated in Connie Young Yu’s ­family history, Chin Shee, Yu’s great-­grandmother, arrived in San Francisco in 1876 to join her husband, a successful merchant who sold Chinese dried foods. She lived in the rear of the store, where she bore six c­ hildren. She not only took care of the ­children but also helped with her husband’s business. All the hard work and responsibilities made her face appear “careworn” in her m ­ iddle 74 age. Most of the Chinese small grocers knew very ­little En­glish, barely enough to tell customers the price of their goods. As Lily Chan, a Hawaiian Chinese girl, noted about her parents in the 1920s, “They did not know the En­g lish language, but they knew enough as to keep a store.”75 The diligence, frugality, and shrewdness of the Chinese grocers made it pos­si­ble for them to survive the harsh environment.

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Chinese restaurants and chop suey shops ­were also part of the businesses in St. Louis’s Chinatown. The restaurants initially ­were eating places primarily to satisfy the needs of Chinese bachelors who would come to eat on Sundays when they ­were not working. ­These restaurants usually served au­t hen­tic dishes or delicacies that appealed to Chinese customers. To write a story on the St. Louis Chinese for the daily St. Louis Republic, Theodore Dreiser visited a Chinese restaurant at 19 South Eighth Street one midday in January 1894. The restaurant was not busy; the owner, cook, and waiter w ­ ere sitting in the front room chatting, smoking, and drinking tea. When Dreiser showed the proprietor a letter of introduction from a Chinese friend written in Chinese, he was told, “Come a Sunday. Got glood dinner Sunday. Come a flive clock; bling flend.” On Sunday at five, Dreiser and his friend came to the restaurant as they w ­ ere directed. Unlike on the e­ arlier weekday, the restaurant was filled with Chinese customers. Dreiser and his friend ordered “chicken, duck, rice and China dish” and seemed to have enjoyed the experience, as Dreiser recounted in his article: The first dish set on the bare ­table was no longer than a silver dollar and contained a tiny dab of mustard in a spoonful of oil. Three dishes of like size followed, one containing pepper jam, the other meat sauces. Tea was served in bowls, and was delicious. The duck, likewise the chicken, was halved, then sliced crosswise ­a fter the manner of bologna sausage, and served on round decorated plates. One bowl of chicken soup comprised the same order for two, which was served with dainty l­ittle spoons of chinaware, decorated in unmistakable heathen design. Rice, steaming hot, was brought in bowls, while the mysterious China dish completed the spread. This dish was wonderful, awe-­inspiring, and yet toothsome. It was served in a dish, half bowl, half platter. Around the platter-­ like edge w ­ ere carefully placed bits of something which looked like wet piecrust and tasted like smoked fish. The way they stuck out around the edges suggested decoration of lettuce, parsley and watercress. The arrangement of the w ­ hole affair inspired visions of hot salad. Celery, giblets, onions, seaweed that looked like dulse, and some peculiar and totally foreign grains resembling barley, went to make up this steaming-­hot mass.76

It is worth noting that Dreiser’s depiction of his experience in the restaurant was filled with biases. The detailed description of Chinese food reinforced the American public’s perception of Chinese as “peculiar” and “exotic” creatures. A cartoon titled “In the Chinese Restaurant” attached to the story was even more distorted (figure 3.2). Three Chinese men portrayed in the cartoon are all eating from huge bowls with chopsticks. Instead of holding the chopsticks with only one hand as Chinese would normally do, the men are holding them with both hands, as Westerners hold a knife and fork. The man in front holds a big bowl between his knees, and the head and tail of a rat are vis­i­ble on the edge of the bowl. The menu posted on the walls reads, “Brewed rats with fried onions 15 cents.” Such a story and the portrayal of the Chinese as rat-­eating barbarians cast them in a negative light and discouraged the American public from accepting Chinese food and the Chinese p ­ eople as well.

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Figure 3.2. ​“In the Chinese Restaurant,” a cartoon attached to Theodore Dreiser’s article on the Chinese in St. Louis (St. Louis Republic, January 14, 1894), portrays an image of Chinese as rat-­eating p ­ eople. Courtesy of Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis.

Similar cartoons and portraits of Chinese as rat eaters could be found in many commercial and media publications throughout the country during the same period. John Kuo Wei Tchen’s excellent study New York before Chinatown provides ample evidence and insightful analy­sis of the linkage of Chinese with rats in American popu­lar culture. According to Tchen, the association of Chinese and rats has its American origins in c­ hildren’s textbooks from as early as the 1840s, and by the 1870s and 1880s it had become a dominant popu­lar image across the country.77 The cartoon depicting Chinese as rat-­eating ­people was but one of numerous examples of popu­lar images of Chinese associated with Chinese exclusion.78 Despite such distorted portrayals in popu­lar publications, over time, more and more Americans w ­ ere exposed to Chinese food, and demand increased. In New

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York City in 1888, for instance, “At least five hundred Americans take their meals regularly in Chinese restaurants in orthodox Chinese fashion, with chopsticks. . . . ​ Many of ­t hese Americans have acquired Chinese gastronomical tastes, and order dishes like Chinese.” 79 Consequently, shrewd Chinese entrepreneurs expanded their ser­v ices to the American public, and many chop suey shops emerged across the country, including in St. Louis. According to court rec­ords for the Eastern District of Missouri, Thomas Kee, who came to St. Louis in 1903, was r­ unning a chop suey ­house at 2032 Market Street in 1906.80 The St. Louis Republic reported that in 1910, St. Louis police raided a chop suey restaurant located at 2301 Washington Ave­ nue.81 Both of ­t hese restaurants w ­ ere located outside of the Chinatown area. Initially, Chinese restaurants started as a ser­vice for the Chinese bachelor communities in isolated ranches, logging camps, mining towns, and other areas where Chinese men and ­women ­were willing to cook. As ­t hese eating places gradually drew a growing number of non-­Chinese customers, some resourceful Chinese realized that cooking was a niche that could provide them with a stable income. In the 1890s, Chinese restaurants sprouted in many parts of the United States.82 The development of the Chinese restaurant business in St. Louis accorded with the general evolution of the Chinese restaurant in the United States. The restaurants w ­ ere first established to serve the Chinese laundrymen who took a half day off on Sunday after­noon and ate at the restaurants to satisfy a weeklong craving for good Chinese food. Most of ­t hese restaurants ­were located in the Hop Alley district, where the Chinese laundrymen typically went for socialization and recreation. The Chinese restaurant Theodore Dreiser visited on a Sunday in 1894 was one such establishment. Around the turn of the ­century, some restaurants not only served dishes for casual diners but also catered banquets for weddings and holiday cele­brations. Dishes for ­these special occasions could range from two to twenty dollars a plate, far more expensive than the regular price of forty to eighty cents.83 Restaurants with such capacity ­were quite lucrative, and their ­owners could make a handsome income and thus take on a more American appearance. One downtown Chinese restaurant owner, described by the media as “a dapper ­little Chinaman,” dressed stylishly with a “mohair suit, lavender silk hose, and tan shoes, diamond stud and Panama hat.”84 More chop suey shops emerged in St. Louis when Chinese food became more popu­lar in the first de­cades of the twentieth c­ entury. Both chop suey shops and larger Chinese restaurants served Chinese customers and also catered to Eu­ro­pean Americans and African Americans. Annie Leong’s parents opened a restaurant at 714 Market Street in St. Louis in 1924. The restaurant served Cantonese cuisine of shark fins, bird’s nests, steamed fish, barbecued pork, duck, and rooster to Chinese guests. It also frequently served local American customers who came from downtown theaters in the late eve­nings.85 In the early 1930s, Richard Ho’s f­ather started a small restaurant on Jefferson Ave­nue to cater to the African American community b ­ ecause the racial segregation at the time prohibited Blacks from entering restaurants owned and operated by whites. The restaurant, which devised a ­simple menu of fried rice and noodles

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with duck meat, was patronized by African Americans who used forks instead of chopsticks. The business was brisk, and the restaurant continued to thrive in the post–­World War II era when returned Black GIs with Japa­nese war brides frequented it to satisfy a desire for rice and s­ imple Chinese food. The restaurant also hired African Americans as servers, thus providing evidence for racial collaboration and harmony in pre-­desegregated Amer­i­ca.86 Chinese restaurants also depended heavi­ly on unpaid f­ amily members for their operation. Annie Leong recalled how her f­ amily restaurant, Asia Café, was run in the 1930s and 1940s: The w ­ hole ­family worked. If you d ­ idn’t get paid, it was OK. My m ­ other worked in the dining room and kitchen. My dad worked as a chef. During the Depression era, they survived and they made a living out of it. . . . ​We worked seven days a week, from eleven o ­ ’clock in the morning to midnight. . . . ​We [Annie and her ­brothers] did every­thing. We wrapped wontons, took care of the dining room area, and set up the restaurant. Then, if they needed us, we could cook too. So we did what­ever was needed. It was just natu­ral, and we just did it. We ­were g­ oing to school and had to do our homework. ­After school, we would study, and it would get busy during dinner hours, and we took care of all the customers. In between, we would study a l­ittle, and then took care of customers. A ­ fter the dinner rush was over, about eight ­o’clock, we could ­really have more time to study. I guess that was something we never thought about and that was something we did.87

Similarly, Richard Ho helped with his f­ amily restaurant a­ fter school daily throughout his teen years.88 Chinese merchants also opened tea shops, with the earliest recorded shop, run by Alla Lee in 1859, located at 106 North Tenth Street.89 ­Later, Lee’s shop and residence changed locations several times, mostly outside of Chinatown. It was continuously listed in the Gould’s St. Louis Directory u ­ ntil 1880.90 Another Chinese tea merchant, Jeu Han Yee, was recorded in local history by the end of the c­ entury. He had landed in San Francisco as a child in the 1860s, stayed t­ here for ten years learning to be a tea merchant, and then moved to St. Louis. Two de­cades l­ater, he established himself as a well-­k nown tea merchant.91 Hop Alley was also home to opium shops. The St. Louis Post-­Dispatch noted thirty to forty opium dens in Hop Alley by 1899.92 This figure was prob­ably exaggerated by the media, however, as ­there w ­ ere only four Chinese grocers and no Chinese laundries or restaurants listed in the Gould’s St. Louis Directory that year.93 The decline of opium dens in Hop Alley was related to police raids at the time. Court rec­ords from the Eastern Division of the Eastern Judicial District of Missouri reveal that most Chinese apprehended in the 1910s w ­ ere charged with the crime of unlawfully manufacturing or selling opium, as exemplified in the following cases. On July 8, 1914, Hop Hing was found manufacturing five pounds of opium for smoking and was consequently arrested. He was indicted on March 4, 1915, by the district court and was ordered to pay a fine of $2,000. Unable to pay the fine, Hop

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Hing was instead jailed for thirty days.94 On October 31, 1914, Leong Choey was arrested when police searched his residence at 700 North Jefferson Ave­nue and found two pounds of gum opium that did not have the proper U.S. revenue stamps. He was charged with unlawfully manufacturing opium without providing the bond required by the commissioner of internal revenue and was ordered to find sufficient bail in the amount of $1,500. He was arrested again on April 19, 1915, when he sold about one-­eighth of an ounce of opium at the price of $1. He was indicted again for a violation of the provisions of the Act of December 17, 1914, entitled “An Act to provide for the registration of, with collectors of internal revenue, and to impose a special tax upon all persons who produce, import, manufacture, compound, deal in, dispense, sell, distribute, or give away opium or coca leaves, their salts, derivatives, or preparations, and for other purposes.”95 On May 10, 1915, Sing Lung was charged with illegal possession of one pound of crude opium, as he did not register with the collector of internal revenue. The district court indicted him for the violation of the Act of December  17, 1914. Although his attorney, T. Morris, defended him as “a mere consumer of opium,” the district court still de­cided to deliver him to the St. Louis city jail on February 24, 1916.96 On August 13, 1915, Wong Lung was arrested for possessing thirty grains of smoking opium in his residence at 802 Market Street without registering with the Collector of Internal Revenue. Consequently, the district court judge, David P. Dyer, sentenced Lung to prison on January 27, 1916.97 The frequent raids by the St. Louis police forced most opium shops to close by the 1910s. A ­ fter this, only four or five opium dens w ­ ere still in business, usually charging more for the drug than their counter­parts in New York or San Francisco. ­These opium dens had the appearance of Indian camps instead of merchandise stores. The opium addicts usually came at night. ­After paying sufficient money, an opium fiend would crawl into a bunk, rest his head on a pillow that was a wooden bench covered by cloth and matting, and enjoy the health-­destroying smoke.98 The police searches also resulted in interracial business collaborations between the Chinese and African Americans. Since ­r unning opium dens in Chinatown would put them at the risk of arrest and even deportation, some Chinese o ­ wners of opium dens began to choose Chestnut Valley, an African American neighborhood just north of Chinatown, as the place from which to operate their business. The annual police report for 1896 indicates that ­t here w ­ ere fourteen opium dens 99 in Chestnut Valley owned by Chinese. Chinese also did banking with African Americans. It was believed that, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, 50 ­percent of the businesses owned by African Americans in Chestnut Valley borrowed money from Chinese moneylenders, as banks owned by whites generally refused to lend money to African Americans.100 In addition to the businesses already mentioned ­here, ­there w ­ ere also a few Chinese barbershops in Chinatown.101 The earliest recorded Chinese barbershop was located at 21 South Eight Street. It was “dirty” and “bare of furniture,” according to a description by Dreiser, who suspected it of being an opium den u ­ ntil he l­ater spotted a Chinese man having a haircut t­ here.102

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Chinese at the St. Louis World’s Fair In 1904, St. Louis opened itself to the world for the ­grand extravaganza of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, also known as the St. Louis World’s Fair. Countries from around the globe proudly sent their native products and artifacts to show the world. The Chinese Qing government dispatched two envoys to St.  Louis to supervise the preparation of the Chinese display. In May 1903, Sir Chentung Liang Cheng, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary, arrived for the display’s dedication week. In July of the same year, Wong Kai Kah, imperial vice-­ commissioner, came to St. Louis to oversee the construction of the Chinese Pavilion.103 Wong conveyed his government’s enthusiasm by participating in the fair and assuring the directors as follows: “Embroideries, silks, porcelains, teas and other products of Chinese industry, and a g­ reat many other t­ hings illustrative of Chinese resources and pro­gress w ­ ill be exhibited. China has set aside 750,000 taels (about $500,000) for this purpose.”104 ­Under Wong’s supervision, construction began on the Chinese Pavilion. A Shanghai firm run by En­glishmen was hired to design the main building, a replica of the country home of the Manchu prince Pu Lun, who had been appointed as the official head of the Chinese del­e­ga­tion to the fair. At the entrance of the pavilion, skillful Chinese artisans erected a pagoda consisting of 6,000 hand-­carved pieces of wood inlaid with ebony and ivory. The eaves w ­ ere also decorated with figures from Chinese my­t hol­ogy in colorful enamel. A replica of the palace bedroom with a square, curtained court bed and carved ­tables and chairs provided a glimpse of Chinese court life to the visitors.105 Unfortunately, the bulk of the 2,000 tons of commercial exhibits from China did not receive the attention they deserved, as they w ­ ere placed in other fair buildings, mostly in the Palace of Liberal Arts and some in the Education Building. ­These exhibits from dif­fer­ent parts of China included scrolls, ivories, jades, porcelains, maps, stamps, coins, and models of t­ emples, ­houses, shops, and an examination hall.106 The enthusiasm of the Chinese to participate in the world’s fair, however, was dampened by suspicious American immigration authorities. In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act had been passed to prohibit the entry of Chinese laborers. To prevent any Chinese laborers from being smuggled into the country, the U.S. Immigration Ser­vice became more vigilant during the fair. Chinese merchants who ­were supposed to come to St. Louis for the fair w ­ ere detained in a shed in San Francisco for days and sometimes weeks awaiting clearance. Many of them, unable to bear the humiliation of detention, interrogation, and the posting of the required $500 in gold bond, returned to China. For ­t hose who did make it to St. Louis, American immigration officers set up strict rules to limit their movement. ­There ­were 194 Chinese employed for the construction and operation of the exhibits. ­These individuals ­were registered, photographed, and required to report daily. A laborer who failed to report for forty-­eight hours would be considered a fugitive.107 During the fair, a rumor spread that 250

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Chinese had agreed to pay $850 for transportation to the fair with the intention of escaping.108 The mistreatment Chinese received during the fair was certainly upsetting to their countrymen who lived in St. Louis. During the construction of the Chinese Pavilion, the Chinese exhibits and topics relating to Chinese culture captured the attention of the local newspapers.109 Wong Kai Kah gave a series of lectures on Chinese art and philosophy.110 The Chinese del­e­ga­tion also threw many splendid parties for the city elite, at which the 400 silk dresses brought by Mrs. Wong enormously impressed St. Louisans.111 ­These events and activities helped create a more positive image of the Chinese in St. Louis.

Conclusion The history of St. Louis’s Chinatown from the 1860s to the 1930s displays a lively, dynamic, and productive ethnic community, contradicting the popu­lar ste­reo­type of Chinatown as a mysterious quarter of sin, vice, and crime. Although a small group, the Chinese in St. Louis contributed disproportionately to the city’s continued industrial and urban development. Post–­Civil War industrialization and urbanization attracted laborers from other shores, yet economic recession and nativist sentiment prompted the Chinese exclusion. Successive police raids on Chinatown from the 1880s to the 1920s reflected the nationwide anti-­Chinese sentiment. The deliberate and systemic police roundups in Chinatown further reinforced the negative popu­lar image of Chinatown created by the press and effectively retarded the building of the ethnic community. Despite institutionalized discrimination, Hop Alley continued to exist with remarkable resilience and energy. St. Louis’s Chinatown was not simply a ghetto plagued by urban prob­lems of crowded, unsanitary living and working conditions and crimes. In fact, it was a lively commercial, residential, and recreational center for the Chinese (as discussed in chapter 6). The hand laundries, grocery stores, restaurants, and tea shops w ­ ere essential businesses enabling the survival, and in some cases the remarkable success, of the early Chinese settlers. ­These businesses, especially the hand laundries, w ­ ere also indispensable to the larger St. Louis communities that readily utilized the much-­needed ser­v ices. The elbow grease of the Chinese laundrymen certainly made the industrial machine of St.  Louis run smoother and better. No ­matter how small the Chinese population became from time to time, its members contributed disproportionately—­for example, less than 0.1 ­percent of the total general population provided 60 ­percent of the laundry ser­ vices for the city. Clan dominance and geographic dispersion, two characteristics of Chinese hand laundries in St. Louis, ­were closely related to the modes of urban development. While clan dominance was a result of chain immigration and urban ethnic networking, geographic dispersion of Chinese laundries coincided with urban sprawl. As cities grew and population increased, affluent residents left the downtown areas and dispersed to the peripheral neighborhoods. Laundry, as a ser­vice industry, had to follow its clientele throughout the city.

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While the laundries provided ser­v ices to the larger community, Chinese grocery stores, restaurants, and tea shops primarily sustained the Chinese residents. The importance of ­t hese businesses lies not only in their supply of merchandise and ser­v ices essential for the daily existence of Chinese but also in their absorption of Chinese immigrant laborers who w ­ ere excluded from the general l­ abor market. Moreover, t­ hese businesses contributed to the metropolitan atmosphere that the city boosters w ­ ere eagerly pursuing. The unfair treatment Chinese received during the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair was further evidence of the Chinese exclusion mentality prevalent in the United States at that time. However, the participation of China in the fair and the cultural activities concerning China and the Chinese before and during the fair projected a positive image of Chinese in St. Louis. In conclusion, the story of Hop Alley demonstrates the per­sis­tence, resilience, and ingenuity of a small minority group in the face of ­legal discrimination and social prejudice. The Chinese St. Louisans’ efforts in building Hop Alley, a Chinatown type of community and an ethnic enclave, also enrich our understanding of Chinese American experiences in general and expand our knowledge of Chinese immigrants to the United States beyond the two coasts and Hawaii.

chapter 4

•

The Intellectual Tradition of the Heartland the chicago school and beyond Contrary to the perceived notion that sources on Asian Americans in the heartland Amer­i­ca have been scant and ­limited, my nearly four de­cades of research in the region have identified rich sources, both primary and secondary, on Asian Americans in the region. I have classified the historiography of Asian American Studies in the heartland into the following periods that w ­ ill be discussed in this chapter: (1) the pioneering period (1920s–1950s), when the Chicago School of sociology spearheaded the studies of urban ethnic and working-­class neighborhoods; (2) the expansion period (1960s–1990s), when sociologists ­were joined by scholars from other disciplines, including anthropology, education, geography, and history; and (3) the blooming period (2000–­pre­sent), when scholars have produced high-­quality monographs, anthologies, and articles on Asian American communities in the Midwest.

The Pioneering Period (1920s–1950s) No study on Asian Americans in the heartland would be complete without an acknowl­edgment of the contributions made by the Chicago School associated with Robert Ezra Park and his colleagues in the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago. ­These scholars have left us a rich body of research and lit­er­a­ ture on racial and social prob­lems in Chicago neighborhoods and beyond that have provided a solid foundation for further studies in Asian American, ethnicity, immigration, and urban studies. Born in Harveyville, Pennsylvania, in 1864, and having grown up in Minnesota, Park was significantly influenced by the Progressive American phi­los­o­ phers and German scholars throughout his academic training. During his undergraduate years, he studied at the University of Michigan ­under the tutelage of John Dewey, Amer­i­ca’s preeminent pragmatist phi­los­o­pher, who was on the faculty at the ­University of Michigan between 1884 and 1894 before continuing his ­career at the University of Chicago (1894–1904) and Columbia University 66

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(1904–1952). Park’s genuine interest in social issues, especially ­those related to race in the cities, brought him to Chicago as a journalist following his graduation. ­A fter working as a journalist in vari­ous American towns for more than a de­cade, Park studied psy­chol­ogy and philosophy u ­ nder another influential pragmatist phi­los­o­pher, William James, at Harvard University and received his master’s degree in a year. He then sailed to Germany to study in Berlin and completed his doctorate in philosophy in Heidelberg in 1903 u ­ nder Wilhelm Windelband and Alfred Hettner, the prominent progressive German phi­los­o­pher and geographer, respectively. Upon returning to the United States, Park taught briefly at Harvard University and worked at the Tuskegee Institute on racial issues in the American South before joining the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago in 1914. Th ­ ere, he teamed up with like-­minded colleagues such as Ernest Watson Burgess, Homer Hoyt, and Louis Wirth. Park’s theory of assimilation, as it pertained to immigrants in the United States, developed into an approach to urban sociology that became known as the Chicago School. In his essay “­Human Migration and the Marginal Man,” Park argued that a mi­grant would inevitably strive to live in two diverse cultural groups; this conflicting environment would produce a “marginal man,” and in the mind of the marginal man, ­t hese conflicting cultures meet and fuse.1 The sociology professors and students at the University of Chicago ­were deeply interested in “the social and economic forces at work in the slums and their effect in influencing the social and personal organ­ization of t­ hose who lived t­ here” and ­were actively involved in studies on settlement ­houses and ethnic communities.2 The Department of Sociology worked on many joint proj­ects along with the federally funded Works Pro­gress Administration (WPA), which was created in 1935. Consequently, numerous scholarly works on Chicago’s poor neighborhoods ­were completed, such as Nels Anderson’s book The Hobo on homeless men in the city; Louis Wirth’s study of Jews, The Ghetto; Clifford Shaw’s study of a young delinquent, The Jack-­Roller; and William F. Whyte’s study of Italian gangs, Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum. Among the students who ­were recruited for the study of the “Oriental prob­lem” in the Department of Sociology, a few investigated the socioeconomic conditions in Chicago’s Chinatown.3 Their dissertations or t­ heses, together with works by students and scholars in other universities of the region, provide a solid base for studies on Chinese Americans in Chicago and elsewhere in the country. The earliest monographs on Asian American communities in the Midwest appeared in the form of master’s ­t heses and doctoral dissertations beginning in the 1920s, mostly produced by members of the Chicago School led by Park and his colleagues, such as Ernest Watson Burgess. Influenced by the Progressive philosophy of improving American society through careful empirical surveys and studies, Park, Burgess, and their students plunged into the inner city of Chicago to examine the vari­ous ghettos and slums where working-­class Americans and new immigrants congregated. Along with their colleagues who studied the Eu­ro­pean

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immigrant communities, gradu­ate students recruited by the Chicago School also investigated the Chinese immigrant communities in Chicago. Tin-­Chiu Fan was a Mandarin speaker who, through his connection with Christian missionary organ­izations in China, came to Chicago in the 1920s to study in the university’s Department of Sociology. Unable to speak Cantonese (or more specifically Taishanese, the common language of the Chinese immigrants in Chicago), Fan compensated for his language handicap by seeking assistance from Alfred S. K. Sze, then a Chinese government minister to the United States, who wrote letters of introduction to vari­ous Chinese individuals and Chinese organ­ izations in the city. Surveys and occasional interviews with community leaders who could speak Mandarin constituted the major primary sources of Fan’s study.4 Tin-­chiu Fan’s master’s thesis, “Chinese Residents in Chicago” (1926), is arguably the first academic study on Chinese in Chicago. With assistance from the leaders of local Chinese community civic associations, and elders of the Chinese ­family associations, Fan was able to compile useful data on the occupational distribution, earnings, living conditions, education status, criminality, and community organ­izations in Chicago. His interview of T. C. Moy, believed to be the first Chinese in the Windy City, has been repeatedly cited in successive studies on Chinese in Chicago.5 Ninety pages long and written in a descriptive style, this work provides an intimate look into the lives of Chinese residents in Chicago in the early twentieth ­century. Like Tin-­Chiu Fan, Ching-­Chao Wu was also a Mandarin speaker from northern China who came to Amer­i­ca through the same missionary network and studied at the University of Chicago. Like Fan, Wu also had l­imited contacts with Chicago’s Chinatown. Instead, Wu pulled individual cases from the hundreds of life histories of second-­generation Chinese Americans and Japa­nese Americans on the U.S. West Coast gathered during the Survey of Race Relations in the 1920s led by Robert Park.6 In 1928, Wu completed his doctoral dissertation, “Chinatowns: A Study of Symbiosis and Assimilation,” which focused on the general conditions of Chinese immigrants in Amer­i­ca. ­Because of its broader scope, Wu’s study is less useful to the understanding of Chinese Chicago than Fan’s.7 While Fan’s thesis was largely a compilation of information with l­ imited analy­ sis or employment of the concepts of the Chicago School of sociology, Wu’s dissertation deftly utilized Park’s theory of the immigrant as a “marginal man” to understand Chinatowns in Amer­i­ca.8 Wu stated that when a Chinese immigrant is exposed to such American influences as public schools, Sunday schools, and missionary efforts, “he is, sooner or ­later, transformed into a marginal man, a new personality which is the subjective aspect of the fusion of cultures.” The language Wu used was almost identical to that in Park’s discussion of the marginal man: “The conflict of cultures which is inevitable when incompatible ideas and practices are brought together goes on just in the mind of the marginal man. His mind is the real melting pot of cultures.”9 ­Little is known about Ruth Joan Soong’s ­family background. Judging from her En­glish proficiency, research interests and methodology, and sentiments revealed

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in her 1931 master’s thesis in education at the University of Chicago, one can speculate that Soong was ­either a student from China with an advanced Western or Christian educational background or ­else a second-­generation Chinese American. An educational so­cio­log­i­cal work, Soong’s thesis combines empirical data, primarily drawn from surveys of 102 students from the On Leong School, with clear and logic analy­sis. The ­tables and other data serve as useful supplements to Fan’s thesis.10 Bingham Dai’s dissertation, “Opium Addiction in Chicago” (1937), is a case study of drug addicts in Chicago. Dai had a longtime interest in the opium prob­ lem. As a child, he admired his paternal ­uncle’s anti-­opium activities and ­later he saw the same ­uncle die as an opium addict. ­After graduating from college in Shanghai, Dai maintained connections with the Chinese National Anti-­Opium Association in that city and also with the Nationalist Government’s Opium Suppression Commission in Nanjing in order to educate the masses and help the legislature address the opium prob­lem in China. Combining his personal interest and professional training in sociology at the University of Chicago, Dai conducted research from 1933 to 1935, in which he examined more than 2,000 drug addicts in Chicago.11 Dai analyzed the characteristics of opium addicts in terms of race and nationality, nativity, education, occupation, marital status, drug habits and physical well-­ being, and drug addiction and crime. He found that, among the addicts studied, approximately four-­fifths ­were white, one-­fifth w ­ ere Black, and the rest of other races, therefore discrediting the popu­lar notion that opium addiction was a vicious habit peculiar to a certain race or nationality.12 Dai’s work was arguably the first to study the social be­hav­ior of opium addicts in relation to race, class, and national origins. The charts, ­tables, and maps he compiled from census data also provide useful information on the social conditions of Chicago in the 1930s. ­These four scholars (albeit Soong could be an exception), like most China-­born students studying at the University of Chicago, shared some traits. They ­were from major cities in China where American Christian missionary organ­izations had been working since the late nineteenth ­century, and their Christian connections assisted their passage to the United States. Unlike their immigrant counter­parts in Chicago, who w ­ ere mostly farmers from the Sanyi and Siyi districts of Guangdong with l­imited or no education and mostly speaking the Taishan dialect of Cantonese, t­ hese China-­born intellectuals w ­ ere Mandarin speakers from elite or educated families in urban China. ­These cultural, socioeconomic, geographic, and linguistic differences created a large gap between them and the Chinatown masses. While they doubtlessly felt an affinity with their compatriots in Chinatown in ethnic origin and national pride, they had difficulty identifying with t­ hese working-­ class Chinese immigrants. Most obviously, the language barrier prevented them from having close and personal contacts with Chicago’s Chinatown residents, a limitation that is reflected in the work of all four of ­t hese scholars. Tin-­Chiu Fan relied on surveys through the memberships of the civic community organ­izations of Chicago’s Chinatown

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and sporadic interviews with a few community leaders, and Ching-­Chao Wu utilized manuscripts from the Survey of Race Relations, while Ruth Joan Soong largely depended on surveys of students from On Leong School, and Bingham Dai employed cases of drug addicts from area governmental and private agencies.  None had extensive interviews with the local Chinese. In terms of the participant-­observer model of so­cio­log­i­cal research, they ­were more observers than participants. However, they ­were keen observers, and their nationalistic sensitivity further motivated them to defend their countrymen, despite their linguistic and class differences from the latter. All four scholars made ­great efforts in their academic writing to repudiate the public anxiety or misunderstanding that Chinese would take jobs away from white laborers, and that Chinese immigrants ­were detrimental to American society ­because of their “immoral” be­hav­ior such as opium smoking, gambling, and prostitution. In the conclusion of his thesis, Tin-­Chiu Fan pointed out the extremely un­balanced sex ratio (only 6 ­percent of the Chinese population in Chicago was female) and the absence of a f­amily life as root c­ auses of any so-­called immoral be­hav­ior of the Chinese, which, according to Fan, resulted from “crowds of men herded together without the mellowing influence of ­family life, and subject to terrible temptation.” Fan praised interracial marriage as a means to help rebalance the male-­female ratio. The State of Illinois did not forbid interracial marriage between Chinese and whites, and ­t here w ­ ere about eighty such marriages at the time of Fan’s research. However, t­ hese interracial marriages w ­ ere too few in number to close the gender gap among Chinese immigrants.13 Fan also believed that anti-­Chinese propaganda and public misunderstanding ­were responsible for the social segregation of Chinese from the general public. Despite the Chinese communities’ efforts to “acquaint the Chicago Community with what seems to them to be worthy and beautiful in their own group and its lit­er­a­ture and its life,” he noted, “due to the remaining effect of the propaganda ­either against or for the Chinese during the anti-­Chinese agitation ­here, the Chinese are over-­estimated by the general public in some ­t hings and undervalued in ­others, but misunderstood in most. They are sometimes forced to live in a place surrounded by [a] drab environment; looked upon with contempt and scorn; regarded as undesirable and unworthy. They are not usually equally treated wherever they go.”14 Fi­nally, Fan rebutted the notion that Chinese immigrants would take away jobs from American laborers: “Practically none of the Chinese in the city are now employed in American factories or other industrial establishments. Nor is t­ here a fear of any mischievous influence, morally or socially, through the presence of the 4,500 Chinese in the Chicago community.” He further argued, “The presence of Chinese ­children in the public schools is not resented; they do good work and gradu­ate with credit. The grown-up p ­ eople, except a very few, have tried their best to live up to the high-­sounding princi­ples broadcasted from the American pulpits. Besides ­t hese reasons, ­t here is a general conviction that the commercial interest of

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the United States demands close touch with China and her ­people.” Fan concluded his thesis with a strong nationalistic statement: “China is not a nation to be bullied at w ­ ill. She has the right, and the power, as time w ­ ill tell to enforce the right, to be treated as a self-­respecting and honorable member of the ­g reat f­amily of nations.”15 With similar ethnic sensitivity, Ching-­Chao Wu stated the following in his dissertation concerning the “immoral” be­hav­ior of Chinese: “A man who has been ­under the influence of two cultures is often described in an unfavorable light,” and the “unfavorable aspect of the marginal man does not need any further elaboration.”16 With her sharp and accurate intuitions, Ruth Joan Soong provided a profound observation on conditions of Chinese ­children in Chicago’s Chinatown, pinpointing the hybridizing and conflicting nature of Chinatown as a prob­lem faced by the Chinese ­children: Chinese ­children in Chicago, fortunately or unfortunately, have an unusual background—­unusual ­because they are away from their ancient East, living in a “colony” in the modern West. Such a “colony,” better known as “Chinatown,” exists primarily to promote trade and to regulate life for the Chinese themselves. In one sense, they are not strictly isolated, much to their regret, ­because the section of Twenty-­Second Street and Went­worth Ave­nue, where they happen to live, brings them near a neighborhood of the worst ele­ments of American culture. On the other hand, they are absolutely isolated, much to their regret, too, ­because they are segregated from the general American public. . . . ​Chinatown is neither China nor Amer­i­ca, but an offspring of the two. ­W hether a Chinese child in the town prefers it or not, he is confronted with the fusion or conflict of the two cultures.17

Bingham Dai also rejected, though indirectly, the general bias that associated opium addition with the Chinese. As he concluded in his dissertation: “Opium addiction cannot be considered as a purely physical disease or a vice that is inherent in the individual or race; it is essentially a symptom of a maladjusted personality, a personality whose capacity for meeting cultural demands has been handicapped by inadequate emotional and social development, for which . . . ​the general cultural chaos and social disor­ga­ni­za­tion that is characteristic of modern society is mainly responsible.”18 Despite their differences and limitations, ­these China-­born scholars vehemently defended their working-­class immigrant compatriots and contributed significantly to the early scholarship on Chinese in Chicago. Most of the China-­born students returned to China upon completion of their education, and some, such as Wu, became influential intellectuals ­t here.19 ­These Chinese scholars had closer contacts with the Chinatown residents, as they ­were mostly natives of Guangdong; at the same time, American-­born Chinese intellectuals had also joined forces to study Chinese communities in Amer­ i­ca. This marked change enabled the scholarship of the period to be involved more

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participant-­observatory in nature and to have a more enduring influence, even half a ­century a­ fter its completion. Rose Hum Lee, a strongheaded yet practical individual, joined the University of Chicago’s sociology department in 1942 at the age of 38. Her path to Chicago sociology had been long and winding, and she was diverted a few times. As historian Henry Yu characterized her, Rose Hum Lee “spent the longest time studying Orientals in Amer­i­ca and perhaps tried hardest to fulfill the role of cultural translator and marginal man.”20 Rose Hum Lee was born in Butte, Montana, on August 20, 1904. Her f­ amily history was highly representative of the success stories of Chinese immigrants in Amer­i­ca. Her f­ ather, Hum Wah Long, came to Amer­i­ca in the 1870s from Guangdong. Initially landing in California, he worked his way to Montana ­doing manual l­ abor in laundries, in mines, and on ranches and fi­nally settled in Butte, where he became a successful owner of a general merchandise store in the Chinatown district, known as China Alley. As a merchant, he was able to return to China and brought his bride, Lin Fong, back to the United States with him. The marriage produced seven c­ hildren, among whom Rose was the second oldest. Rose Hum Lee’s ­f uture was significantly influenced by her m ­ other. An illiterate yet extremely determined w ­ oman, Lin Fong instilled values of education and in­de­pen­dence in her ­children, all of whom became honor students at Butte High School and, l­ater, c­ areer professionals. A ­ fter her high school graduation in 1921, Lee worked as a secretary and attended a local college briefly before marrying Ku Young Lee, a Chinese engineering student from the University of Pennsylvania. The ­couple moved to China in 1931 and lived in Canton for nearly a de­cade. This period of living in China left deep emotional scars in Lee’s memories. She was unable to conceive a child, and her in-­laws constantly blamed her for her inability to produce an heir for the ­family, which was considered the primary duty of a Chinese daughter-­in-­law. Lee ­later divorced her husband and a­ dopted a ­daughter from an orphanage where she volunteered. She worked in a variety of administrative positions while in China, including the Guangdong Raw Silk Testing Bureau, the National City Bank of New York, the Sun Life Assurance Com­pany, and the Guangdong Municipal Telephone Exchange. When the Japa­nese started to wage full-­scale war against China in 1937, Lee worked in the Canton Red Cross W ­ omen’s War Relief Association, the Overseas Relief Unit, and the Guangdong Emergency Committee for the Relief of Refugees and also aided the war effort as a radio operator and translator. In 1939, she returned to Amer­i­ca with her d ­ aughter, Elaine. Living in China allowed Lee to re-­evaluate her Chinese heritage, and she was able to selectively choose the Chinese traits she believed to be valuable and reject ­t hose she considered negative, such as unequal gender relations and a clannish social structure. Her personal experiences in Amer­i­ca and China strongly influenced her intellectual thinking and academic writing. With encouragement from her m ­ other, Lee returned to college. She paid for her education by working at odd jobs and lecturing about Chinese history and culture, as well as about Chinese immigrant experiences in Amer­i­ca. She would dress

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and speak as an American during the lectures and afterward would change into traditional Chinese dress and sell Chinese souvenirs. Proceeds from ­t hese activities enabled Lee to put herself through college. In her dissertation, “The Growth and Decline of Chinese Communities in the Rocky Mountain Region,” completed in 1947, Lee used her own f­ amily, though anonymously, as an example of a success story of Chinese immigrants’ assimilation into American society. In addition, the identities of all the subjects she studied in her dissertation ­were erased. This anonymity enabled Lee to pre­sent her work as that of an “outside” observer rather than an “insider” who was born and raised in the community.21 Compared with Robert Park’s theory of the immigrant as a marginal man who lived in conflicting cultures that met and fused, Rose Lee’s argument, presented in her dissertation as well as in her ­later writing, prescribed a more concrete and ultimate solution for the Oriental prob­lem—­t he dissolution of Chinatown and a complete cultural and racial integration. As she stated in an essay published in 1956, “the completion of the pro­cess includes the mixing of cultures and genes so that ­t here are truly no ‘dissimilar ­people.’ ”22 As American society is increasingly multicultural and multiethnic, with a steadily growing mixed-­raced population, Lee’s prescription now seems prophetic. Ironically, despite her so­cio­log­i­cal training and her ­career studying Chinese communities in Amer­i­ca, Rose Hum Lee’s personal interactions with the Chinatown masses, and especially with the w ­ omen, w ­ ere not always pleasant for her, 23 which often resulted in feelings of bitterness. Yuan Liang’s master’s thesis, “The Chinese F ­ amily in Chicago” (1951), continued the ideas found in Tin-­Chiu Fan’s ­earlier work. A native of Guangdong, Yuan Liang had worked in Chicago’s Chinatown as a waiter, cashier, clerk, and salesman for more than a year before he began studying at the university. His ability to speak the Cantonese dialect and his contacts with the local Chinese businesses enabled him to interview the Chinese t­ here with ease. In conducting research for his thesis, he investigated 80 Chinese families out of 164, believed to be the total number of Chinese families in the city. Liang studied the degree of Americanization of t­ hese families by comparing first-­generation (­either or both members of the ­couple ­were born in China) and second-­generation (both members of the c­ ouple are American born) families, and among families of dif­fer­ent occupations. His findings suggested that in general the Chinese families in Chicago w ­ ere considerably Americanized, with second-­generation families significantly more Americanized than t­ hose of the first generation. In addition, families of dif­f er­ent occupations exhibited dif­fer­ent degrees of Americanization: t­ hose with American occupations ­were the most Americanized, followed, in decreasing order, by t­ hose who worked in restaurants, other Chinese occupations, and laundries. Paul C. P. Siu’s dissertation, “The Chinese Laundryman: A Study of Isolation,” took him twenty-­five years to complete (from 1932 to 1957) and was not published in book form u ­ ntil 1987, a year a­ fter his death. It is an exhaustive investigation of all the pos­si­ble aspects concerning the life of a Chinese laundryman.24

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The most significant contribution of Siu’s dissertation is the notion of a “sojourner,” a term that originated with a fellow student, Clarence Glick, who used it in his own dissertation, “The Chinese Mi­grant in Hawaii.”25 Siu, however, gave the term a so­cio­log­i­cal tweak, which helped pop­u­lar­ize the so-­called sojourner theory. He summarized the three characteristics of the sojourner. First was the “temporal disposition” of the sojourner’s job. Siu stated, “The Chinese laundryman does not or­ga­nize himself to select the laundry work as his life-­long c­ areer, and his sojourn in Amer­i­ca is for one single purpose—to make a fortune or to make enough money to improve his economic well-­being at home [in China].” Second, the sojourner exhibits “ethnocentrism and the in-­group tendency.” Siu asserted that “the sojourner clings to the cultural heritage of his own ethnic group; he is proud of it and thinks of it as the best, and therefore he tries to maintain it by all sorts of means.” Third, the sojourner makes “the trip and movement back and forth.” Siu observed that the sojourner has the “desire to go home, but when he gets home he finds it hard to stay and wants to go abroad again. This back and forth movement means that the man has gotten into an anomalous position between his homeland and the country of his sojourn.”26 Siu’s conclusions remain valid ­today but now can be further understood in the context of transnational migration. The temporal disposition of laundry work ensured the Chinese immigrant’s sustenance and survival in a foreign land and supported his ­family members back in the homeland. His remittances to China constituted an integral part of the transnational economy. The in-­group tendency helped form local links to the transnational social network. The back-­and-­forth movement is the essence of transnational activities, as defined by authors on transnationalism since the 1990s.27 More recent scholarly works, however, have called for revisiting Siu’s sojourner theory, suggesting sojourning as a form of “re­sis­tance” to the systemic racism directed at Chinese immigrants prior to 1965.28

The Expansion Period (1960s–1990s) The rapid demographic changes in the United States since the 1960s, as a result of more relaxed immigration regulations and a more receptive American public to cultural and socioeconomic diversity, propelled a more diverse lit­er­a­ture on Asian Americans in the Midwest. Scholars from other disciplines such as architecture, education, geography, history, and linguistics also joined sociologists in the academic endeavor. Margaret Gibbons Wilson’s master’s thesis, written in 1969, focused on a dichotomy of concentration and dispersal of the Chinese communities in Chicago, relying mainly on area telephone directories, census tract data, and some professional listings as sources. Wilson asserted that while the early Chinese settlers concentrated in the “Old Chinatown,” South Clark Street, the propensity of dispersal began as early as the 1890s and became dominant in the postwar years.29 The book Occupational Mobility and Kinship Assistance: A Study of Chinese Immigrants in Chicago originated as Chinese Canadian sociologist Peter S. Li’s doc-

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toral dissertation for the Department of Sociology at Northwestern University in 1975.30 From 1972 to 1973, Li conducted a survey of 204 adult male Chinese immigrants who applied for U.S. citizenship between July 1, 1972, and December 31, 1973. Li found polarization in the mobility patterns of the Chinese, with a heavy concentration in the professional and ser­v ice worker categories. Occupational mobility varied from group to group: the professionals remained the most stable in terms of retaining their original occupation, ser­v ice workers ­were quite stable, both the white-­collar and blue-­collar workers demonstrated moderate changes, and in­de­ pen­dent proprietors w ­ ere the least stable.31 Susan Lee Moy’s master’s thesis in education, “The Chinese in Chicago: The First One Hundred Years, 1870–1970” (1978), for the University of Wisconsin–­Milwaukee, is an impor­tant contribution to the study of Chinese Americans in Chicago. A  native resident of the city’s old Chinatown, Moy investigated the attitudes of Chicago Chinese Americans in terms of the development and growth of Chinatown and the lifestyles of Chinese in Chicago. Moy asserted that Chicago’s Chinatown, especially its community organ­izations, served the Chinese well by providing a vehicle for their national awakening in the early twentieth ­century but failed to serve the needs of the American-­born generations.32 Based on material from her master’s thesis and further research, Moy also contributed a chapter on Chicago’s Chinese Americans to the book Ethnic Chicago: A Multicultural Portrait, an anthology on the city’s vari­ous racial groups, edited by Melvin G. Holli and Peter d’A. Jones.33 In 1991, Harry Ying Cheng Kiang, a China-­born and American-­trained geographer (who earned his master’s degree at Stanford University and his doctorate at Columbia University) and an emeritus professor of geography at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago, published a brief demographic survey on Chicago’s Chinatown, primarily based on U.S. Census data. With a bilingual text, this work is geared t­ oward a general readership both inside and outside of Chinatown and includes t­ables and maps that would be useful for further research proj­ects.34 Three years ­later, Minglan Cheung Keener, who received her bachelor of science degree from Tongji University in Shanghai, completed her master’s thesis in landscape architecture for the University of Illinois at Urbana-­Champaign. In her research for her thesis, Keener investigated the living conditions of Chicago’s South Chinatown through interviews and surveys involving local residents and community leaders. Keener noted that most Chinatown residents ­were confined in an overcrowded environment ­because of their social, economic, and linguistic disadvantages, and that the quality of their lives largely depended on what Chinatown could provide them: employment opportunities, bilingual ser­v ices, and Chinese foods.35 Along the same lines, geographer Linda Qingling Wang, in her well-­ researched 1997 dissertation, suggested that a “highly-­structured and well-­organized Chinatown” in Chicago provided a “physical and cultural identity” to its residents and “a place with loaded meanings and substances essential” to Chinese suburban dwellers.36

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The Blooming Period (2000–­Pre­sent) During the blooming period, Asian American Studies in the Midwest witnessed the publication of a number of impor­tant monographs and anthologies, as well as articles in professional journals and conference proceedings. Historian Adam McKeown’s book Chinese Mi­grant Networks and Cultural Change: Peru, Chicago, Hawaii, 1900–1936 (2001) is a comparative study of Chinese migration in the three locales. Instead of the “disjunctions” and dichotomies in studying mi­grant experiences from a nation-­state perspective, in which the Chinese are understood e­ ither as immigrants who settled and helped create a new land or as sojourners who never intended to assimilate into the host society, McKeown f­ avors a global perspective that centers attention on “links” and “connections.” His chapter on Chinese Chicago provides intriguing narratives and insightful analy­sis on the early Chicago Chinese community.37 Published in the same year, Canadian-­born historian Henry Yu’s book Thinking Orientals is a nuanced study on the Chicago School of sociology and its prac­ ti­tion­ers in Chicago and beyond. The book provides vivid biographical sketches of some of the ­earlier Chinese scholars in Chicago—­Ching-­Chao Wu, Rose Hum Lee, and Paul Siu—­accompanied by insightful analy­sis of their works.38 Based on census data and fieldwork in Chicago conducted in 2004 and 2005, Shanshan Lan, a China-­born anthropologist who graduated in 2007 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-­Champaign, documented in her dissertation, with a focus on race and class, the evolution of the Chinese American community in Bridgeport, just southwest of Chicago’s South Chinatown. Lan shows Bridgeport to be a part of the “South Chinatown Community” and also argues that by instilling American values into new immigrants, the middle-­class Chinese American social ser­vice agencies of Chinatown perpetuate existing American racial and class hierarchies by “preparing new immigrants to become an obedient working class of color.”39 More substantial and comprehensive studies on Asian Americans in the Midwest emerged in the first two de­cades of the twenty-­first ­century. My own book Chinese St. Louis: From Enclave to Cultural Community (2004) focuses on a new urban ethnic community pattern—­“cultural community”—­that emerged as a result of the disappearance of the inner-­city Chinatown and the dispersal of the Chinese American population into suburban municipalities. The book defines the nature, scope, and applicability of a cultural community model, which employs cultural institutions, such as Chinese-­language schools, churches, and community organ­ izations, as the infrastructure and social bound­aries of the community. Another of my books, Chinese Chicago: Race, Transnational Migration, and Community since 1870 (2012), chronicles the Chinese American communities in Chicagoland since the 1870s and their significance as centers of regional, national, and transnational socioeconomic developments.40 Both books portray the unique community construction in the Midwest and help place Asian Americans of the region on the national map of Asian American Studies.

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Wayne Hung Wong’s American Paper Son: A Chinese Immigrant in the Midwest offers a vivid individual account of the immigrant experience in a midwestern town. In 1935, Wayne Hung Wong, as a 13-­year-­old “paper son,” came to Wichita, Kansas, to help in his ­father’s restaurant t­ here. During World War II, he served in one of the all-­Chinese units of the ­Fourteenth Air Force in China. ­After the war, he brought his Taishanese wife to the United States and was caught in the government’s confession program (an amnesty program for immigrants). He eventually became a successful real estate entrepreneur in Wichita.41 In addition to monographs, scholars have also contributed to the field through essays in anthologies, journal articles, and conference proceedings.42 Meanwhile, primary sources on Asian Americans in the Midwest, though not as abundant as ­t hose on the larger Asian American communities on the coasts and in Hawaii, are readily available for a determined and resourceful researcher. Through my c­ areer of reconstructing Asian American history in the Midwest, I have identified abundant primary sources, many of which are included in the bibliography.

PA RT I I

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Marriage, F ­ amily, and Community Organ­izations

chapter 5

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­Family and Marriage among Chicagoland Chinese, 1880s–1940s 當年阿公出遠洋，家里阿婆哭斷腸. ­ ntil her death. When a man lives overseas, his wife weeps u —­Folk song from Taishan, Guangdong, China (author’s translation)

Since the mid-­nineteenth ­century, Chicago has been a cosmopolitan city and national hub for thousands of immigrants from around the world seeking fortunes in a new land. For the Chinese who first arrived on the West Coast, Chicago became a refuge to escape the rampant anti-­Chinese sentiments in the West. In the mid-1870s, Moy Dong Chow arrived in Chicago, and his two ­brothers, Moy Dong Hoy (Sam Moy) and Moy Dong Yee, followed soon afterward. By 1880, ­t here ­were a hundred Chinese in the city. By the end of 1890, more than 500 Chinese lived on South Clark Street. The earliest Chinatown in Chicago arose on Clark Street between Van Buren and Harrison. It was in this multiethnic urban “jungle” that Chinese built their enclave. Using archival manuscripts, censuses, news reports, and interviews, this chapter investigates how transnational migration has ­shaped the early Chinese community in Chicago. ­Family life for the pioneers in Chicago’s Chinatown did not exist u ­ ntil the 1880s. The three Moy b ­ rothers and their compatriots first came to the Windy City alone, leaving their families ­behind in China. The 1880s saw steady population growth, as about thirty Chinese men settled in the city. The growing number of Chinese made it safer for their w ­ omen to follow them. The Moy b ­ rothers and some other Chinese merchants ­were able to send for their wives from China b ­ ecause the w ­ omen ­were exempted from the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which prohibited the entry of Chinese laborers ­until 1943, when it was fi­nally repealed. It was in the mid-1880s, when the three Moy ­brothers jointly owned the Hip Lung Com­pany (originally Hip Lung Yee Kee and Com­pany), that Moy Dong Hoy, the second of the three Moy ­brothers in Chicago, returned to China and brought back a young wife with him a year ­later.1 Moy Dong Yee, the youn­gest of the 81

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Figure 5.1. ​Moy Tong Wee (Moy Dong Yee) and his wife, Luke Shee, ca. 1906. National Archives and Rec­ords Administration–­Great Lakes Region (Chicago).

­ rothers, was able to return to China four times during the thirty-­t wo years he b lived in San Francisco and Chicago. A ­ fter his fourth visit to China, in 1911, he brought his new wife, Luk Shee, back with him (figure 5.1).2 I have found no rec­ord that indicates when Moy Dong Chow brought his wife to the United States, but it is certain that by the 1910s, all three Moy ­brothers had wives in Chicago, as shown in a photo­graph of the three wives taken in the 1910s.3 Another Chinese merchant in Chicago, Chin F. Foin, a member of the impor­ tant Chin clan and the owner of Wing Chong Hai and Com­pany at 218 Clark Street, dealing in teas, silks, and general Chinese and Japa­nese merchandise, also brought his wife, Yoklund Wong, to the United States ­after his 1906 trip to China.4 Chin apparently was d ­ oing well; in addition to Wing Chong Hai and Com­pany, he invested in the King Yen Lo Restaurant and l­ ater owned the Mandarin Inn Restaurant. Chin was arguably the most prominent Chinese restaurateur in Chicago and a pioneer in upscale Chinese dining.5 The wives of a few other Chinese merchants, F. Toy, Y. K. Chan, and M. H. Chan, also lived with their husbands in Chicago.6 According to Paul C. P. Siu’s study on the Chinese f­amily in Chicago, by the end of the 1880s or the beginning of the 1890s, ­t here w ­ ere a dozen Chinese groceries and three chop suey h ­ ouses in the old Chinatown area. To meet the demand for chop suey supplies, a bean sprout–­producing business in turn emerged. The Chinatown population consequently increased from 30 to about 200, and the number of families grew to a dozen. Between 1915 and 1925, ­t here ­were more than 50 Chinese families in Chicago’s Chinatown area, and many ­others lived outside of Chinatown. In the 1930s t­ here w ­ ere more than 150 Chinese families in Chicago.7

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Historical rec­ords reveal a few distinctive marriage patterns among the early Chinese families in Chicago. I have identified the following categories: the transnational split marriage, with a Taishanese “­w idow” and a concubine in Amer­i­ca; traditional marriage; and American urban marriages, involving love ­union, interracial marriage, and ­w idow remarriage. The ­earlier w ­ omen, many of them concubines, w ­ ere predominantly from the rural area in Taishan County, Guangdong Province. However, the traditional patriarchal polygamous marriage changed when transplanted to the new land; the husband did not live with multiple wives si­mul­ ta­neously but instead left first wife in China to carry out duties of filial piety and brought a concubine to Amer­i­ca to fulfill responsibilities of production and reproduction. While a dominant pattern had been one in which the Chinese male went back to China, got married ­there, and brought his bride with him when he returned to the United States, the younger and American-­born Chinese ­were more likely to find their own mates in their socioeconomic circles. As a result, interracial marriage or ­union also emerged in the last category.

Transnational Split Marriage: Taishanese “­Widow” and American Concubine The establishment of ­family life in Amer­i­ca for Chinese immigrants had encountered a series of obstacles, including ideological, socioeconomic, and physical restrictions in China and the alienating and often hostile reception in the United States.8 Despite t­ hese obstacles, Chinese immigrants devised a mechanism to cope with their immigrant real­ity. I refer to this mechanism as a transnational split marriage to describe a marital arrangement in which the husband had to leave his wife ­behind in China due to the aforementioned obstacles, but on one of his return trips brought a concubine back to the United States with him to ease his immigrant life. Such a pattern is evident among the ­earlier Chinese immigrants in Chicago.9 A widespread and popu­lar folk song among the overseas Chinese villages starts with the lyric “Dang nian a gong xia nan yang, jia li a po ku duan chang,” or “When a man lives overseas, his wife weeps u ­ ntil her death.” The Chinese villages that had substantial numbers of their residents overseas w ­ ere called “­w idow villages.” The folk song and the nickname vividly describe the split f­amily life a transmigrant and his f­ amily had to endure. Numerous literary works also depict this real­ity. Louis Chu’s novel Eat a Bowl of Tea, for instance, and the motion picture based on the novel brilliantly and lightheartedly portray the life of a split immigrant f­ amily. The wife laments that her absent husband periodically sent her modern ­house­hold gadgets from Amer­i­ca while what she wants most was him.10 Academics have also studied this topic, with the best example being Madeline Y. Hsu’s book Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home.11 The plight of the virtual w ­ idow of an immigrant Chinese is only part of the transpacific saga. A fuller picture depends on an analy­sis of the entire marital

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arrangement, namely, the transnational split marriage pattern. This form of marriage was a practical compromise developed to cope with the marital separation caused by immigration. In many cases, a concubine was arranged by parents or the first wife of an immigrant to take care of his physical needs while abroad; at the same time, the first wife remained in the home village to fulfill the responsibilities of filial piety on his behalf. Many concubines w ­ ere illiterate slave-­maids from the same or nearby villages of the homeland who ­were sold into servitude at a young age by impoverished parents. A slave-­maid’s destination in life was dictated by her master. She could be married to a male servant or could become a concubine of the master at the ­w ill of the master and mistress; the latter arrangement often was considered a better alternative for a slave-­maid, since she was no longer considered a slave but a member of the master’s h ­ ouse­hold. Concubines ­were often found among the ­earlier merchant families within Chinatown.12 M. H.’s ­family was a typical example of the transnational split marriage in Chicago. M. H. came to Amer­i­ca in 1890, leaving his first wife ­behind in China. Returning to Amer­i­ca ­after one of his trips back home to China, he brought along his concubine, who was from a poor ­family in a dif­fer­ent district and was twenty-­seven years his ju­nior. Although the first wife in China bore him two sons, M. H.’s married life was mainly spent with his concubine in Chicago, who bore him six ­children, only three of whom survived. M.  H. ­later brought his two older sons from the first wife to Chicago to help him with his chop suey ­house business. To M. H. the transnational split marriage pattern worked well for taking care of his f­amily both in the home village and in Chicago, as is apparent in the following account by Paul Siu: Mr. M. H. was a Chinese peasant who came to Amer­i­ca about forty years ago and died in the year 1923 in Chicago. He left his first wife in the native village in China and enjoyed his life of ease in Amer­i­ca with his young concubine u ­ ntil the last minute of his death. The w ­ oman that he brought over on one of his returnings from China was from [another] district of the native village. She was a ­daughter of a poor villa­ger in Sun-­Voi County. She has six ­children but three of them are dead in physical arrests. When Mr. M. H. was living, the ­family called one of the well-­to-do ­family in Chinatown. He was a chop suey ­house boss, ­doing prosperous business and in the gambling ­houses in Chinatown he had sources of income. ­After his death, he left a big share in the F. Lo (name of the chop suey ­house) for his second son and prob­ably [a] certain amount of money for his “­little wife.” Two of the bigger sons ­were immigrated into this country when Mr. M. H. was still living. The wife of the oldest son was arranged to marry in one of M. H.’s returnings to the native village from this country.13

The concubines ­were accepted as wives of their husbands by the Chinese immigrant community in Chicago and w ­ ere socially active. The “young Mrs.  M.H.” was “a very sociable w ­ oman in the community,” g­ oing to church in Chinatown and

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participating in “­women affairs.” Mrs. Fung, a concubine of her husband, was “crazy about ma-­jong,” often ­going to a mah-­jongg party next door or organ­izing one in her own h ­ ouse.14 Concubinage was not practiced only in traditional Chinese culture but also was a natu­ral product of patriarchal society in some other cultures. The origin of concubinage in China is obscure, but it certainly was related to the patriarchal nature of the society, in which only a male heir could secure a f­ amily’s name to be passed down, keep its fortune intact, and have its social and economic status in the community unchallenged. Confucian teachings systematized the patriarchal beliefs and formalized them in cultural institutions that ruled Chinese society and individuals. According to Confucius, “A man without a son was not a dutiful son.”15 A man therefore could legitimately have a concubine or concubines if his wife failed to produce a male heir. The institution of concubinage was further strengthened and developed during the Song dynasty (960–1279), when urban development and economic prosperity reduced the significance of ­women’s participation in economic activities and enabled wealthy Chinese gentry landowners and merchants to enjoy a more leisurely lifestyle.16 Together with other valuable possessions, concubines signified a man’s social status and economic power. Many wealthy Chinese men therefore acquired concubines not only to satisfy their sexual appetite but also to display their fortune and power. In one of China’s most famous twentieth-­century novels, ­Family (originally published in 1933), Ba Jin (Pa Chin) vividly portrayed a typical wealthy feudal patriarchal Chinese f­ amily, the Gaos, modeled a­ fter his own ­family. Grand­father Gao, the f­amily head, and his wealthy friends all possessed concubines.17 Although this centuries-­old feudal practice of polygyny had been challenged several times in Chinese history during the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864) and the May Fourth Movement of 1919, it was not outlawed ­until 1950, when the government of the ­People’s Republic of China issued the Marriage Law that legally prohibited bigamy and concubinage.18 Although concubinage had been practiced in China historically, the polygynous conditions among Chinese immigrants in the United States ­were more likely ramifications of immigration than Chinese cultural habits. Not only the well-­to-do Chinese merchants but even some Chinese laborers had concubines in Amer­i­ca. Before the repeal of the Chinese exclusion laws in 1943, most Chinese immigrant men had left their families in China due to financial constraints, American immigration restrictions, and Chinese patriarchy, which dictated that ­women should stay in China to take care of c­ hildren and parents-­in-­law and to secure remittances from men abroad.19 A few fortunate men ­were eventually able to arrange to have their families come to Amer­i­ca.20 Many o ­ thers managed to return to native villages in China to see their families periodically.21 The passage of the Scott Act in 1888, which barred the re-­entry of Chinese laborers to the United States even if they had left the country only temporarily, however, made the latter practice impossible. Unable to bring their wives to Amer­i­ca or go to China to see them, some successful Chinese laborers, such as farmers, employed laborers, ser­v ice workers, and

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even gamblers, purchased ­women from brothels or married ­those who successfully escaped servitude, while still legally married to their first wives in China, as indicated in David Beesley’s study on the polygynous practice among Chinese immigrants in Nevada.22 Furthermore, polygyny practiced among Chinese immigrant males during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries took a dif­fer­ent form from that in China: most men had first wives in China and remarried or lived with w ­ omen ­under common-­law marriage in Amer­i­ca without divorcing their first wives; they generally did not live with multiple ­women in the same ­house­hold at the same time, as the term “polygynous” suggests. In other words, t­hese marriages w ­ ere more bigamous than polygynous. Moreover, the bigamous practices among Chinese immigrants in Amer­i­ca ­were more for practical reasons (physical sustenance of the men and survival of Chinese immigrant communities) than for psychological reasons (display of one’s wealth through possession of concubines, such as among many wealthy men in China). Among the e­ arlier Chinese families in Chicago, most of the w ­ omen w ­ ere concubines, and ­t here often was a wide age gap between the husband and the concubine. The three Moy b ­ rothers all brought their young concubines from China between the 1880s and the 1910s. Although t­ here is no written rec­ord of the age difference within the c­ ouples, a f­amily photo taken in 1929, about three de­cades ­a fter Moy Dong Hoy’s marriage, shows him, his wife, and their eight c­ hildren, ranging from preschoolers to youths in their twenties. Moy Dong Hoy appears to be twenty to thirty years older than his wife.23 Moy Dong Yee and his new wife also had a wide age gap, as is apparent in photos of the c­ ouple from immigration rec­ords.24 No photo of Moy Chong Chow and his wife is available, but a ­family picture taken in the 1910s shows the wives of the three Moy b ­ rothers, and the three 25 ­women appear to be similar in age. Like the Moy b ­ rothers, many other Chinese men also brought concubines to Amer­i­ca. C. H. Moy (from a dif­fer­ent Moy ­family) brought his concubine from the West Coast in 1920.26 David Lee’s ­father came to San Francisco in 1918 and arrived in Chicago in 1924. He had three wives, all from his hometown, Dongkeng Village in Taishan County, Guangdong. The first wife came to Amer­i­ca in 1922, while the second and third stayed in China to look a­ fter their father-­in-­law.27 Not all Chinese immigrants brought concubines. Instead, many remained lonely married bachelors in Amer­i­ca. Even in the latter case, however, the role of a companion for one’s physical needs was met by a substitution for con­ cubinage—­prostitution, which has frequently been deployed as an example of Chinatown vice. The wide age gap between husband and wife also was common among Chinese immigrants in other parts of the country. In many Chinese immigrant families the husband was older than his wife. David Beesley’s investigation, involving twenty-­seven married Chinese c­ouples in a Sierra Nevada town, for example, has indicated that the average age of the ­women was 22, while that of the men was 31.28 Sucheng Chan’s study has also noted that among Chinese families

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in the Sacramento–­San Joaquin Delta in the early twentieth c­ entury, some farm laborers ­were twice or even almost three times as old as their wives.29 The documents from the Immigration and Naturalization Ser­vice and oral history interviews also suggest the age gap between a married c­ ouple was a common feature of many Chinese immigrant families. The age gap between marital partners can be attributed to patriarchal Chinese culture, which dictated that marriage was often a social and economic arrangement between the families of the bride and groom rather than a romantic ­union between two individuals. However, the age gap between husband and wife was more noticeable among Chinese immigrants than among t­ hose who remained in China. Obviously, immigration to Amer­i­ca contributed to this age gap. American immigration policies before 1943 effectively reinforced the gender imbalance among Chinese immigrants by restricting the entry of Chinese w ­ omen. The Page Law of 1875 forbade the entry of Chinese, Japa­nese, and “Mongolian” contract laborers and prohibited the entry of ­women for the purpose of prostitution. It also imposed fines and punishment on ­those convicted of transporting ­women interstate for the purpose of prostitution. Although the Page Law applied to ­women of any race and nationality who engaged in prostitution, it was executed with Chinese w ­ omen in 30 mind. The Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 effectively banned the entry of Chinese laborers and the wives of Chinese laborers who ­were already in the United States. As a result, from 1906 to 1924, only an average of 150 Chinese w ­ omen per year w ­ ere legally admitted.31 The Immigration Act of May 26, 1924, based on the Supreme Court ruling in the case of Chang Chan et al. v. John D. Nagle on May 25, 1924, excluded Chinese alien wives of American citizens of Chinese ancestry. Consequently, no Chinese w ­ omen w ­ ere admitted from 1924 to 1930.32 In 1930, an act relaxed this ban by allowing the entry of alien Chinese wives as long as the marriage was legally effective before May 26, 1924. ­Under this provision, about 60 Chinese ­women ­were admitted each year between 1931 and 1941.33 The rec­ords of the Immigration and Naturalization Ser­v ice indicate that the majority of the Chinese ­women entering the United States between 1882 and 1943 w ­ ere wives or d ­ aughters of Chinese merchants who ­were exempted from the exclusion laws due to class prejudice in the American immigration policy and U.S. trade with China.34 Consequently, American-­born ­daughters of Chinese families w ­ ere in demand as prospective brides. The second reason for the age gap was the enforcement of anti-­miscegenation laws in many states, which prevented Chinese men from marrying ­women outside their own ethnic group.35 Anti-­miscegenation laws in the United States evolved as a reaction of white society t­oward pos­si­ble racially mixed marriages between whites and Blacks resulting from the introduction of Black slaves from Africa. In 1661, Mary­land passed the first such law to prohibit marriages involving white females and Black males. Following Mary­land, thirty-­eight other states passed similar legislation.36 In 1850, California lawmakers ­adopted a statute to prohibit Black-­white marriages, which was l­ ater included in Section 60 of the new Civil Code in 1872. A drastic shift in anti-­miscegenation laws in California in 1880 also outlawed

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Chinese-­white marriages along with Black-­white marriages. In the same year, the California legislature introduced Section  69 of the Civil Code, which restricted the issuance of marriage licenses to ­unions between a white and a “Negro, Mulatto, or Mongolian.”37 Although the generic term “Mongolian” refers to Chinese, Japa­nese, Koreans, and many other ethnic groups in Asia, the law was designed to target Chinese, echoing the anti-­Chinese cry on the West Coast at that time. In 1905, to make Sections 60 and 69 consistent and to deal with the fear of the Japa­nese, another group of Mongolian ­people, the California legislature amended Section 60 to make marriages between whites and Mongolians “illegal and void.”38 ­These laws ­were in effect ­until 1967, when they ­were fi­nally declared unconstitutional. Prohibited from marrying ­women of other racial groups, Chinese immigrant males could only look for mates from a very l­imited supply, most likely American-­born Chinese girls, who in terms of age often could have been their d ­ aughters. Third, the noticeable age difference between Chinese husbands and wives was also due to the financial disability of Chinese men. Many of them worked for almost their entire lifetime to save enough money for a marriage. Mrs. C., a second-­ generation Chinese American ­woman from Boston who was in her seventies in 1991, recalled her f­ amily history in which her parents’ marriage was exemplary: “My ­father spent many years to save money for his marriage. So when he had enough money to support a ­family, he was already a middle-­aged man. He went to Guangdong, China, to marry my m ­ other when she was 16.”39 The transnational split marriages often coincided with a larger ­family size. The three Moy ­brothers all had large families. Moy Dong Chow had nine ­children altogether, including three ­daughters and six sons. His first wife, Ng Shee, bore him four sons in China: Moy Fook Hung, My Fook Choon, Moy Fook Jung, and Moy Fook Ngoon. His second wife, Wong Shee, bore him three d ­ aughters and two sons in the United States: Moy Fung Gu (Lillie), Moy Fung Ying (Marion), Moy Fung Lin (Jumie), Moy Fook Keung (Edward), and Moy Fook Sun (William).40 Moy Dong Hoy and his wife had three ­daughters and five sons, and Moy Dong Yee had three ­daughters and six sons.41 Siu’s study of the Chinese families in Chicago Chinatown indicates a similar pattern. Large families w ­ ere common among the early Chinese immigrants in other parts of the country, although ­family size varied according to the class status of the male head of the h ­ ouse­hold.42 Many well-­to-do Chinese men wanted to raise a big f­ amily to secure their financial f­ uture and alleviate their loneliness as immigrants. Mrs. C.’s ­family history was exemplary. Mrs. C, the ­daughter of an affluent Chinese merchant in Boston, recalled, “­There are nine c­ hildren in my f­ amily. My ­father knew that he was alone in this country. He did not have any relative ­here. So he wanted to have many ­children as security in his old age.” 43 Similarly, Mrs. S.’s merchant ­family from San Francisco consisted of seven ­children (four boys and three girls).44 Like Chinese merchants on the mainland, some Chinese farming families in Hawaii also tended to be large. Lily Chan, a farmer’s ­daughter in Honolulu, wrote in 1926, “Our ­family was a very large one, comprising of five ­brothers and four s­ isters, so my f­ather had quite a hard job feeding and clothing us.” 45 It

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was a hard job, too, for her ­mother to care for such a big ­family. Cooking, cleaning, and child-­rearing ­were drudgery for ­t hese early Chinese immigrant ­women.

Traditional Marriage The transnational split marriage pattern, of course, does not encompass all early Chinese immigrant families, and not all the wives of the ­earlier Chinese immigrants w ­ ere concubines. Many first wives managed to come to the United States to join their husbands.46 Among the 137 families in Chicago surveyed by Paul Siu, thirty-­nine families, or 30 ­percent, w ­ ere in the category of traditional marriage, which consisted of an arranged marriage prior to or ­after immigration to Amer­i­ca. Eighty ­percent of the traditionally married c­ ouples resided in Chinatown, with most of the men working as restaurateurs, grocers, or lottery ­house keepers, merchants who ­were exempted from the Chinese exclusion acts.47 S. Moy came to Chicago in the last de­cade of the nineteenth ­century and had owned a general store. During World War I, he made enough money to send for his wife from China and also built two h ­ ouses in Chinatown as rental properties. Unfortunately, he became para­lyzed in his mid-50s and began to lose money in his business due to this disability and the economic depression of that time. His wife was “sluggish” and could not take care of him or his business. Therefore, both of his h ­ ouses ­were authorized to his creditors to collect the room rent in lieu of having S. Moy pay his debts to them.48 C. L.’s case offers a counterexample to that of S. Moy. C. L. came to Amer­i­ca when he was 23, around the turn of the c­ entury. He stayed a few years in Portland, Oregon, during his initial time in Amer­i­ca, but ­later moved to Chicago, where he lived for more than thirty years and owned a general store. His store did well, and he made some money. During the 1910s, he went back to China, got married, and brought his bride to Chicago. Twenty years ­later, they had five ­children, aged 19, ­ reat Depression, his business was slow except on 18, 17, 13, and 8. During the G Sundays, when his cousins and relatives would come and buy something in the store, and he had to supplement his income by selling lottery tickets, which earned him about twenty dollars a week. Other than the 18-­year-­old, the rest of his ­children ­were males. The oldest was sent to China for schooling, and the two youn­gest worked as newsboys while also attending school. Mrs. L. worked in a garment factory and l­ ater a bakery.49

American Urban Adaptation: Love Union, Interracial Marriage, and ­Widow Remarriage Love Union Along with the transnational split marriage and the traditional marriage, ­t here ­were other matrimonial u ­ nions that resulted from romances rather than parental arrangements. Such ­unions ­were often found among the younger, better-­educated,

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second-­generation Chinese, accounting for 26 ­percent of the marriages investigated by Paul Siu. Mark was a young engineer from Hawaii who found employment in an American com­pany. His wife was also a Hawaiian-­born Chinese. The c­ ouple had lived in Chicago for six years by the early 1930s. They had a small apartment on Twenty-­Sixth Street, four blocks from Chinatown, where Chinese and Italian families resided together. Their apartment was clean and had modern furnishings: a rug, piano, radio, and musical instruments. Mark played tennis in the summer while his wife watched. They spoke En­glish and associated mostly with other Chinese from Hawaii.50 Dr. D. was a young general practitioner who had an office in Chinatown in the 1930s. The son of a Chinese missionary, he went to high school on the West Coast and came to Chicago for his higher education. He graduated from Northwestern University and then Chicago Medical School. He wife had been his childhood playmate and a fellow student at the university. They got married immediately ­after his graduation from medical school. They spoke Cantonese and occasionally En­glish to each other.51 Mr. Ying came to Amer­i­ca when he was a teenager and had been in the country for nearly twenty years in the 1930s. His wife was an America-­born Chinese from Los Angeles. Ying opened a chop suey ­house on North Broadway but closed it during the Depression. Then they both became insurance agents and made a good living. They lived in an apartment near Lincoln Park on the North Side.52 J. Chung’s case is the most illuminating example of the love u ­ nion form of marriage, as presented in this description by Siu: Mr. Chung is 31 and his wife is 20. He went back to China 1931 and had been back ­here only about ten months. He went back to China largely for marriage purpose[s]. He had been looking around h ­ ere in Amer­i­ca for a wife but he failed to find a satisfactory one. He went to New York and [maybe] some other Eastern Chinese communities but was disappointed and came [back] to Chicago. Then he went to the West, to San-­Francisco, Portland, Los Angeles and other Chinese communities but he was disappointed again and again, and came back to Chicago. Fi­nally he de­cided to go back to China. So he went back to China. He has indirectly known a Chinese girl in Canton; she is a society girl in that city. With a purpose to marry this girl, Mr. Chung met her personally while he was in Canton. He spent lot[s] of money to arrange banquets and gifts to please the girl and her relatives and friends. But disappointment as it was the romance was again ended with unsatisfied agreements. I was told that the girl was not his type. Few months l­ater, he met another girl in Hong-­Kong. She is a d ­ aughter of a doctor in that city. Mr. Chung had another romance begin. And within a few weeks, the marriage ceremony was held in the bride’s home. ­Here was our new Mrs. Chung and ­here she is in Chicago, living happily with her husband. A baby was born to them about three months ago. They are living in 4000 [street] south of Chicago.

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Mr. Chung was born in China. At the age 18, he was sent out to Canton by his parents for his high school education. He was t­ here only one year, attending a governmental high school. At the age of 20, he went across [the ocean] to Mexico. When he was in Mexico, he learned Spanish. ­Later, a Chinese news paper ­here in Chicago was established and it was run by a group of his cousins. Mr. Chung was offered a position as a business man­ag­er. The news paper sent him over from Mexico. He fi­nally arrived ­here and assumed his job. He [worked] in this place for four years and made about from $150 to $200 per month. During that period, Mr. Chung was quite a prostitute and taxi-­dancing hall patron. He went to dancing halls at least once a week. He had venereal [disease] for once or twice. But, [however, he] is a man of w ­ ill power. Despite of being a [constant] vice patron, he still [could save] a lot of money. One year before his [return] back to China, he resigned as a business man­ ag­er of the news paper com­pany ­because he had [a] personal conflict with the [editor]. Then, [assisted] by one of his friend[s], he established a pictorial [magazine]. The office was in Downtown. ­Because of lack of ability and specialization, the [magazine] had a poor circulation. It was ­stopped from print fi­nally; he [lost] about two thousand dollars prob­ably. At the same time he imported some Chinese goods from China. At first, ­those goods ­were sold only to Chinese ­people. But since Chung came back from China again, he ordered some goods that can sell to American business ­houses in w ­ hole sale. Mr. Chung is a new idea person in the immigrant community. In many ways he is dif­fer­ent from the other conservatives. He knows many American friends and [constantly makes] contacts with them. Now, since he brought his wife from China, he lives in the Southside instead of . . . ​in Chinatown. He has lived in the Y.M.C.A. for a while when he [ran] that pictorial [magazine]. Mrs. Chung is a very skinny figure, small, but very sweet. She was educated in Hong Kong, a high school gradu­ate. She speaks a ­little bit [of] En­glish. She learned her En­glish when she was in high school at Hong Kong. They are living in [a] three room apartment. Housing condition is fair; it furnishes with all modern equipment. They have very seldom go down to Chinatown. Mr. Chung do go down t­ here often for only business purpose.53

Interracial Marriage Despite anti-­miscegenation laws, interracial marriage occurred in Chicago. The earliest recorded case was a ­union between Quing Kee and his German wife, who was referred to as Mrs. Quing Kee. The ­couple had been married for some years by 1890 and lived in the upstairs room of the Hip Lung Com­pany (the Moy ­brothers’ grocery store). Mrs. Quing Kee was a “stout” and hardy w ­ oman, and their marriage seemed well respected by the early Chinese residents, who w ­ ere mostly bachelors. On New Year’s Day in 1890, Moy Dong Chew and Moy Dong Hoy, the ­owners of Hip Lung and leaders of the Chinese community, led other Chinese residents in paying homage to Quing Kee and his wife. It was a Chinese custom to

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pay homage to relatives and friends on that day. Clearly, the c­ ouple was accepted as members of the community. Mrs. Quing Kee, who was “complacent” for the homage, reciprocated by offering the greeters Chinese rice gin and sending her husband across the street to fill the “growler” with beer. As she said, “I c­ an’t dring dot rice-­chin. I lige beer better. Quing go ofer by Lawler’s, unt get dree pints.”54 A significant number of interracial marriages occurred among Chinese in Chicago. In the 1930s, according to Siu’s study, ­t here ­were at least twenty-­seven cases of interracial marriage, or 20 ­percent of the families investigated, among the Chinese. Twenty-­six of ­t hese marriages involved Chinese men and white ­women, mostly Polish, and one was between a Chinese man and a Black ­women. The white ­women who married Chinese men generally came from one of three backgrounds: Polish dishwashers at Chinese restaurants, chop suey ­house workers or cashiers, or veteran prostitutes. Twelve of the interracially married c­ ouples identified by Siu lived in Chinatown, while fifteen resided outside of Chinatown.55 A few cases of interracial marriage investigated by Siu in the 1930s are illuminating for understanding the social ac­cep­tance, cultural assimilation, and ­ethnic  identity of the individuals involved. T. Chan met his f­uture wife in a chop suey house, where she worked as a waitress. Despite the seeming physical incompatibility—­t he former was short and small, and the latter tall and large—­ they fell in love. ­After their marriage, they lived on the South Side for three years, when T. Chan was employed in a large com­pany as a trea­surer. He l­ater quit his job and opened a small chop suey shop. Unfortunately, the business was so slow that he could not even pay the rent for the shop. The landlord evicted him, and he thus lost thousands of dollars on the venture. Then the ­Great Depression came, and the c­ ouple had to move to ease the situation. Their new home was on the outskirts of Chinatown, a small apartment on Twenty-­Fifth Street in the Italian community. T. Chan then found a job as a waiter at the Pagoda Inn Restaurant in Chinatown. Occasionally, Mrs. Chan would take their son to the restaurant to have dinner and see her husband. Some of the workers ­t here would tease the ­little boy and bribe him with coins to get him to speak Chinese.56 H. Chan, a cook at a chop suey h ­ ouse, married a Polish w ­ oman who worked as a dishwasher at the same business. He was always kind to his wife and treated her well, often cooking a special dinner for her. In the first twenty years of their marriage, chop suey business was bustling in Chicago, H. Chan was able to buy a h ­ ouse on the South Side and earned enough so that his wife could be a ­house­wife instead of working as a dishwasher. They had three c­ hildren, two girls and a boy. The first ­daughter graduated from a normal school on the South Side and worked as a bookkeeper in a Chinese restaurant. In her teen years, she wanted to be a nun and was in denial of her Chinese heritage, unwilling to associate with any Chinese. As she matured, she changed her attitude and became actively involved in the Chinese community, attending social meetings and g­ oing to dance parties held by the Chinese student association at the University of Chicago. Her younger s­ister, a 17-­year-­old high school student, tagged along. Each of the girls ended up finding a

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boyfriend among the Chinese students. When their ­father was at work at the restaurant where he was a man­ag­er, they would have parties at home with their boyfriends.57 Mr. Lam was a second-­generation Chinese and had married a white ­woman. The ­couple moved to Chicago in the 1930s and set up their tailor shop in Chinatown, though neither of them could speak Chinese. Their clients ­were young Chinese men who could speak En­glish and ­were mostly their friends. However, the ­couple was socially isolated from the Chinese community; Mr. Lam was never invited to any social meetings in Chinatown, and Mrs. Lam had no Chinese w ­ omen as her friends.58 Dr. K. graduated from Northwestern University’s medical school as the top student in his class and married a white nurse. Both of them w ­ ere in their mid-­ thirties at the time but she looked much younger. They had a 3-­year-­old ­daughter. Dr. K. opened his office in Chinatown, practicing as a general practitioner and surgeon. Although his business was the most successful among the three doctors in Chinatown, overall the physicians in Chinatown ­were not ­doing well ­because most Chinese would go to American doctors when they w ­ ere ill. In addition, Dr. K. could not speak Chinese well, which became a disadvantage for his business that other­ wise could have prospered.59 L. Moy, the son of Moy Dong Chow and the unofficial mayor of Chinatown, was also married to a white ­woman twenty years younger than him. L. Moy worked as a laundryman for many years but ­later was promoted to the head the On Leong Tong, a prominent position, which made him rich. His ­family lived in Chinatown for many years but l­ater moved to a comfortable h ­ ouse on the South Side. He would come to Chinatown, wearing expensive clothing and big gold chains and driving his new Lincoln, which cost $4,000 and which he parked in front of the On Leong Tong’s building. The ­couple had a 16-­year-­old ­daughter who liked to dress in boys’ attire. She came to Chinatown with her f­ ather and would drop into a gambling h ­ ouse and watch p ­ eople play mah-­jongg. She could not speak Chinese but understood a l­ ittle.60 The interracial marriages in Chicago mirror t­ hose across the country. Despite anti-­miscegenation laws, a small number of interracial marriages existed among Chinese immigrants. For Chinese men who married non-­Chinese w ­ omen, the intermarriage usually occurred between small entrepreneurs or laborers. The racial and ethnic backgrounds of their wives varied from region to region.61 In the South, most Chinese men w ­ ere laborers from California or Cuba who had been recruited to the South by railroad companies or sugar plantations. They found wives among Black ­women and Irish or French immigrant ­women. The 1880 census for Louisiana indicated that among the 489 Chinese in the state, 35 ­were married, widowed, or divorced. Of the married Chinese men, only four had a Chinese wife. The remaining Chinese men had married non-­Chinese ­women, among whom four w ­ ere of mixed Black and white ancestry, twelve w ­ ere Black, and eight w ­ ere white, including six w ­ omen of Irish or French immigrant background.62

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In the Midwest, most interracial marriages occurred among Chinese small entrepreneurs and laborers. In Minneapolis and St. Paul, ­t here w ­ ere at least six interracially married Chinese men in the early twentieth ­century. Th ­ ese men ­were laundry or restaurant o ­ wners and cooks whose wives ­were often Irish or Polish ­women who worked as vegetable washers in Twin Cities restaurants.63 In New York City, census data and con­temporary newspapers revealed an interracial marriage pattern of Chinese men and Irish ­women that was consistent through the last de­cades of the nineteenth ­century. Harper’s Weekly and other magazines and newspapers frequently featured stories of “Chinamen” and “Hibernian” w ­ omen in which Irish ­women praised their Chinese husbands.64 Compared with Chinese men, few Chinese ­women of this period married men outside of their racial group, largely due to the un­balanced gender ratio among Chinese immigrants resulting from discriminatory American immigration laws that had l­ imited immigration by Chinese w ­ omen. In the last de­cades of the nineteenth ­century, the male-­to-­female ratio among Chinese in Amer­i­ca was roughly 20:1. This ratio declined to 14:1 in the early twentieth ­century.65 This ­great disparity forced Chinese men to look for partners in other ethnic groups wherever pos­si­ble. In contrast, Chinese w ­ omen could choose from a large pool of mates within Chinese communities; therefore, intermarriage made l­ittle sense to them, as indicated by the case of Mrs. S., presented l­ ater in this section. The rarity of interracial marriages among early Chinese w ­ omen was also due to racial and cultural prejudice within white American society and cultural concerns of Chinese immigrant communities. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Chinese in Amer­i­ca ­were generally viewed as ignorant coolies and strikebreakers or evil, seductive prostitutes. They w ­ ere barred from the mainstream l­abor market and excluded from mainstream social and cultural life by l­ egal restrictions and popu­lar practices. Meanwhile, as members of a discriminated small minority, and perhaps unconsciously, Chinese immigrants objected to interracial marriages between Chinese w ­ omen and non-­Chinese men in order to preserve their population, since Chinese generally regarded a married ­woman as a member of her husband’s clan or, in this case, his race. This situation was exemplified in Suey Sin’s story and in Mrs. S.’s ­family history. Suey Sin (meaning “­water lily” in Chinese) was a beautiful Chinese girl who worked in the film industry in Los Angeles in the 1920s. ­There she played minor roles in movies and met a handsome white actor. Their relationship was casual at first but soon developed into a romance. However, the actor’s ­mother and ­sister objected to the relationship, and he never had the courage to stand against his ­family’s w ­ ill and marry Suey Sin.66 In contrast to Suey Sin, Mrs. S. had never dated white men b ­ ecause intermarriage was considered unacceptable in her community at the time. Born into a Chinese immigrant f­ amily in San Francisco in 1917, Mrs. S. was an obedient d ­ aughter. Like most of her peers in Chinatown, she attended public school and Chinese-­language school and learned sewing from her ­mother at home. She did not date ­until she met her ­f uture husband, Mr. S., then a language technician for the Office of War Information in San Francisco. They got married

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in 1946. “Most of us,” Mrs. S. reminisced, “married Chinese. Intermarriage was not popu­lar [in the Chinese community then], since you have a big Chinese population t­ here [in San Francisco].” 67

­Widow Remarriage Although Paul Siu studied only five remarried w ­ idows, involving less than 5 ­percent of the total number of families he investigated, t­ hese marriages provide a contrast to the social taboo in traditional China against w ­ idow remarriage and therefore are more significant than their numbers could indicate. A few ele­ments made a w ­ idow’s remarriage not only pos­si­ble but also acceptable by the Chinese community in the United States. First, the influence of the larger American society led the Chinese to change their values and attitudes t­ oward marriage. Second, the uneven gender ratio made w ­ idows ready candidates for marriage. According to a 1931 study by Ifu Chen, a gradu­ate student in the sociology department at the University of Chicago, among the 6,000 Chinese then in Chicago (much larger number than the census figure of 2,757) ­t here w ­ ere only 400 females, or 6.7 ­percent of the total Chinese population, much lower than the percentage of the total Chinese American population in the country. The 1930 census shows the total Chinese American population as 74,954, among which 15,152 ­were female, or 20 ­percent of the total Chinese population.68 Even when one compares the number of females in Chicago with the census figure of 2,757, the percentage of females was 15 ­percent, still lower than the national average. Although the situation of a ­widow often was more complicated than that of a first-­time bride, ­because she could have ­children from the previous marriage or financial difficulties that could deter potential suitors, she could still find a mate from the much larger pool of males. A ­widow who had money would be in even greater demand. The following cases of w ­ idow remarriage offer example of both possibilities: Sieu has been in Amer­i­ca over fifteen years. He has a wife in the native village in China. He deserted her. He never write[s] to her and support[s] her. ­Here he is married to Mrs. J Peng, [­w idow of] the late chairman of the H. Association, Mr. Pang left to the w ­ idow a two stories brick h ­ ouse in the South side but she [had lost] it b ­ ecause of the failure to meet the payment of the mortgage. Mrs. Pang was immigrated from the Chinese village. She has been ­here about fifteen years. Her husband died in T.B. and left her in a most regrettable condition. She met Sieu ­later and he helped her a ­great deal. Mr. Pang has some cousin in Chicago but [none] of them is willing to take care of the poor w ­ idow. She is now married to Sieu and nobody has any opposition ­toward the new ­union. ­There are four ­children by her former marriage and a baby son is about one and half year old. Status in the ­Family

Age

Occupation & Statement

­Father (Sieu)

40

Chinese dry good deliverer

­Mother (remarried ­w idow)

30

house­hold work

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12

School

Arthur

11

School

Bellie

10

School

Jack

8

School

Henry (by the new ­union)

1½

­ ncle J. told me that e­ very penny Sieu earned was Sieu is once a laundry man. U spent on the “stockings” (prostitute). As he quit the laundry, he bought a [car] and began to do retail delivery business. By gathering all kind of groceries, he drives to the door of Chinese country men in the laundry or the chop suey places. He always finds friends and relatives to be his customers. L ­ ater Sieu found the business ­going along well then he, one step farther, he opened a dry good store in Chinatown. But the luck is gone! The business was not so good as he expected. So the short life store was closed in the interval of ten months. Closing up the store, he met a g­ reat depression. He d ­ idn’t have even enough money to buy goods for market on the delivering. Sometime[s] he found his [car] out of order but he had no money to send it for repair. The ­children call Sieu “shok” (younger ­uncle). In the school they signed their name as follows: Nellie Pang, Arthur Pang but Bellie Sieu and Jack Sieu. They are sent also to the Chinese school in Chinatown. During ­every weekend Sieu usually has the older boy to accompany him to deliver. They are now living in three rooms apartment in 23rd Place. The housing condition is very poor but the h ­ ouse keeping is much better than any of the Chinese families in Chinatown. Nellie is urged to help her ­mother in the ­house keeping work. “Nellie is a nice ­daughter,” said Mrs. Sieu one day. “She helps her ­mother anything she can.” “One’s life is born to be this way, this is the w ­ ill of the heaven,” Mrs.  Pang said one other time. “Man ­can’t get away from the arrangement of God.” She made statements somewhat like this for many times. To Sieu she expressed her idea as this: ­ ill be able to support me and my “He is a man I am dearly love. I trust he w ­children. Oh, he has been so kind to me! When we ­were in the South side, we had nothing to eat. We w ­ ere almost starved to death. He was so kind and [brought] us foods everyday and refused to accept a penny. He gave the c­ hildren this and that each time. You see, [none] of the Pang cousin would do that. My ­children liked him also. Whenever ­uncle Sieu came, they cheered with happy laughter.[”] This is Sieu’s attitude ­toward the ­woman and ­children: “I d ­ on’t care how big my responsibility is, I ­w ill do my up most to support the kids and her. I need a ­woman of her kind. I am sick of the street walkers, thru with them! From now on I have my normal marriage life with innocent c­ hildren and chastity wife. I love the w ­ oman and the c­ hildren. I just c­ an’t stand it when I see them in such a sorrowful situation. A w ­ idow of four c­ hildren but [none] of their cousins [could]

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help her and I [could]. Or e­ lse Pang was also a native of Hoi-­Toi. We are neighbors. I felt I am right to marry her. I want to [make] her happy too. I opened Wing Chung Fai (the store) and tried to [make] more money. Hard luck! The business was not enough and it has to close up fi­nally. It was heavy blow. Well, no ­matter how, they got to live and got to hold my responsibility. The ­mother thinks that the ­children should not go to Chinese school but I think it is better to let them study as they like to. The tuition, however, is not high, only eight dollars per month for all four of them. They o ­ ught to know a l­ittle Chinese. D ­ on’t you think so? Do you think I o ­ ught to do that, cousin?” 69 Mrs. Lin’s former husband was a tong leader. She was brought over to this country by her former husband. She has been known as the most beautiful h ­ ouse wife among the Chinese immigrants in Chinatown. Her former husband died about eight years ago and he left her four youngsters, two girls and two boys. The first girl has been married to a hybrid boy recently. Mrs. Lin remains to live in Chinatown ­until she de­cided to remarry to Lin, her pre­sent husband. They are now living in the South side. Mr. Lin is about five years se­nior of the ­w idow. They own a chop suey ­house in the neighborhood. I was told that the possibility of opening this place was through the w ­ idow’s promotion. Lin got not a cent but the w ­ idow has lot of money that [was] left to her from her former husband. So she gave him the capital to open the restaurant. Mrs. Lin went to the West for a c­ ouple months. Gossips throughout Chinatown that time saying she would marry again to someone in the West. Some said that she eloped with her lover. However, she came back to Chinatown ­a fter that. She remarried to Lin only last year.70

While ­t hese characteristics described by Siu did carry their residual influence from China when transplanted to American soil, they reveal that marriage patterns of Chinese immigrants in Amer­i­ca also made imprints on their immigrant real­ity in the United States.

Conclusion The marriage patterns among Chinese in Chicago concur with the findings of my ­earlier study on the marriages of Chinese immigrants across Amer­i­ca in the late nineteenth ­century and early twentieth centuries.71 Marriages of Chinese immigrants during this period had the following characteristics: First, the wide age gap between married Chinese c­ ouples, the result primarily of restrictive immigration laws, was the dominant feature of many marriages. Second, the restriction on Chinese w ­ omen’s entry to the United States resulted in polygynous practice among some Chinese men who ­were not able to bring their wives from China and remarried in Amer­i­ca; the severe shortage of ­women also contributed to polyandrous practice among some early Chinese immigrants. Fi­nally, the extreme gender disparity resulted in a small number of interracial marriages among early Chinese

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immigrant males regardless of anti-­miscegenation laws; in contrast, b ­ ecause of the scarcity of ­women, ­t here ­were almost no interracial marriages among Chinese females during the same period. Th ­ ese characteristics therefore w ­ ere more products of restrictive American immigration policies than Chinese patriarchal culture. They reflected Chinese immigrants’ natu­ral response to the gender-­unbalanced immigrant life at the time in order to ensure the survival of themselves and their communities.

chapter 6

•

Living in “Hop Alley,” 1860s–1930s St. Louis boasts a colony of Chinese w ­ omen. Although the total population of the aforesaid “colony” is but four wee bits of femininity from the Flowery Kingdom—­ still it is a colony, and a large one, considering the obstacles which ­Uncle Sam places in the way of Chinese ­women who came to this country. —­St. Louis Republican, 1908

Hop Alley was not only a commercial district but also a residential and recreational sanctuary for the Chinese in St. Louis. This chapter examines how the social ele­ ments of gender, class, race, sexuality, and religion defined the lives of residents in Hop Alley. A few Chinese w ­ omen arrived in the Mound City almost as early as their male counter­parts did, ­r unning boarding­houses and helping with f­ amily businesses in addition to performing their domestic duties. While the affluent Chinese merchant wives enjoyed some of the leisure and comforts of American middle-­class life, working-­class Chinese ­women had to cope with the difficulties of daily survival. With the uneven sex ratio, the Chinese w ­ ere involved in interracial marriages and sexual relations, yet few of them ­were accepted by the larger society. Meanwhile, Christian institutions encouraged social interactions between the Chinese and Eu­ro­pean Americans that in some cases promoted the upward social mobility of Chinese youths. Recreational activities in Hop Alley helped ease the daily drudgery of laundry work, and Chinese social organ­izations attempted to improve the social conditions of the Chinese. The stories of the Chinese in Hop Alley w ­ ere further told by the burials in two cemeteries, Wesleyan and Valhalla, where the Chinese men fi­nally rested.

Pioneer ­Women and ­Family Lives ­ ecause most early Chinese immigrants ­were single males or married men B who had left their w ­ omen b ­ ehind, Chinese immigrant society prior to the 1960s has often been characterized as a “bachelor society.”1 Scholars believe that three main ­factors contributed to the shortage of w ­ omen in Chinese immigration: lack of financial capability of Chinese immigrant men, restrictions 99

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in Chinese society, and restrictive American immigration policies and their enforcement.2 Most early Chinese male immigrants came to Amer­i­ca as indentured, contract laborers and coolies; they had to rely on the credit-­ticket system, ­under which they obtained their passage from Chinese merchants who w ­ ere reimbursed by relatives of the travelers or by ­f uture employers. In turn, the newcomers worked for whomever extended the credit ­until the debt was paid. Given this situation, the Chinese male immigrants had to leave their ­women b ­ ehind. Even ­after they paid the debt, their meager earnings did not permit them to support families in the United States. Restrictions in Chinese society also prevented Chinese ­women from coming to Amer­i­ca. The ideological, socioeconomic, and physical constraints imposed on ­women in feudal China crippled w ­ omen and restricted all aspects of their lives. As a wife and daughter-­in-­law, a ­woman was supposed to bear c­ hildren and serve her husband and parents-­in-­law. Since Confucian ideals placed filial piety above all other virtues, a daughter-­in-­law had to consider staying in China to serve her parents-­in-­law, which was a greater moral responsibility than joining her husband in Amer­i­ca. It also made economic sense for many parents of emigrant sons to keep their daughters-­in-­law with them in order to secure the remittances from their son abroad.3 Immigration rec­ords reveal that some Chinese ­women who came to Amer­ i­ca to join their husbands did so only ­after their parents-­in-­law passed away.4 Physical restrictions such as foot-­binding also prevented Chinese w ­ omen from leaving their homes. The exact origins of foot-­binding are obscure. It may have begun with dancers at the imperial court during the Tang dynasty (618–907), and by the time of the Song dynasty (960–1279), it was introduced among upper-­class ­women. During the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), the custom became a practice in Chinese society at large. At a young age, girls had their feet tightly wrapped and gradually bent u ­ ntil the arch was broken and the toes turned u ­ nder. The “lily foot” produced by this practice crippled ­women to the extent that they could barely walk without support, a physical disability that effectively discouraged them from traveling overseas. Significant scholarship argues that restrictive immigration laws and their enforcement ­were primarily responsible for the imbalance of the sex ratio in Chinese immigrant communities. Vincent Tang believes the immigration acts of 1882, 1888, 1892, 1902, 1907, and 1924 successfully restricted the immigration of Chinese ­women.5 George Anthony Peffer asserts that even before the Chinese Exclusion Act, the Page Law of 1875, which forbade the entry of Chinese, Japa­nese, and “Mongolian” contract laborers, and also ­women for the purpose of prostitution, had effectively kept Chinese w ­ omen out.6 Sucheng Chan’s findings reveal that in the de­cade before the passage of the Page Law, California passed several pieces of legislation to restrict Chinese ­women. “An Act for the Suppression of Chinese Houses of Ill Fame,” passed on March 21, 1866, denounced Chinese prostitution and penalized landlords who allowed their properties to be used for immoral purposes. “An Act to Prevent the Kidnapping and Importation of Mongolian, Chinese, and Japa­ nese Females, for Criminal or Demoralizing Purposes,” passed on March 8, 1870,

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made it illegal “to bring, or land [­t hese females] from any ship, boat, or vessel, into this state.”7 As in other early Chinese immigrant communities, t­ here w ­ ere few Chinese ­women in the St. Louis Chinatown. Censuses recorded only six in 1890, two in 1900, and several in 1910 (see ­table 3.1 in chapter 3), while private rec­ords indicate that Chinese ­women arrived in St. Louis almost as early as their male counter­parts. According to William Hyde and Howard L. Conard, who in 1899 edited Encyclopedia of the History of St. Louis, the first book on St. Louis history, the earliest group of Chinese immigrants came to St. Louis from San Francisco in 1869. A Sunday school was immediately established on Eleventh and Locust Streets to teach the Chinese ­children En­g lish.8 In January 1870 another smaller group of Chinese arrived from New York. The Missouri Republican, a daily newspaper, reported that “among the number [­t here are] some w ­ omen to take charge of the boarding h ­ ouse for the men at the works.”9 Prior to the Civil War, the area south of Market Street was known as Frenchtown, where h ­ ouses w ­ ere mostly single-­family residences. As in most American urban communities, post–­Civil War industrialization and urbanization soon swept away the single h ­ ouses, and multifamily apartment buildings and boarding­houses ­were constructed to meet the demand of a swelling population. Hop Alley was one of the streets in the area with many tenements and boarding­houses, where a typical rent in the late nineteenth c­ entury was a quarter a day or six quarters a week, and room and board cost less than fifteen dollars a month.10 Cheap housing attracted new immigrants, including Chinese who congregated around Hop Alley, and demanded personnel for management.11 ­These early Chinese ­women managed boarding­houses that usually lodged a dozen single Chinese men each. The ­women earned their living by cooking, cleaning, and mending for the men, a working pattern very much resembling that of German and Irish immigrant ­women in the town, although most of them worked for Euro-­Americans who ­were not immigrants.12 Affluent Chinese merchant wives also arrived in the city at around the turn of the c­ entury and w ­ ere noted by the local news media. The St. Louis Republic recorded Mrs. Jeu Hon Yee, the owner of a Chinese grocery store at 924 Locus Street, as the only Chinese ­woman in the city since 1890.13 She was joined ­after 1900 by Mrs. Fannie Toy, a San Francisco–­born w ­ oman of 20.14 By 1908 ­there w ­ ere a handful of Chinese ­women of merchant families. On October 4, 1908, the St. Louis Republican devoted an entire page to a story on four Chinese ­women. “St. Louis boasts a colony of Chinese ­women,” the article began. Although the total population of the aforesaid “colony” is but four wee bits of femininity from the Flowery Kingdom—­still it is a colony, and a large one, considering the obstacles which U ­ ncle Sam places in the way of Chinese ­women who came to this country. ­ omen is proportionately larger, considThe St. Louis contingent of Chinese w ering population, than any city in the country excepting San Francisco. Chicago

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boasts but half a dozen ­women from the land of Confucius, while New York, with its much-­boasted Mott Street, and its half block of cramped Chinese quarters, has but five who are duly registered with the immigration authorities.15

The article admitted that discriminatory laws against Chinese made Chinese ­ omen such a rarity in Amer­i­ca and placed the four w w ­ omen in the context of Chinese communities in major urban centers in North Amer­i­c a. ­There ­were only six Chinese w ­ omen in Chicago and five in New York, and both cities had much larger Chinese populations than St. Louis. Understandably, the author of the article seemed to take pride in introducing ­t hese Chinese ­women to the St. Louis public. According to the article, association with the Chinese merchant class and being Americanized w ­ ere the common traits of the w ­ omen. Three of them, Juy Toy, Jo Hon Ye (her name was also sometimes spelled “Jeu Hon Yee” and “Jee Hon Yee” in other articles on the Chinese in St. Louis), and Huy Tin, w ­ ere wives of well-­to-do Chinese businessmen in St. Louis. Miss Mei Chun, the fourth one, was the ­daughter of a wealthy Chinese tea merchant. Born in China in 1889, Juy Toy came to San Francisco as a young girl. Her ­father, a prosperous merchant in San Francisco, enrolled her in public school. She made rapid pro­gress and graduated from San Francisco High School at 17, which made her one of only two Chinese girls who had graduated from the high school at the time. ­After graduation, she was married to a St. Louis Chinese merchant, the proprietor of a chop suey restaurant on Sixth Street, a laundry on Marcus Ave­nue, and a mercantile store in San Francisco. She lived with her husband at 2629 Marcus Ave­nue, in the West End of the city, where affluent St.  Louisans dwelled. Toy was proud of her acculturation. “I am no longer Chinese—­I am an American,” she told the reporter. “I was married like American ­women are and live just like ­people of this country do. Chinese dress and Chinese customs are no longer a part of my life and I am a member of an American church, and try to do just like the American w ­ omen do.” Jo Hon Ye was born into a rich merchant ­family in Hong Kong and enjoyed all the pleasures that wealthy families could afford. She married a Chinese merchant in San Francisco, but ­after the ­couple suffered the peril of the San Francisco earthquake and the consequent fire in 1906 that burned all their possessions, they moved to St. Louis to start over. Within two years her husband owned a grocery store on Eleventh Street and enjoyed prosperity again. Like Toy, Ye saw herself as a thoroughly Americanized w ­ oman. Huy Tin was likewise a high school gradu­ate of San Francisco. Her husband owned a dry goods store on Market Street, where Tin worked as a bookkeeper. The story noted that t­ hese three w ­ omen w ­ ere all cousins, reflecting a fact that early Chinese ­women came to the city as links within chain immigration or migration. Mei Chun was the only unmarried member of the four. A 17-­year-­old student at Forest Park University, she was “pretty,” “clever,” and “possessed of an education which few American girls can boast.”16 ­These merchant wives consciously tried to adjust to the modes of life of their new homes, and to a large degree they succeeded. They wore Western dress and

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spoke fluent En­glish. Like middle-­class American ­women of the time, they enjoyed a leisurely life. They went to circuses and shows and attended vari­ous social functions. Toy sought out entertainment frequently and was fascinated by romantic dramas. “That is why I like to see the American plays so much,” she commented. “The girl loves the man or she does not marry him.” Mei Chun was reportedly “so popu­ lar that few social functions of the West End are complete without her presence.” ­These w ­ omen w ­ ere adventurous, enjoying the freedom that American life provided. Ye was also fond of the circuses and shows, but nothing delighted her more than streetcars, which provided kaleidoscopic views of city life. She described her feelings on a streetcar: “I think the streetcars are so funny. They start and stop whenever the man who runs them wants them to, and one can see so many dif­fer­ent kinds of p ­ eople riding on them.” She also enjoyed the thrill of riding an elevator up and down in a department store.17 The Americanization of t­ hese ­women was also revealed by their connections with vari­ous churches in the city. Toy went to the Union Methodist Church regularly and followed the tenets of its religious beliefs in the same manner as her American counter­parts. Tin was a member of the same church and took an active part in many of its activities. Ye also belonged to a church and attended Sunday school and religious ser­v ices e­ very week.18 Another article, titled “House­keeping in St. Louis Chinatown,” published in the St. Louis Republic on August 14, 1910, reconfirmed the Americanization of the Chinese merchant wives. It described Jo Hon Ye (spelled “Jee Hon Yee” in this article) and Fannie Toy as “modest ­little ­women, quiet and refined, with [a] beautiful manner.” They wore “American dress” and “­adopted American ways.” They spoke En­glish “more or less perfectly,” as Fannie Toy had attended public school in San Francisco and Ye learned En­glish at the Christian missions. They kept ­house much the same as most Americans did, “with gaudy furniture and brass bedsteads and ­family photo­graphs on the wall.”19 The author of the article also noticed a sharp contrast between the well-­off Chinese ­women and Chinese men of the working class. While the merchant wives spoke fluent En­glish, few men could speak the language. While the merchant wives appeared Americanized and well-­adapted, the men ­were “less adaptable.” While the merchant wives kept flashy furniture in their apartments, the men lived in one-­room flats with l­ittle furniture except “wooden bunks covered with matting” and “a ­table and a few chairs.”20 The lives of well-­off Chinese merchant wives in St. Louis seem to represent a pattern dif­fer­ent from that of their counter­parts in larger Chinese communities, where w ­ omen w ­ ere more likely bound to traditions.21 In San Francisco and other Chinese settlements on the West Coast, in the Rocky Mountain region, and in Hawaii, most affluent merchant wives lived in secluded areas, upstairs from their families’ businesses, kept away from both Eu­ro­pean Americans and working-­class Chinese. Their quarters ­were generally furnished with Chinese t­ ables and chairs and decorated with Chinese ornaments.22 They ­were rarely seen outside of their home u ­ ntil they gave birth to a child.23 ­A fter they had c­ hildren, their primary

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responsibility was raising them. They preserved Chinese traditions in food, clothing, ­house­keeping, and child-­rearing. As a Chinese high school girl in Honolulu described in the 1920s: “The food [we eat] . . . ​are rice, meat, and fresh vegetables. In my ­family, my m ­ other and I was dressed in Chinese costume. . . . ​I have often made fun of the customs of my racial groups. Some of the customs which I did not like ­were the serving of tea to visitors, forbidding to call the visitors by their first names, and the marriage customs.”24 The absence of a larger ethnic community might have contributed to the departure of the Chinese ­women in St.  Louis from traditional be­hav­ior. Without an ethnic community, ­t hese ­women had to interact with the larger society, and consequently they achieved a higher degree of Americanization. Their fluent En­glish facilitated their assimilation while their financial security allowed them to enjoy a lifestyle similar to that of American middle-­class ­women. Their socioeconomic status made it easier for the American public to view them as acceptable and assimilable. While well-­to-do Chinese w ­ omen attempted to Americanize, wives of Chinese petty merchants and common workers strug­gled simply to raise their large families in Hop Alley. In the first de­cades of the twentieth c­ entury, at least twenty Chinese families resided in Hop Alley, mostly ones of poor laundrymen and f­ amily restaurant ­owners.25 Lillie Hong’s ­family history well illustrates their daily strug­gle. Lillie Hong and her ­mother, Gene Shee, came to the United States in 1924 to join Hong’s ­father, the owner of a restaurant named Mandarin House at 4500 Delmar. They went to Seattle, Washington, on the steamboat President Coo­lidge, then to St. Louis by train. They settled into a two-­bedroom apartment of a tenement building in Hop Alley, where Lillie Hong’s m ­ other gave birth to four d ­ aughters and two sons. The monthly rent for the apartment was twelve dollars, nearly half of a laundryman’s monthly earnings. One room was used as a bedroom, and the other served as living room and kitchen. Without a refrigerator in the kitchen, the f­amily had to buy twenty-­four pounds of ice daily to fill an icebox on the porch to keep food from spoiling. Since Gene Shee never learned to speak En­glish, Lillie Hong had to take care of the daily chore of buying ice from a nearby American grocery store. B ­ ecause the f­ amily kept growing, it had to find ways to fit the nine ­people into one bedroom. A large board served as the bed for all the ­children. Such living conditions ­were typical among Chinese families in Hop Alley. ­After school, Lillie Hong had to take care of younger siblings (figure 6.1) and help her m ­ other with the cooking, laundry, and cleaning, all of t­ hese being classic second-­generation responsibilities. Like most Chinese ­children of Hop Alley, Lillie Hong attended the nearest American public school—in her case, Madison School, eleven blocks away. Although ­t here was a streetcar to the school, Chinese parents could not afford the five-­cent fare. The ­children would walk to school and back daily. In the city’s hot, humid summer and wet, cold winter, the walk seemed very long. Also like many Chinese girls of her age in other communities across the country, Lillie Hong quit attending school a­ fter completing eighth grade, as her parents felt that she had received enough education.26

Figure 6.1. ​Lillie Hong and her ­sister Rose in the back of the f­ amily’s apartment in Hop Alley, 1927. Courtesy of Lillie Hong.

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Lillie Hong’s experience growing up was not unique among immigrant families in St. Louis. In many ways, it resembled the lives of other new immigrants and minorities. Most of the immigrant and minority population was crammed into the northern and southern sections along the river and the periphery of the business district. Immigrants from Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Poland, and Rus­sia and Black mi­grants from the South dwelled in the crowded row h ­ ouses and tenement buildings. Since the mid-­nineteenth ­century, the rapid growth of industry, commerce, and population had exceeded the capacity of the area and had created some dilapidated neighborhoods. Although not unusual for an American industrial city, the shabby appearance of the area still shocked visitors. Charles Dickens was depressed to see the “crazy old tenements” of the old Frenchtown south of Market Street in 1842. Kerry Patch, the Irish immigrant community in the north, was a place of stark poverty and high crime. The Black neighborhoods in St. Louis w ­ ere described as “stinking slums” by visitors.27 The stories of four affluent Chinese w ­ omen and Lillie Hong’s ­family history show a striking contrast between Chinese immigrant w ­ omen of dif­fer­ent social classes. Upper-­and middle-­class Chinese w ­ omen gained a level of Americanization and assimilation and enjoyed a certain degree of material comfort, social leisure, and individual freedom and in­de­pen­dence like that enjoyed by the American ­middle classes, all pos­si­ble ­because of their socioeconomic privileges and advantages. Working-­class w ­ omen had to strug­gle with tremendous f­ amily responsibilities and the difficulties of daily survival. ­Here, class difference seemed to affect Chinese immigrant ­women’s American experiences more than racial and gender differences did.

Interracial Marriage, Sexuality, and Racial Relations With the shortage of Chinese w ­ omen, sporadic interracial marriages and sexual relationships inevitably occurred among the Chinese immigrants, in spite of the anti-­miscegenation laws (see the discussion in chapter 5). Interracial marriages and sexual relationships also became inescapable for the Chinese in St. Louis, due primarily to the disparity between the sexes among Chinese immigrants, and also to the cross-­cultural and cross-­racial interactions between the Chinese and other ethnic Americans. The earliest recorded interracial marriage in St.  Louis was the ­union of Alla Lee and his Irish wife, Sarah Graham. Their marriage seems to have been approved by both the Irish community and the larger society. Lee’s friends ­were mostly Irish immigrants. In 1869, when the arrival of 250 Chinese laborers fanned the residents’ curiosity, a number of local news reporters vied to interview Lee and to write articles about Chinese culture and customs. According to ­t hese news reports, Alla Lee was a tall, handsome, intelligent, frugal, and hard-­working “Chinaman,” while Sarah Graham was a healthy, slightly plump “Celtic beauty.” Clearly, prior to the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 and the consequent anti-­Chinese crusade across the country, the public mood ­toward Chinese was more curious than hostile. As a result of the more tolerant climate, Alla Lee’s

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interracial marriage was more or less accepted by the larger society. Lee’s marriage also affected his po­liti­cal life, and he was recruited by local politicians who w ­ ere mostly Scots-­Irish Demo­crats. In the election year of 1868, a local Demo­cratic Party activist took Lee to the court­house to take the oath of citizenship, so that he could exercise his voting right in f­ avor of the Demo­crats.28 A similar interracial marriage took place a ­couple of de­cades ­later. In 1869, Amon Donn came to St. Louis from Canton, China, at the age of 14. He worked hard and eventually was able to open a hand laundry downtown. He married an Irish ­woman named Celia, and their marriage produced a son and three ­daughters.29 Due to the absence of further information, we cannot tell w ­ hether the marriage met with social ac­cep­tance or re­sis­tance. The following sources reveal a more widespread social disapproval of Chinese-­white sexual relations in the city at a ­later time, when anti-­Chinese sentiment had become more prevalent. On May 1, 1910, a Sunday, census enumerators Henry A. Baker and Frederick Haid went to Hop Alley to count the Chinese residents, as most Chinese would gather ­t here on Sundays. In addition to about 300 Chinese men and several Chinese ­women, the two census takers found a number of white wives of Chinese men living in the Hop Alley area.30 The local newspaper, the St. Louis Republic, recorded the m ­ atter with an undertone of disapproval.31 In the same year, two white w ­ omen involved in interracial romances even incited a police raid. Sadie Walden, a 26-­year-­old divorced Eu­ro­pean American ­woman, had met a Chinese man, Leon Ling, four years ­earlier in a Chinese Sunday school where she was teaching a­ fter her divorce. When she fell ill and ran out of money, Ling came to her assistance. L ­ ater she rented rooms above the Chinese chop suey restaurant at 2301 Washington Ave­nue where Ling worked. Eventually, her 17-­year-­old stepsister, Marguerite Helm, came to live with her. Walden loved Ling and intended to marry him. She regarded the Chinese man highly and publicly displayed her affection ­toward him. “Sure, I like Leon,” declared Mrs. Walden when she was incarcerated. “I ­will say that I have only praise for Leon Ling. He has never given me occasion to dislike him.” Her s­ ister Marguerite was also in love with a Chinese merchant who owned a silk store downtown. Marguerite consulted with her ­mother about her marriage and was advised to wait u ­ ntil she was 18. On August 22, 1910, St. Louis police suddenly raided the chop suey restaurant, with an excuse of searching for a Chinese man who was alleged to have murdered a white w ­ oman in New York with whom he had a love affair (the case, which is discussed ­later in this section, was known as the Chinatown Trunk Mystery, and the Chinese man involved was also named Leon Ling). The two ­sisters and four Chinese men, including Leon Ling, ­were arrested but l­ater released. Not intimidated by the arrest, Walden claimed that she was g­ oing to go with Leon to obtain a marriage license very soon. Marguerite, however, was tamed by the apprehension. “I ­don’t know ­whether I ­shall marry a Chinaman or not,” she said, “but I w ­ ill say that I have no cause to complain of the treatment I have received from the men of that race.”32 This incident well exhibits the nationwide antagonism t­ oward interracial sexual relationships between Eu­ro­pean Americans and Chinese, who w ­ ere perceived

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as culturally peculiar and physically inferior, and ­were deemed unassimilable. Public disapproval was not only prompted by cultural bias and racial prejudice but also legally supported by anti-­miscegenation laws.33 Furthermore, the opposition to interracial mixing reveals another front of the Chinese exclusion crusade across the country; the presence of Chinese should be checked from ­every pos­si­ble direction. Sexuality, compared with other concerns such as economic competition and cultural difference, was more of a social, cultural, and biological ele­ment that could easily animate “Sinophobic” racial riots. Although occasional interracial marriages survived in some places in the United States, as discussed ­earlier, many interracial sexual relationships met with social re­sis­tance and at times vio­lence, such as the anti-­Chinese riot in Milwaukee in 1889, the police raid of Boston’s Chinatown in 1903, and the policing of New York’s Chinatown from 1880 to 1915 against interracial sexual relations. In March 1889, about 3,000 Eu­ro­pean American males in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, took part in a four-­day-­long anti-­Chinese riot. It started at an anti-­Chinese rally around the city hall, where the crowd screamed, “Lynch ’em,” “Hang ’em,” and “Scald them.” The rioters then marched in protest against the Chinese presence. Fi­nally, the riot culminated in smashing the win­dows of Chinese hand laundries and chasing and threatening Chinese on sight. The riot was ignited by the gradual increase of the Chinese population in the city and the consequent interaction between the races, particularly sexual relationships between Chinese laundrymen and Eu­ro­pean American w ­ omen. Deliberately denying the existence of consensual romance or sexual relations, the local ­legal system and media together created appalling stories, in which white ­women ­were sexually assaulted by the laundrymen, thus inciting a racial riot. However, the incoherence of the ­womens’ testimonies reveals that they might have voluntarily sought out the Chinese men.34 On the eve­ning of October 11, 1903, the Boston police and the Immigration Bureau jointly raided Chinatown and arrested more than fifty Chinese. The direct cause of the raid was the murders of members of the Hip Sing Tong by members of the rival On Leung Tong. The interracial contacts, both commercial and sexual, between the Chinese and Eu­ro­pean American ­women also proved to be a concern that led to the police raid. Local authorities feared the pos­si­ble visit to opium dens by white ­women and further interracial cooperation and cohabitation.35 Nowhere w ­ ere police raids against the interracial sexuality of Chinese men and white w ­ omen more zealous than in the so-­called Chinatown Trunk Mystery, or the Elsie Sigel murder in New York City. On the after­noon of June 18, 1909, Sun Leung, the proprietor of a Chinese chop suey restaurant reported to the police that his cousin, Leon Ling, was missing. A New York policeman then went to search Ling’s room and found a large trunk bound with rope. Upon opening the trunk, he saw the corpse of an unidentified young white ­woman that was ­later identified as that of 19-­year-­old Elsie Sigel, who had been missing for a week. Further investigation revealed that Sigel, a missionary worker from a prominent ­family, had been intimately involved with Ling. The murder of Elsie Sigel immediately occupied front pages of newspapers in stories that portrayed Chinese men as dangerous to

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“innocent” and “virtuous” young white w ­ omen. The murder case also resulted in a contagious harassment of Chinese residents in communities across the nation. Despite the combined efforts of police forces throughout the country, Leon Ling was never apprehended, thus leaving the murder case unsolved.36 ­These urban racial riots against the Chinese and police raids of Chinese communities demonstrate the intensity and heightening of racial conflict fueled by the Chinese exclusion mentality. The interracial marriages and sexual relationships, on the one hand, exhibit the unavoidable and compelling outcomes of migration and assimilation. The social disapproval, racial riots, and ­legal sanction and persecution of interracial sexual relationships, on the other hand, illustrate the aberrant societal trend during the Chinese exclusion era. ­Under such racial tension, the Chinese w ­ ere further isolated and vulnerable to physical and verbal attacks from both police and civilians.

Sunday Schools and Early Americanization While interracial sexual relationships w ­ ere frowned upon by the general public, interracial contacts within Christian institutions and at activities sponsored by them w ­ ere cultivated by the missionary workers and encouraged by the larger society. The effort to evangelize the “heathen” Chinese in St. Louis began with the arrival of the first group of Chinese laborers in 1869. A Sunday school was immediately established on Eleventh and Locust Streets to teach the Chinese c­ hildren En­glish in order to instill Christian values in them.37 In 1878, D. D. Jones, who could speak Chinese, was dispatched to St. Louis by the Chicago YMCA to establish a Sunday school. In 1897, the twenty-­eighth anniversary cele­bration of the establishment of the first Chinese Sunday school was held to encourage the continued missionary endeavor. By 1898, ­there w ­ ere Chinese Sunday schools at the Second Presbyterian Church, Dr. Niccolls’ Chapel on Taylor and Westminster Place, the Presbyterian Church on G ­ rand Ave­nue, and the Congregational Church on Twenty-­ Ninth Street and Washington Ave­nue.38 The evangelical fervor directed ­toward the Chinese in St. Louis was nothing new. The Christian mission had long been a strong force, along with the motive to pursue Oriental wealth, ­behind the American overseas adventures since the 1840s when the “Celestial Kingdom” was defeated by cannon and gunboats of the industrialized Western powers. Protected by the right of extraterritoriality and military power, Christian missionaries preached along the coastal cities and treaty ports in China. ­A fter the Chinese laborers ­were imported to Amer­i­c a in the 1840s, missionary workers at home immediately turned to the heathen newcomers with the same vigor and zeal. Among them w ­ ere some veterans who had returned from China. Miss Lee Chiles was such an enthusiastic missionary, who in 1924 founded the St. Louis Chinese Gospel Mission, the first Chinese church in St. Louis (figure 6.2). A missionary who worked in China for more than ten years, Chiles returned to her hometown, St. Louis, in 1924 due to deteriorating health. Despite her poor

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Figure 6.2. ​Chinese w ­ omen (mostly wives of laundrymen) outside of the first Chinese church in St. Louis, which used space in the St. Louis Gospel Center, 1924. Courtesy of Lillie Hong.

health, Chiles went from laundry to laundry to ask the Chinese to go to the church.39 ­After she successfully gathered a group of Chinese ­children, the weekly Chinese Sunday school began. It initially had to borrow space from the St. Louis Gospel Church on Washington Street, where the American congregation had ser­v ices in the morning, and a Chinese ser­vice and Sunday school ­were held in the after­noon. Chiles was per­sis­tent and ardent in teaching En­glish to the Chinese followers but was more successful with Chinese c­ hildren than with w ­ omen. Lillie Hong recalled, “Whenever Miss Chiles came to Chinatown, t­ hese Chinese ladies would run away. They said it was too hard to learn En­glish.” 40 Some members of the St. Louis Gospel Church, who w ­ ere small business o ­ wners and working-­class ­people, assisted Chiles.41 The Radfords, a devout Christian ­couple, would drive ­children and adults from Hop Alley to church for the after­ noon ser­v ice. O ­ thers such as the Bachmans and Miss Comfort taught Sunday school and visited Chinese newborns and their families.42 Chinese parents often regarded church as a good place for their c­ hildren to go but not for themselves, especially the f­athers. Hence, the congregation initially was largely composed of ­women and ­children.43 Lillie Hong started ­going to church with her aunt upon her arrival in 1924.44 Sunday schools became vehicles of upward mobility for ambitious St. Louis Chinese youths, where they had opportunities to learn En­glish and American ways of life. Jeu Han Yee arrived in San Francisco in 1870 as a child and lived ­t here for ten years. He came to St. Louis in 1880 and attended Sunday school regularly. Through his Sunday school training, he became a skillful writer and reader of En­glish, which

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facilitated his success as a tea merchant.45 Another Sunday school student, Jeu Hawk, came to St. Louis as a boy in 1880. Eigh­teen years ­later, he graduated from a college in Des Moines, Iowa, and emerged as an eloquent pastor of a Chinese congregation in Portland, Oregon.46 Jo Hon Ye, a merchant wife discussed ­earlier in this chapter, also learned En­glish during her early years at Christian missions. Her “more or less perfect” English-­speaking skills prob­ably enabled her to be the city’s first female Chinese grocery owner and enjoy an Americanized lifestyle.47 Sunday schools and church-­sponsored activities also eased Chinese immigrant ­women’s transition from rural China to urban Amer­i­ca in the initial years; they provided a win­dow for t­ hese ­women to glimpse American life and culture. Application of domestic skills was certainly dif­fer­ent in the villages of Guangdong than in American cities. The sudden changes resulting from immigration caused cultural and emotional anxiety, which could be eased or lifted by learning new ways of life in Amer­i­ca. For the ­women who learned skills of dressing, cooking, and ­house­keeping at sewing and cooking classes and picnics, domesticity in Amer­i­ca became less alien and intimidating. The ­women who went to church seemed to be more Americanized than t­ hose who did not.48 For many Chinese, church was also a place to exchange information, find kinship connections, and maintain friendships with other Chinese families. For instance, Tak Jung’s f­ amily and the Hong f­ amily often had Sunday dinner together ­after the church ser­vice.49 Through church, Chinese families came into closer individual contact with their countrymen and with American families. Even though their involvement mostly revolved around secular aspects of the churches’ offerings, many Chinese families also found church to be of spiritual significance.

Recreation and Social Awakening In his journalistic writings, Theodore Dreiser described Chinese social life in St. Louis, in which gambling appeared as the primary recreational activity. A ­ fter a week of toiling in laundries, the Chinese laborers longed to relax a l­ittle. Many gathered to g­ amble ­until they lost all the money they ­were carry­ing. ­Others visited Chinese restaurants to eat au­t hen­tic Chinese dishes and chat with clansmen about their families and relatives in China. Dreiser was perhaps influenced by the popu­lar bias that most Chinese ­were opium fiends and gamblers and thus was unable to go beyond this limitation to explore more about Chinatown life. In fact, many other social activities of the Chinese, unnoticed by Dreiser, w ­ ere taking place on Sundays. In the last de­cades of the nineteenth ­century, the Chinese in St. Louis ­were most likely to be bound by their clan associations, such as associations that included the surnames Jue, Lee, and Leong.50 Like the Chinese on the West Coast, the Chinese in St. Louis mostly came from Canton and its adjacent counties, the so-­called Sam Yap (San Yi, meaning “three counties”), which included Namhoi (Nanhai), Punyi (Panyu), and Shuntak (Shunde) Counties; and Sze Yap (Si Yi, meaning “four counties”), which included Sunwui (Xinhui), Toishan (Taishan), Hoiping (Kaiping), and

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Yanping (Enping) Counties. Among the Chinese in St. Louis, t­ hose who bore the surnames Jeu or Leong from villages in Sunwui, and Lee from Toishan w ­ ere predominant, and they set up surname associations for mutual aid and protection in the foreign land. ­These associations usually rented a flat with a kitchen in apartment buildings in Hop Alley for clan business meetings and social gatherings. On Sundays, clansmen would bring Chinese ingredients to the associations and used the kitchen facilities t­ here to cook special dishes that they did not have the time or means to make during the busy working week.51 The importance of kinship networks was not only valued by the Chinese clansmen but also noticed by outsiders. Dick Wood, a reporter for the daily St. Louis Republic, observed that in restaurants, grocery stores, barbershops, and other local Chinese businesses, the Chinese customers often purchased goods or ser­v ices on credit. The names of debtors and the amount of their debts w ­ ere written on a large board in the store, vis­i­ble to all customers ­until the end of the year, when the debts ­were cleared. Sometimes, a cousin of the same clan would pay for a debt, and the debtor’s name would be wiped out, thus preserving the honor of the common patronymic.52 To the Chinese, Hop Alley was not a place of sin and vice but a place of good food, comfort, joy, and relaxation. According to the St. Louis Republic, the Chinese “scattered” throughout the city, living b ­ ehind or in the back section of their laundries, a “puzzling way peculiarly Chinese.” On Sunday after­noons they would close their laundry shops and hurry to Hop Alley for recreation.53 If the weather was nice, many Chinese men would sit on the benches outside the shops in Hop Alley to feel the warm rays of the sun. A ­ fter being confined in the dim, damp laundries for a week, they w ­ ere now temporarily f­ ree from the drudgery. They could enjoy the warm breeze, catch up on news, share some laughter with clansmen, and watch Chinese ­children playing in the alley.54 Hop Alley was also a place that served as a substitute for their families in China. Isolated by cultural prejudice, language barriers, and the drudgery of daily work, the Chinese laborers found ethnic solidarity in Hop Alley. They came ­every Sunday, feeling that they ­were ­going home, where they ­were called ­uncles by Chinese ­children.55 The gravitation of the Chinese to Hop Alley was so g­ reat that the census enumerators could get their normally tedious job done simply by visiting the Chinese quarter on a Sunday after­noon.56 Hop Alley was not just a haven for the Chinese bachelors; it was also a place for Chinese families residing outside of Hop Alley to shop, have fun, and visit friends. Lum Hey, a proprietor of a laundry on the periphery of Chinatown, recalled that his wife came down to Hop Alley to shop for Chinese groceries once a week, and that he and his friends would “go to see s­ ilent movies . . . ​near Chinatown for five cents a cowboy show.”57 The Chinese also found comfort and ethic cohesion in other social and cultural activities in Hop Alley. Since the arrival of the first group of Chinese, they had been celebrating the Chinese New Year. On February 10, 1880, the daily St. Louis Republic reported such a cele­bration in a Chinese laundry:

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The Chinese population in St. Louis yesterday arrayed in their best raiment and prepared to celebrate their New Year’s day which always comes on the 9th day of February . . . ​at a Chestnut street laundry. ­There every­t hing presented a holiday appearance. Bundles of washing w ­ ere packed away u ­ nder ­tables and corners, while the ironing-­boards ­were covered with Chinese bon-­bons, consisting of a species of eatables which no Christian would dare sample. The only delicacy which greeted the eye was a lot of oranges which w ­ ere hanging to an artificial tree before which a celestial with head bent low, muttered some Asiatic prayer. He ­stopped short when the reporter entered, and looking up said: “Watchee wantee?” “Do you do any washing to-­day?” asked the reporter. “No washee, no workee to-­day. Dis Chinaman’s lew year.” “. . . ​Are you ­going to have a big time?” “No, no. Only ­little time. Out in Californy Chilamen have big time. Only ­little time ­here. . . . ​No joss-­house h ­ ere, no get dlunk, no good time, no big time, only ­l ittle time. . . . ​Chilamen ­here ­today take it a rest. Put on best clothes. Go see udder Chilamen. Smoke pipe, get l­ ittle dlunk. Just have a ­little time.”58

Hop Alley was also a hub for vari­ous Chinese social organ­izations that promoted social awakening movements in the United States and China. In addition to clan associations, other social organ­izations appeared in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Chinese G ­ rand Lodge of F ­ ree Masons of the State of Missouri (also known as the Chinese Masonic Hall) was perhaps the city’s oldest Chinese social organ­ization and the forebear of the St.  Louis On Leong. The ­Free Masons originated from a Chinese secret society, Chih Kung Tong (Zhigongtang), established in China in 1674 and aimed at overthrowing the Manchu Qing dynasty (1644–1911). Chih Kung Tong spread overseas along with Chinese immigrants, including to the United States in the 1850s. During the last de­cades of the nineteenth ­century, branches of this organ­ization, also known as the Chinese ­Free Masons Society, existed in most major Chinese communities in Amer­i­ca. The St. Louis F ­ ree Masons registered with the city on October 21, 1899. The corporation deed stated that “the objects and purposes of this corporation s­hall be . . . ​to promote fraternity among and provide for the relief and aid of its members, and the members of Subordinate Lodge of the State of Missouri, their ­widows, orphans and dependent relatives, to bury the dead, and to engage in such other charitable work as may not be in conflict with its laws.”59 While the document indicates the organ­ization’s philanthropic features, it also reveals a mixture of the Chinese secret society and American social organ­izations. The officers of the organ­ ization included a ­grand master as the presiding officer, a deputy ­grand master as the vice-­presiding officer, a se­nior ­grand warden, a ju­nior ­grand warden, a ­grand trea­surer, a g­ rand secretary, and a g­ rand lecturer.60 The characteristic of combining ele­ments of secret socie­ties and demo­cratic organ­izations reflected the organ­ ization’s origin and transformation in the American environment, thus providing an impressive example of the cultural adaptation of the early Chinese in St. Louis.

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In 1903, the Chinese Empire Reform Society of Missouri was formed and registered with the city. A branch of the national organ­ization established at the beginning of the c­ entury to support the po­liti­cal reform in China initiated by the Qing court between 1901 and 1905,61 its officers included Jeu Shung, Lew Goon, Leong Yee, Leong Bow, and Leo Wu.62 The headquarters ­were located at 25A South Eighth Street, at the center of the Chinese quarter, and w ­ ere listed in city directories u ­ ntil 63 1927. Unlike the ­Free Masons, this organ­ization was similar to its Western counter­ parts. The officers consisted of a president, a vice president, a secretary, and a trea­ surer, all elected by its members. The society’s business was managed by a board of trustees chosen by the members.64 The objectives of the society, quoted ­here, help us better understand its nature and its relation to social and ideological trends in Amer­i­ca and China: The objects for which this Association is formed are for social intercourse, ­mental and moral improvement, m ­ ental recreation, physical and ­mental development, benevolent, scientific, fraternal, beneficial and educational purposes and more in detail for the promotion of lit­er­a­ture, science and fine arts, and for promoting the cause of temperance and moral reform, and to establish a Club or Clubs for said purposes and for establishing and maintaining a hospital or hospitals for the treatment of diseases among the Chinese p ­ eople. It is the purpose of this Association in accomplishing the above objects among other ways to promote and encourage general education of the Chinese p ­ eople in the princi­ ples of the Constitution and laws of the United States of Amer­i­ca in the arts and sciences generally with a view of securing the adoption by the Chinese ­people of the leading improvements industrial and other­w ise which have been and are being advantageously ­adopted by the En­glish speaking ­people of the Earth and in ­every lawful way to bring about the amelioration of the Chinese p ­ eople and to secure for them a freer diffusion of useful knowledge and generally to promote reforms in the customs and habits of the Chinese ­people and to do and perform anything and every­t hing whatsoever to carry into effect the objects and purposes aforesaid.65

From this document, it is evident that the organ­ization was strongly influenced by the middle-­class reform efforts in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when American reformers launched crusades against alcoholism, prostitution, social poverty, and other urban vices with a pragmatic spirit and methods. Like the American reformers, the members of the organ­ization attempted to “ameliorate” the vices of Chinese society and promote the general education, public health, and morality of Chinese ­people in the United States. The organ­ization also reflected the reform movements then taking place in imperial China. ­After the traumatic experience of the Boxer catastrophe in 1900, even the conservative Qing court felt an urge to reform itself. On January 29, 1901, the empress dowager solicited advice on reform from all levels of government bureaucrats and envoys abroad.66 As a result, from 1901 to 1905, the Qing government undertook a series of reforms, including the abolition of old offices and cre-

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ation of new offices, creation of military academies and military training, inclusion of po­liti­cal economy in the civil ser­v ice examinations and recruitment of Chinese students abroad for ser­v ice at home, permission for marriage between the Manchus and the Chinese, liberation of ­women from foot-­binding, and prohibition of opium.67 Encouraged by the government endorsement, Chinese intellectuals and social activists across the country and abroad formed a wide range of social organ­ izations advocating reforms. The agenda of the Chinese Empire Reform Society of Missouri was closely tied to the social reform of the Qing court, and its central concern was a “moral” uplifting of Chinese. In 1905, the Chinese American Educational Association was formed in St. Louis. Like the other two organ­izations, the association l­imited its membership to Chinese males. Unlike the other two, however, it was dedicated to adoption of American culture and the Americanization of its members, particularly to establishing a night school for the Chinese in St. Louis. According to its corporation deed, it would hire American male teachers to teach the members of the association and maintain a reading room with books and newspapers. The organ­ization was run by its board of governors, consisting of the president, secretary, trea­surer, and three other members elected by the association for a one-­year term. Jeu Shung, who was also the president of the Chinese Empire Reform Society in 1903, was elected as the organ­ization’s founding president; Gon Sun served as the first secretary; and Leo Wu, also a board member of the Chinese Empire Reform Society, served as the trea­surer. On February 22, 1905, the organ­ization held its first meeting at its headquarters at 22 South Eighth Street.68 Although ­t hese organ­izations reflected the social awakening movements in Amer­i­ca and in China, the Chinese Nationalist League of Amer­i­ca, formed in 1916 in St. Louis, was more po­liti­cally connected to the Nationalist movement in China, as is apparent from the following passage from its corporation book: The purposes for which said corporation is formed are, to promote friendly and social relations among persons of Chinese birth or descent; to provide for the education of young boys and girls of Chinese birth or descent; and to employ teacher[s] and maintain classes for [­t hose] purposes. To improve social, civic, and economic conditions in the Republic of China; To use e­ very effort to develop the resources of China and to establish trade and commerce relations between it and the United States and other countries; To make ­every effort to establish, maintain, and insure a sound republican, constitutional form of government, in fact as well as in name, in the Republic of China; To disseminate among persons of Chinese birth and descent true ideas of personal and public morality, as well as the princi­ples of personal and po­liti­cal liberty and representative government; To foster and promote and in ­every way advance the spirit of Democracy and Equality in Amer­i­ca and in China.69

The document reveals both the organ­ization’s national agenda and its local program. The national agenda strove to improve the social and economic conditions in China through the promotion of Sino-­U.S. relations, the values of liberty and

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democracy, and the constitutional government. The local program focused on improving general education among the Chinese in St. Louis. It is worth noting that the Chinese Nationalist League of Amer­i­ca broadened its educational scope to include Chinese girls as well as boys. In 1928, the Chinese Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang, was formed in St. Louis. Its orga­nizational structure and programs largely resembled ­t hose of the Chinese Nationalist League of Amer­i­ca.70 The Chinese Nationalist Party in St. Louis was one of the overseas branches of the Nationalist Party in China, which obtained control of China and established the Nationalist government in Nanjing, China, in 1928. The formation of the Chinese Nationalist Party further indicates the po­liti­ cal awareness of Chinese in St. Louis. ­These initiatives by the Chinese in St. Louis show that the early Chinese community was not insulated from the social and po­liti­cal movements in Amer­i­ca and China. On the contrary, the Chinese w ­ ere actively and enthusiastically involved in the movements occurring in their a­ dopted home and in their ancestors’ land.

The Final Resting Places: Wesleyan and Valhalla Cemeteries Many Chinese came to St. Louis with the dream of making a fortune and then returning home to China. Yet, few could realize the dream, and many ended up in ­either the Wesleyan Cemetery or the Valhalla Cemetery, their final resting places in Amer­i­ca. The deaths and burials of Chinese in St. Louis thus are significant sources that provide insights into the lives of Chinese residents, and the study of mortuary rec­ords helps uncover many of the missing pieces of the story of Hop Alley. The deceased Chinese in St. Louis have been buried primarily in two cemeteries: Wesleyan and Valhalla. Prior to 1924, Wesleyan was the site for Chinese to be buried temporarily, awaiting opportunities to be shipped back to China. ­After 1924, when Wesleyan was closed, Valhalla became the final resting place for St. Louis Chinese. Wesleyan Cemetery was located on Oliver Street Road and near Hanley Road, outside of the city limits and seven miles west of the court­house. It stood in a ten-­ acre field, populated with the remains of ordinary St. Louisans.71 In 1879, Wong You, a Chinese laundry owner, became the first recorded Chinese buried in the cemetery. From then ­until 1924, all deceased Chinese ­were buried t­ here.72 By 1894, Wesleyan had buried about twenty Chinese, such as Hong Sing, Wah Chi Lee, May Lin Foo, Sam Wo, Foo Gee Chin, and Wah Lung.73 William Schmieder, sexton and keeper of the graveyard, described in 1894 to Theodore Dreiser how the Chinese buried their deceased fellow countrymen: They come out h ­ ere in carriages, sometimes as many as 19 or 20 of them. They have the corpse in a coffin and rough box stowed away in a hearse, just like Americans. That’s about all they do have like Americans. One of them ­w ill sit on the hearse with the driver, or in the first carriage, and drop ­little bits of white paper

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with holes in them all along the road. I always receive notice beforehand that they are coming, and so I have the grave ready. Th ­ ey’ll drive in and take out the coffin. Then they always have a b ­ ottle with them that holds some kind of liquor and a ­little bit of china cup that holds about two thimblefuls. One of them ­w ill take the cup and pour it full of liquor. Then h ­ e’ll go and kneel down about six feet away from the foot of the grave and begin mumbling something. At the same time ­he’ll have the china cup between his thumbs before him and ­he’ll keep swaying it up and down and crosswise ­until all at once he pours it around on the ground. Then h ­ e’ll take the empty cup and go through the same motions. Every­body takes a turn d ­ oing this ­until all of them have blessed the grave. Then they throw the cup and b ­ ottle down alongside. Then I put the coffin down and when I begin to throw on the dirt they pass crackers around to one another and begin to eat. Some of them throw a bit of rice in the grave, another scatters the pieces of paper around, and another cuts the head off one or two chickens that they bring, and throw them in the grave. When the grave is filled they go away.74

Schmieder’s description offers a vivid, au­t hen­tic account of Chinese burial ceremonies in St. Louis, from which one can draw some useful information. First, the ceremonies closely resemble traditional ones in China, especially southern China.75 Throwing paper money—­“ ­little bits of white paper with holes in them”—­a nd blessing the grave with liquor, food, and chickens are all traditions to ensure the deceased has money to spend and enough food to eat in the otherworld. ­These rituals indicate that the early Chinese in St. Louis w ­ ere consciously preserving Chinese traditions in their new land. Second, the practical meaning of preserving the Chinese burial culture went beyond the rituals themselves. Ceremonies w ­ ere means to bind members of a community together. The burial rituals not only provided ways for the living to mourn the dead but also bound them together through mourning the deceased. The gathering of Chinese at the burial ceremonies perhaps offered them a feeling of kinship and sense of solidarity. The ceremonies described by Schmieder w ­ ere the ones performed for ordinary members of the community. When a well-­to-do Chinese man died, the burial ser­ vice was more “imposing,” as Dreiser commented. In 1889, Wah Chi Len, a rich Chinese man, was buried in Wesleyan. The burial ceremony was much more elaborate than ­t hose for the ordinary Chinese, as in the following description by Dreiser: “Two bands discoursed m ­ usic at his graveside and a half dozen of his country’s flags drooped their silken folds upon the sod and decayed upon his casket’s breast with the lapse of time. Bowls of fine china filled with choice food offerings ­were left upon his grave, and at regular periods thereafter friends came to decorate his resting-­place.”76 In 1927, the Wesleyan Cemetery was leveled so the land could be used for a dif­ fer­ent purpose. This forced the On Leong Merchants and Laborers Association, the de facto Chinese government in St. Louis, to remove the remains of a hundred deceased Chinese for shipment to their home villages in China. On a mid-­November

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day in 1928, according to the St. Louis Post-­Dispatch, Lee Mow Lin, a prominent Chinese merchant in St. Louis and the leader of On Leong, along with two other On Leong members, performed the pious task in a shelter of boards and canvas ­under a tree in a corner of the cemetery. Surrounded by the remains of a hundred of their fellows, Lee Mow Lin and his companions washed and dried the bones before placing them into metal boxes. Some bones bore marks of bullet wounds, and one skull had a gash across the forehead, all indicating the sudden and violent death of their ­owners. The prepared bones then would be shipped to San Francisco, from which a steamer sailed to Hong Kong with a cargo of hundreds of wooden crates, each about three feet square and containing four tin boxes. Th ­ ese boxes contained thousands of Chinese formerly buried in the United States. From Hong Kong the parcels would be distributed throughout the interior of China. When the bones of t­ hose who died in foreign lands ­were returned home, they would be placed in jars and buried near t­ hose of their ancestors.77 This account is illuminating in several re­spects. First, it makes clear that the social climate for the Chinese in St. Louis was harsh and sometimes even violent. The total Chinese population during the last de­cades of the nineteenth c­ entury and the first de­cades of twentieth c­ entury remained at about 300. Yet 100, or a third, of the Chinese population vanished within the fifty years of existence of the community. The high mortality rate indicates the hardship in laundries and the stress, strain, and vio­lence (as apparent from the bullet marks and the gash on the bones) they faced as a discriminated and alienated minority. Second, most of the early Chinese residents in St. Louis, like Chinese in other parts of the country, ­were sojourners who intended to return to their native villages in China. The sojourning nature of the immigrants was generally a result of two ­factors, one internal and the other external. The internal f­ actor can be explained as the Chinese agrarian tradition, which encouraged social stability and discouraged migration and immigration, and consequently t­ hose who migrated w ­ ere regarded as “vagabonds” or “idling ele­ments” of the society; ­those who immigrated ­were despised by the governments as hua wai zhi min, or “traitors” or “renegades” of Chinese civilization. Bound by this tradition, the Chinese overseas regarded themselves as sojourners and dreamed of returning to the ancestral land someday. The peculiarity of Chinese culture and the sojourning nature of Chinese immigrants w ­ ere used as excuses for l­egal Chinese exclusion and social discrimination and prejudice against them. However, the sojourning characteristic of the Chinese in Amer­i­ca, as displayed by the lives of Chinese in St. Louis, was more a result of the host country’s frightening and alienating environment. The hardship of their work and the discrimination and vio­lence they experienced discouraged most Chinese from making Amer­i­ca their a­ dopted home. Consistent with this argument, C. Fred Blake’s study also finds no grave markers on Chinese graves at Wesleyan. The absence of grave markers indicates the transitory nature of the Chinese community. Since the Chinese did not intend to stay permanently, t­ here was ­little need to spend their scant funds to mark their graves.

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Third, the temporary burials of the deceased Chinese at Wesleyan Cemetery illustrate the preservation of Chinese heritage. According to the Chinese tradition luo ye gui gen, literally meaning “leaves fall on the roots of trees” or “one should die or be buried in his ancestral land,” was the ideal for Chinese who lived outside of their homeland. If one failed to return home while alive, he would expect his remains to be sent back. In preserving this tradition, On Leong faithfully performed that duty for its deceased members. ­After the closing of Wesleyan Cemetery in 1924, On Leong purchased a section in Valhalla Cemetery, located on a hilltop in the cemetery’s northeastern corner.78 Since then, Valhalla has been the final resting place for deceased Chinese, with about a hundred graves of former residents of the Chinese community located in the north St. Louis County cemetery.79 Unlike the Chinese burials in Wesleyan Cemetery, all Chinese graves in Valhalla have markers, varying in size and complexity. My field study on the gravestones reveals some of the changes and transitions that occurred in the Chinese community. ­Today the sites for Chinese burials have expanded far beyond the first section at the northeastern corner. A map of Valhalla shows that Chinese graves spread across sections 6, 7, 8, 18a, 19, 20, FH#1, and FH#2 (map 6.1). The initial section on a hilltop at the northeastern corner of Valhalla, purchased by On Leong in 1924, has thirty-­seven square or rectangular, flat gravestones that ­were laid in the earth between 1924 and 1954.80 The plain, flat gravestones of Chinese burials contrast sharply with the more elaborate upright gravestones of Eu­ro­ pean Americans surrounding them, revealing the social gap between the generally poor Chinatown immigrants and their more affluent white hosts at the time. Most gravestones in this section of the cemetery ­were inscribed in traditional Chinese calligraphy without its Romanization, indicating the preference of Chinese families for preserving the Chinese tradition. Section 18a was ­later added for Chinese burials. It contains 141 flat, rectangular gravestones laid out in twelve rows. Counting from west to east, three stones in the first row, nine stones in the second row, twelve stones in the third row, and eigh­teen stones in the fourth row ­were all dated from the 1960s; fourteen stones in the fifth row and twelve stones in the sixth row are mostly from the 1940s; sixteen stones in the seventh row are from the 1980s; fifteen stones in the eighth row are from the 1930s to 1980s; thirteen stones in the ninth row and twelve stones in the tenth row are from the 1970s; nine stones in the eleventh row are from the 1960s to 1980s; and, fi­nally, eight stones in the twelfth row are from the 1960s.81 The vari­ ous dates on the stones indicate that this section was started from the center (the fifth to eighth rows) and gradually expanded, piece by piece. According to Blake, “When the plots in one w ­ ere filled, each member of the On Leong Tong was asked to contribute a sum of money for the purchase of the next lot. In this way burial was ­under the control of the Tong and ­every member was guaranteed a place in the cemetery on the occasion of his or her death.” 82 Yet, the arrangement could also be understood as a sign of On Leong’s declining power since the 1960s, in terms

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Map 6.1. ​Chinese burial sites (shaded) in Valhalla Cemetery. Prepared by Winston Vanderhoof, Truman State University Publications, from a map of Valhalla Cemetery, with permission from the cemetery.

of both financial capacity, as On Leong could not afford to purchase the entire ­section, and social control over its members, who did not have to limit their burial site to this section. The upright gravestones along both sides of the road in section 18a, dating from the 1960s, and many other upright gravestones in sections 6, 7, 8, FH#1, and FH#2, dating from the 1970s, reflect the dramatic economic, social, and cultural transitions within the Chinese community. First, the upright gravestones reflect the improved socioeconomic conditions of the Chinese, since the cost for upright gravestones was higher than for flat stones. Second, most gravestones in ­t hese sections ­were inscribed with two names (a husband and a wife), indicating the community’s gradual change from a “bachelor society” to a more family-­oriented one since the 1960s. Third, Romanization of the Chinese surnames or full names of the deceased p ­ eople was incorporated into the inscription, reflecting Chinese efforts to integrate within the larger society. Blake also concluded that the coexis-

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tence of Chinese characters and their Romanization on a grave marker reveal the Chinese effort to si­mul­ta­neously preserve Chinese tradition and accommodate American culture.83

Conclusion Hop Alley was a haven for most St. Louis Chinese, particularly for Chinese bachelors. In Hop Alley they could find joy, comfort, and solidarity, emotional commodities difficult to obtain anywhere ­else. While the working spaces of laundries, restaurants, grocery stores, and tea shops defined the daily lives of Chinese laborers, the institutions of f­amily and community w ­ ere meaningful to them during the weekends and holidays. The lack of ­family life among early Chinese immigrants had been used first as evidence of Chinese cultural peculiarity, their sojourning mentality, and their incapability for Americanization, and ­later as an excuse for Chinese exclusion. Hop Alley, however, pre­sents a dif­fer­ent picture, in which Chinese ­family lives existed and many Chinese immigrants made efforts to ­settle and even assimilate into the host society. For ­t hose who had ­family and ­children, Hop Alley was their home and community. For t­ hose who could not have f­ amily with them due to Chinese exclusion laws, financial difficulties, or Chinese cultural restraints, Hop Alley was a necessary substitute for f­ amily life and an emotional outlet. Interactions with community members on Sundays restored the energy drained by a week of toil. Hop Alley, to a certain degree, normalized their “abnormal” immigrant life in Amer­i­ca. For Chinese immigrants situated in a multiracial urban setting, interracial contacts inevitably affected their lives and racial relations became a significant ele­ ment of their American experience. Interracial marriages and sexual relations ­were direct products of t­ hese interactions. The sharing of urban spaces and experiences resulted in matrimonial u ­ nions and intimate relations between Chinese  and Eu­ro­pean Americans. ­These interracial relationships at dif­fer­ent times encountered dif­fer­ent social reactions. Prior to the Chinese exclusion era, U.S. society was more tolerant of interracial marriage between Chinese and non-­Chinese. With passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act and the consequent nationwide anti-­Chinese crusade, interracial sexuality ignited anx­i­eties among many Americans. While interracial sexual relationships ­were frowned on by the American public and the American l­egal system, interracial religious and social interactions ­were encouraged in churches and church-­sponsored activities. Sunday schools w ­ ere effective means to evangelize the “heathen” Chinese. Taking advantage of the ser­ vices of Sunday schools, many Chinese youths obtained education that was other­ wise unavailable to them and l­ater achieved upward socioeconomic mobility and assimilation. Meanwhile, the religious and social ser­vices of the churches also eased the cultural shock of immigration for many Chinese ­women who participated in the activities. The recreational activities of Chinese reveal early efforts of community building. The vari­ous clan associations attempted to meet members’ social and emotional

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needs by offering recreational facilities and organ­izing cultural and social activities. The more Westernized social organ­izations indicate that Chinese St. Loui­ sans not only w ­ ere trying to make their lives in Amer­i­ca easier but also w ­ ere concerned about the larger social and po­liti­cal reform movements in Amer­i­ca and China. Mortuary rec­ords further reveal the nature and the transition of immigrant life of the Chinese. While Wesleyan Cemetery served as a temporary resting place for the deceased Chinese before their remains could be shipped back to the homeland, Valhalla Cemetery has become the permanent final resting place for Chinese St. Louisans, much ­earlier than one might have expected.

chapter 7

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Governing “Hop Alley” THE on leong chinese merchants and laborers association, 1906–1966 “On Leong” means peaceful. If they have prob­lems and ­don’t know what to do or if ­there is a dispute about payment of debt, they go to one of the two co-­presidents instead of ­going to a l­awyer. The men at the meetings hear the story—­like a jury. They consult and the co-­presidents hand down a decision. You know, we Chinese like to keep our prob­lems within our community and solve them ourselves. —­Annie Leong, St. Louis Globe-­Democrat, 1962

Like other urban Chinese immigrant communities, Hop Alley developed a self-­ protective and self-­governing structure, the On Leong Merchants and Laborers Association, commonly known as On Leong Tong. Since its founding in the beginning of the twentieth c­ entury, it had been the dominant community organ­ization in St. Louis’s Chinatown. Its presidents had been referred to as “the mayors of Chinatown” by the public as the Chinese preferred resolving prob­lems within the community.1 ­Because On Leong bears the term “tong” in its name, it had also often been mistakenly perceived as one of the Chinese secret socie­ties and as being associated with criminal activities.2 This chapter w ­ ill examine the origins, nature, and functions of On Leong and its impact on the St. Louis Chinese community.

Formation and Functions of On Leong The effort of community building by the Chinese in St. Louis was most evident through the formation and operation of the On Leong Merchants and Laborers Association. Although other social organ­izations existed before the establishment of On Leong, none possessed the power and influence of On Leong. The National On Leong Association was in existence during the last de­cade of the nineteenth ­century, with branch associations in the eastern and ­later midwestern states.3 With support and guidance from the National On Leong Association, Chinese in St. Louis formed the On Leong Chinese Merchants Association in 1906,4 registering it with the city in 1912.5 123

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The term on leong is the Cantonese version of an liang, derived from the Chinese aphorism “chu bao an liang,” meaning “eliminating despots and bringing peace to ­people.” Generations of Chinese peasant rebels and secret socie­ties had employed this slogan to challenge the established order and to propagate their own po­liti­cal agendas. In a foreign land, surrounded by an unfamiliar culture, merchants, the elite class of Chinese immigrants, felt the need and obligation to establish a social organ­ization to protect their interests and assist newcomers from China. As a vulnerable minority group, Chinese immigrants ­were unable to chu bao, or eliminate, ­those who legally excluded them or socially discriminated against them. The best they could do was to maintain peace and social order within their own communities through mutual aids and self-­governing. Therefore, adopting only the term on leong, On Leong Merchants and Laborers Association was formed as a self-­reliant, quasi-­legal, social organ­ization of Chinese immigrants. The On Leong Merchant and Laborers Association was popularly known as On Leong Tong. The term tong in Chinese literally means “hall,” with no suggestion of crime or secrecy; it often was used to mean a school, a church, a district association, or an herb drugstore.6 In Amer­i­ca, Chinese community organ­izations that used tong as part of their names included ­those providing mutual aid to their members as well as t­hose that ­were primarily engaged in criminal activities. ­These organ­izations, however, have been uniformly perceived as secret socie­ties associated with alleged crimes, particularly the tong war. An article in the St. Louis Republic on August 14, 1910, pointed out the popu­lar confusion about the Chinese tongs and attempted to resolve it: A good deal of mystification and misunderstanding about the Chinese tong exists in the American mind. We confuse all tongs with the one called Highbinders, a gang of the criminal class of the Chinese, most of them hired cutthroats and thieves, and nothing could be a greater injustice. The Chinese tong—or secret society—is an organ­ization branching from the ancient F ­ ree Masons. The secret society of F ­ ree Masons has flourished in China for [a] thousand of years and the tongs are merely branches of the original society. They are based on exactly the same princi­ple as are our secret socie­ties and should not be confused with the criminal Highbinders. The Gee Kong Tong holds its meetings in elaborately appointed lodgerooms in which only tong members are allowed to enter. The better clans of tong members w ­ ill not tolerate the Highbinders and t­here have not been any in St. Louis for several years. An occasional Highbinder soon leaves town ­a fter an interview with police or the more law-­binding Chinese.7

Scholars have also tried to lessen the confusion for the general public. In 1935, the sociologist C. N. Reynolds stated that Chinese organ­izations or tongs in Amer­ i­ca had their roots in secret socie­ties in China. He differentiated other Chinese community organ­ization such as the Six Companies (discussed ­later in this chapter) and trade or craft organ­izations from the fighting tongs. He noted that many tongs in Amer­i­ca had modified their criminal activities and developed benevolent and protective functions.8

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Several de­cades ­later, Yung-­Deh Richard Chu’s study systematically explored the origins, structures, functions, and historical development of vari­ous Chinese secret socie­ties in the United States. According to Chu, three types of social organ­ izations developed in Amer­i­ca. The district associations emerged to assist new immigrants by providing ­free lodging, food, and employment ser­v ices. Soon, clan associations ­were formed to provide similar ser­v ices to t­ hose without the support of the district association. Meanwhile, as the district associations grew, dif­fer­ent clan associations of the same district began to compete with each other for hegemony, which led to small clans coordinating their efforts secretly to avoid the control of bigger clans and to use vio­lence as a means to force larger clans to act reasonably. When the environment in Amer­i­ca turned extremely hostile a­ fter passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, the third type of organ­ization, secret socie­ties, became very active and widespread. Chu concluded that “the tongs have both their vices and positive aspects, especially for the peculiar situation of the Chinese immigrants. They cannot be simply regarded as [a] Chinese version of [the] Mafia existing merely for pursuing or­ga­nized crimes.”9 A ­later study by sociologist Kuo-­lin Chen groups the Chinese criminal organ­ izations alleged by American law enforcement agencies into the following categories: triads, tongs, gangs, heroin smugglers, and smugglers of illegal immigrants. Based on sworn brotherhood (a typical orga­nizational structure of secret socie­ties that binds the members by having them utter an oath of brotherhood), the tongs in Amer­i­ca ­today include Chih Kung (or Gee Kung, Zhigong), On Leong (Anliang), Hip Sing (Xiesheng), Tung On (Tongan), Fukien (Fujian) American, Hop Sing (Hesheng), Bing Kung (Binggong), Suey Sing (Cuisheng), and Ying On (Yingduan).10 Among the tongs, Chih Kung, On Leong, and Hip Sing are the most influential. Chih Kung, the oldest of all, formed in 1850 in Hawaii, then extended to British Columbia in the late 1850s and fi­nally became established in San Francisco in 1863.11 Some members of Chih Kung established On Leong in 1894. Its headquarters w ­ ere moved to New York a few years l­ ater and have remained t­ here ever since.12 The preceding works have categorized On Leong as one of the secret socie­ties and have noted both meaningful ser­vices and criminal activities of the secret socie­ ties. Although historically the National On Leong Association had been involved with tong wars, its branch organ­ization in St. Louis seems to not adhere to the general structure and functions of a secret society. It has elected officers, including a president, a vice president, a secretary, a trea­surer, and seven directors, who together form the governing board. It resembles the American Chamber of Commerce and has been referred to by the media as the Chinese version of the Business Men’s League.13 On Leong in St.  Louis is more comparable to the Chinese Six Companies. Most Chinese immigrant communities in Amer­i­ca ­were controlled by the Chinese Six Companies up to the civil rights movement in the 1960s. The Chinese Six Companies, which ­were founded between 1851 and 1862 on the West Coast, ­were fraternal organ­izations of Chinese immigrants in the United States on the basis of lineage and geographic origins, including the Kong Chow Com­pany (or

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Gangzhou Huiguan), Sam Yup Com­pany (or Sanyi Huiguan), Yeoung Wo Com­ pany (or Yanghe Huiguan), Yan Wo Com­pany (or Renhe Huiguan), Ning Yung Com­pany (or Ningyang Huiguan), and Hop Wo Com­pany (or Hehe Huiguan). In 1882, to react collectively to the harsh treatment of Chinese immigrants by government institutions and the public, the six companies formed a national umbrella organ­ization, the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA, or Zhonghua Huiguan), commonly known to Americans as the Chinese Six Companies.14 Dif­fer­ent from the Chinese on the West Coast, the St. Louis Chinese did not join the network of CCBA but w ­ ere dominated by the On Leong Merchants and 15 Laborers Association. Unlike the CCBA, On Leong was a trade/professional organ­ization that sought to promote and protect Chinese businesses in the United States regardless of the lineage or geographic origins of its members. On Leong’s 1912 corporation deed stated its mission as being “to bring about cooperation of its members in buying and importing goods, wares and merchandise, and obtaining better facilities of transportation for the same, to provide relief for its sick members, to bring about a better social and friendly relation among its members, and to elevate them morally and educationally.”16 Clearly, to protect and promote the commercial interests of buying, importing, and transporting goods was the organ­ ization’s primary objective. The corporation deed also reveals that On Leong had $2,000 in capital stock divided into 200 shares held equally by the four members of the board of directors: Lee Look, Hang Jue, Heuy M. Fot, and Gin Suey.17 Judging by this trait of shareholding, the members of board of directors ­were more like business partners in 1912. In 1919, On Leong underwent two major changes. First, it become more inclusive and expanded its membership to include not only merchants but also common laborers. This change could indicate On Leong’s attempt to transform itself from an elite trade organ­ization to a broader community ser­v ice organ­ization. To reflect the structural change, On Leong also de­cided to alter its official name. The new name dropped the word “Tong” and added “Laborers.” The naming reveals On Leong’s awareness of the negative connotation of the word “tong” and the American public’s association of tongs with criminal organ­izations. The reor­ga­ nized On Leong again registered with the city u ­ nder its new name, the On Leong Chinese Merchants and Laborers Association, in 1919. The corporation deed from that year indicates that the organ­ization seemed more demo­cratic in both name and structure. On Leong had purchased a headquarters for its regular meetings and activities; its officers consisted of a president, a vice president, a secretary, a trea­surer, and seven directors, all elected annually by its members.18 Despite the difference in the forms of t­ hese organ­izations, On Leong’s social functions largely resembled t­ hose of the Chinese Six Companies. First of all, On Leong was an unofficial local government of Chinese immigrants in Amer­i­ca. It served as the legislative, judicial, and administrative authority within the Chinese community. To avoid competition among Chinese entrepreneurs, On Leong dictated the “one mile one laundry” (­later “one mile one restaurant”) rule, allowing

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only one Chinese laundry to operate within a radius of one mile. A similar regulation was established by the Chinese laundry associations in San Francisco and ­Virginia City in the 1860s. Violators of the regulation ­were often penalized. They ­were first given a warning by On Leong for the offense. The timid offender would close his shop voluntarily ­after the warning. ­Those who refused to obey the order then w ­ ere forced to close their businesses due to mysterious tragedies being inflicted on them, such as burning of the business premises or murders of ­family members.19 ­These mea­sures of law enforcement, though effective, resembled the cruel and secretive means of the secret socie­ties and therefore contributed to the ste­reo­typical image of On Leong as criminal gangs. More often, On Leong acted as the Chinese court on American soil, using Chinese l­egal codes or customary laws to convict criminals or wrongdoers in cases presented at its board meetings.20 The judiciary function of On Leong was in part a tradition of Chinese secret socie­ties that took the law into their own hands, but it was more a reaction to their immigrant experiences in Amer­i­ca. When cases related to murdered Chinese ­were deliberately delayed or ignored by American law enforcement agencies, On Leong de­cided to ­handle the crimes within the Chinese community by utilizing Chinese laws.21 The presidents of On Leong, elected e­ very year by its members, w ­ ere regarded by the American government and the public as mayors of Chinatown, particularly for their judicial power. Similarly, the Chinese Six Companies arbitrated disputes among their members and represented Chinese immigrants in their dealings with American authorities.22 Second, On Leong was the most power­ful economic force within the Chinese community. The association owned properties that earned considerable income. The presidents of On Leong ­were generally prominent, successful local entrepreneurs who often donated large sums of money to the association, while the rank and file consisted of petty merchants and common laborers. However, On Leong did not have absolute economic control over its members. In contrast, the Chinese Six Companies wielded almost complete control of the socioeconomic lives of Chinese immigrants. The Chinese Six Companies mandated Chinese immigrants register with them upon landing and pay fees and debts before departure for China.23 Third, On Leong provided useful social ser­v ices to its members and families. One of the most valued ser­vices was translation aid. Since most new Chinese immigrants w ­ ere unable to speak En­glish, they initially faced tremendous difficulties and frustrations. On Leong hired a group of Chinese youths, who ­were able to speak both Chinese and En­glish, as interpreters and dispatched them to the train station to meet the new immigrants, bring them to their apartments, help them s­ ettle down, and assist them in finding jobs.24 On Leong helped many new immigrants in getting licenses and starting laundries in St. Louis. On Leong was also a social center for Chinese immigrants, and its headquarters w ­ ere often used by members at no charge for special events such as weddings, cele­brations of newborn babies, funerals, and other social gatherings.25 The Chinese Six Companies also provided vari­ous ser­vices to the communities, from offering temporary lodging to newcomers to funding the needy and establishing Chinese-­language schools.26

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Fourth, On Leong fulfilled spiritual needs of Chinese immigrants. It regarded the burial ceremony of its members as a sacred task. Many Chinese immigrants came to Amer­i­ca with the intention to work hard, save as much money as pos­si­ ble, and eventually return to home villages to join their families. Some returned to China with savings ­after years of toiling on the Gold Mountain. Many ­others, however, met sudden death by vio­lence or died of diseases in Amer­i­ca. Their bodies ­were buried temporarily in local cemeteries ­until they could be transported to their homeland. On Leong faithfully performed the duties of sending the bones of deceased members to China, as discussed in chapter 6. As in most traditional Chinese organ­izations, members of On Leong also held superstitious beliefs and preserved rituals accordingly, and they depended on Chinese gods for their good fortune and protection. The meeting hall of On Leong’s headquarters held an altar with a shrine to Guan Gong, a Chinese god who was believed to be a protector of merchants. When On Leong’s board of eleven members gathered for its monthly business meeting, the members would light incense and bow to Guan Gong before conducting the meeting. During the Chinese New Year’s cele­bration, the most impor­tant ceremony was one that involved paying homage to Guan Gong. The members would donate from two to five dollars to cover the cost of this ceremony. The proceeds also served as a source of funds for On Leong, in addition to the annual membership fee of twenty-­five dollars.27 Similar to the Chinese Six Companies, On Leong was a fraternal organ­ization that excluded the participation of Chinese immigrant w ­ omen. The 1919 On Leong corporation deed stipulated that “the active membership of the organ­ization s­ hall consist [of] male[s] only, and they of the Chinese race.”28 Although wives of members w ­ ere occasionally allowed to attend meetings, w ­ omen seldom participated in decision-­making. However, On Leong provided ser­v ices to Chinese businessmen and their families that consequently benefited Chinese ­women, and since the 1950s, On Leong has largely utilized ser­v ices provided by female individuals of the community. Annie Leong’s longtime ser­v ice to On Leong was the clearest example of the St. Louis On Leong’s openness to ­women. Growing up in an apartment above the On Leong headquarters in Chinatown, Annie Leong became a significant part of the organ­ization, serving as its unofficial spokesperson since 1950 and contributing tremendously to the organ­ization. She was the mistress of ceremony of vari­ ous cele­brations sponsored by On Leong, served as an interpreter for the se­nior On Leong officers, and entertained reporters from local newspapers during the 1950s and 1960s.29 Writers have recognized the protective functions of the traditional Chinese community organ­izations. Julia I. Hsuan Chen notes On Leong’s “generous” contributions to “all good ­causes.”30 William Hoy praises the Chinese Six Companies’ campaigns against Chinese exclusion legislation through protests, appeals, and petitions to all levels of the government.31 Him Mark Lai recognizes the CCBA’s role in ensuring the smooth operation of the community.32 Peter Kwong categorizes the functions of the district or clan associations in New York Chinatown as “defensive” (dealing with the larger society) and “offensive” (efforts to develop busi-

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ness within Chinatown) and believes both had positive effects on the community.33 Sue Fawn Chung’s study on Zhigongtang (Chih Kung Tong) praises the protective features of the organ­ization, including community security, creation of an artificial ­family, establishment of basic rules of conduct among members, ­labor recruitment, economic assistance through systems of mutual aid, cele­bration of traditional festivals and entertainment, housing facilities for travelers, and funeral arrangements.34 Meanwhile, scholars believe that t­ hese protective functions could be used to control the community. Lai meticulously analyzed the CCBA’s control over the Chinese immigrants. Upon landing, a Chinese immigrant would be put ­under the protection or control of the association in m ­ atters such as food, lodging, and employment. An immigrant could not purchase a steamship ticket to China ­until he had cleared his debts and obtained a permit for departure from the association.35 Similarly, Kwong claims that the unofficial po­liti­cal structure in Chinatown helped the elite exploit the working class.36 The traditional Chinese organ­izations’ control over the Chinese immigrant communities was comparable to Tammany Hall’s functions among the Irish immigrants in New York City, except that Tammany Hall had transformed itself into a po­liti­cal machine in mainstream urban politics.37 Although On Leong did not sustain a complete and deliberate control of its members like the CCBA did, it was a self-­confined community structure that did not intend to reach out to or blend into the larger society. This mentality was partly a result of the socioeconomic backgrounds of the Chinese immigrants and partly a response to the socioeconomic conditions in the United States. Prior to World War II, most Chinese immigrants had come from impoverished rural areas and spoke ­little En­glish. Not surprisingly, their lack of understanding of American systems, resulting from lack of education and l­ imited language ability, nourished the mentality of self-­confinement as they clung to each other for comfort and security. Meanwhile, Chinese had been legally excluded and persecuted by immigration authorities and law enforcement agencies, eco­nom­ically segregated from the mainstream l­abor market, and socially isolated from the majority of the population. The hostile climate against them in Amer­i­ca effectively compelled them to develop organ­izations that provided mutual aids and collective protection for the sake of survival. Meanwhile, as business leaders, the “mayors of Chinatown” had a vested interest in keeping the community isolated and dependent on its internal socioeconomic structures, as many writers have suggested.38 An isolated community guaranteed a steady pool of laborers and a profitable market. However, economics alone cannot explain the self-­confined nature of On Leong, given that the primary occupation of the Chinese in St. Louis prior to the 1960s was laundry work, and the laundries’ clientele consisted mainly of white Americans. On Leong’s inclination ­toward self-­confinement prob­ably stems mainly from cultural and psychological ­factors. The dominance of the Chinese business class over Chinese immigrants was a distinctive feature of overseas Chinese socie­ties

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in the United States and other parts of the world. This pattern of social control departed from the social structure in traditional China, where the elite class of gentry-­scholars dominated ­every level of governance and merchants ­were despised as social parasites who would corrupt government and society. Secure in their wealth and power, Chinese gentry-­scholars had l­ ittle incentive to immigrate, and their absence among Chinese immigrants thus gave Chinese merchants, who ­were better educated and more sophisticated than common laborers, the opportunity to emerge as leaders of their communities. Therefore, the more confined a Chinese immigrant community was, the more indispensable the Chinese business leaders ­were. ­These business leaders enjoyed their elite status and tried to maintain the established order in the community. While On Leong inherited ele­ments of Chinese tradition, it also a­ dopted cultural practices of the New World. Its organizers quickly learned the rules and customs of the American business world. In the 1910s, Chinese businesses w ­ ere rapidly expanding, and the Chinese population was also steadily growing. The development of the community in St. Louis led to the need for a larger meeting space for On Leong. In 1914, the organ­ization purchased a three-­story building at 20 South Eighth Street and moved into the new headquarters on October 10. The St. Louis Republic featured an article entitled “Hop Alley Makee Feast Like B. M. L.” to report the event: The Chinese Merchants’ association celebrated the removal into their new headquarters at 20 South Eighth Street yesterday. . . . This association is to the Chinese about what the Business Men’s League is to the rest of St. Louis. The Chinese are apt pupils. They have been reading of the functions of the B. M. L., and their cele­bration possessed all features of that organ­ization, and then some. First, they had a banquet. It has come to be recognized in St. Louis that no function of the B. M. L. is complete without a banquet. The Chinese brethren has a series of them. ­Music, too, features the functions of the B. M. L., and the Chinese w ­ ere not daunted. While they had no celebrated vocalists like George W. Simmons or William Flewellyn Saunders, they got along fairly well. Harmony has no par­tic­u ­lar place in a Chinese musical production. But they sang, anyhow. Each Celestial chose his own song, and delivered in his own pet key. While the words w ­ ere not overly intelligible to the American ear, that made no par­ tic­u ­lar difference, and as rapidly one banquet ­table was emptied, other banqueters took their places, and the revelry lasted all day and ­until late in the night. 39

Although this report clearly is colored with ste­reo­t ypes and a patronizing tone, it provides valuable information on the development of On Leong. This elaborate cele­bration reflects On Leong’s growing economic capability and the adaptability of Chinese businessmen, who ­were not merely traditional Chinese merchants but

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also modern businessmen ­eager to absorb new ideas and grasp new opportunities to survive and prosper in a more competitive world. In performing its l­egal, economic, social, and spiritual functions, On Leong effectively eased many newcomers’ initial cultural shock and difficulties, and successfully maintained the community peace and order. Thus, it was instrumental to building the community of the St. Louis Chinese.

“The Mayors of Chinatown” Referred to by the American public as the “mayors of Chinatown,” the presidents of the On Leong Merchants and Laborers Association ­were mostly affluent merchants and power­ful men in the Chinese community. One should note that the unofficial title “mayors of Chinatown” possesses a negative connotation, projecting an image of some type of despot. Although a few leaders of On Leong ­were involved in criminal activities that tainted the reputation of the organ­ization, the majority of the On Leong presidents provided useful ser­v ices to the community and ­were highly respected. To understand the complexity of On Leong and its contributions to and impact on the community, it is helpful to examine the personalities of its leaders during its peak years.

Jeu Sick (Presidency: ?–1917) Jeu Sick was one of On Leong’s early presidents. Judging from the ­limited sources on him, he prob­ably served as a negative example of the leaders of On Leong. According to the St. Louis Globe-­Democrat, Jeu Sick was a wealthy merchant and the leader of On Leong in the 1910s. ­There is not much information about his life, and only one source recorded his death. On December 15, 1917, he shot Leong Fou, a business competitor, to death in the rear of a h ­ ouse at 714 Market Street in Hop Alley. He then turned the revolver on himself, inflicting a wound to his stomach, and died before medical aid could be summoned.40 The dramatic and violent death of Jeu Sick contributed to the misperception of On Leong as an organ­ization associated with tong war.

Lee Mow Lin (Presidency: 1917–1929) Lee Mow Lin came to Amer­i­ca at an early age, spent some years in San Francisco, where he learned about the grocery business, and then arrived in St. Louis. His business, Quong On Lung, located at 17 South Eighth Street, was one of the city’s early Chinese grocery stores recorded in Gould’s St. Louis City Directory, 1897. During the last de­cade of the nineteenth ­century and the first de­cade of the twentieth ­century, Chinese groceries proved difficult to sustain, and the turnover rate was high, with most businesses lasting no longer than five years. Quong On Lung, however, managed to stay in the business on the same premises u ­ ntil 1914.41 Lee Mow Lin’s success in business and influence in Hop Alley soon attracted the attention of the local news media. Dick Wood, a reporter for the St. Louis Republic, visited Quong On Lung and other Chinese businesses and then wrote

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an article for the Sunday magazine section of the newspaper on July 29, 1900. The article occupied an entire page, accompanied by photos portraying Chinese grocery business and social life in Hop Alley. According to the article, Quong On Lung carried a wide range of Chinese goods, including dried foods, tea, native-­made cloth, and medicine.42 Wood portrayed Lee Mow Lin as a well-­educated and highly respected merchant. A convert to Chris­tian­ity, Lin had acquired a thorough En­glish education in a sectarian school in the United States when he was a young boy.43 With his education, intelligence, and a successful business, he was regarded as the spokesperson for St. Louis Chinatown. Wood’s visit to Hop Alley took place at a critical moment of the so-­called Boxer Rebellion in China. At the turn of the c­ entury, the increasing presence of foreign aggression and influence in China following the Opium Wars agitated the Chinese populace. Members of Yi He Quan (meaning “righ­teous and harmonious fists”), known to Westerners as Boxers ­because they practiced martial arts, ­rose to challenge the foreign powers. On June 13, 1900, the Boxers besieged the legation quarter in Beijing where 450 foreign guards protected 475 foreign civilians, including 12 foreign ministers, and 2,300 Chinese Christians who had fled ­t here for protection. Western powers immediately dispatched an international relief expedition. The war in China aroused anxiety among the Chinese in St. Louis. Reflecting the sentiment of the community, Lee Mow Lin voiced his opinions on the Boxer Rebellion to Wood. He first dispelled the rumor that uncontrollable manslaughter was taking place in China and then expressed his confidence in the ability of the Chinese government and Chinese philosophy to prevail over the turmoil and evil forces: We ­can’t believe all the t­ hings the papers have told. It surely could not be that our Government has been unable to protect the lives of foreign Ministers and their ­house­holds. If such w ­ ere the case, we, the Chinese merchants of St. Louis, would certainly have been informed through Chinese sources. If such ­were the case, it would mean untold suffering to many millions of our ­ eople. Should the lawless ele­ment in China triumph over her centuries home p of economic adjustment, it would mean more of a reign of terror to the law-­ abiding representatives of our own race than the Western world is capable of grasping. In China, we have had dissensions and rebellions, as has been the case with many other nations not nearly so old, and t­ here may be some who would gladly welcome a change in the Government, a shifting around of rulers—­much the same as new blood is welcomed in the leader of a herd. The lawless ele­ment may gain, or may already have gained, the upper hand, but if so the bad effect w ­ ill be nullified by the g­ reat unity and philosophy of the Chinese as a race.44

This statement reveals Lee Mow Lin’s po­liti­cal skill and sophistication: he defended the integrity of the Chinese government and Chinese culture, while condemning the turmoil and vio­lence caused by the Boxers. It is prob­ably the best available depiction of the characteristics of Lee Mow Lin.

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As a successful businessman and a capable leader, Lee Mow Lin dominated On Leong from its formation in 1906 ­until 1929. Many non-­Chinese St. Louisans viewed him as a “venerable sage of the Chinese quarter.” 45 ­Under his leadership, On Leong provided valuable ­legal, social, and spiritual ser­v ices for the community.

Joe Lin (Presidency: 1929–1940) Born in China in 1881, Joe Lin became a prominent restaurant owner in St. Louis. His Orient Restaurant, located at 414 North Seventh Street, was in operation from 1937 to 1952.46 He was elected the president of On Leong in 1929 and remained in that post ­until 1940. From 1937 to 1947, he served as president of the National Association of On Leong, a position usually held by merchant leaders from New York City or Boston. He was referred to by the local media as the “mayor of Chinatown” from 1929 u ­ ntil his death in 1947. Like most of the early Chinese immigrants, Joe Lin lived in Amer­i­ca alone, having left his wife and c­ hildren b ­ ehind in China. Also like most of his countrymen, Joe Lin was keenly interested in politics in China. In 1927, the Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang, split with the Chinese Communist Party a­ fter a four-­year co­a li­tion and consolidated its control in China the following year, a split that affected the Nationalists in St. Louis. As a Nationalist, Joe Lin was enthusiastic about a republic in China, but he did not f­ avor the Nationalist government. He abhorred the corruption and irregularities within the party and its government.47 Joe Lin’s leadership ability was most vis­i­ble during the Sino-­Japanese War, when he or­ga­nized vari­ous activities to raise funds supporting China’s re­sis­tance war. Immediately ­after the Japa­nese waged a full-­fledged war against China on July 7, 1937, On Leong called for Chinese in St. Louis to make contributions to assist China’s war effort and named Joe Lin as trea­surer of the fund. Although most Chinese in St. Louis ­were poor laborers working in laundries and restaurants, they made weekly contributions as much as they could. One thousand dollars was donated weekly for the purchase of weapons and ammunition for use against the Japa­nese invaders.48 On June 17, 1938, Joe Lin presented a speech at a fund­rais­ing party given by the St. Louis Committee of the United Council for Civilian Relief in China. The party was a ­g reat success, with 250 ­people attending.49 Joe Lin’s friendly relations with his American customers also generated donations from them for China’s war effort from time to time.50 Joe Lin’s funeral further revealed his influence in the Chinese community and among his American patrons. He died at the age of sixty-­six on December 13, 1947, at Jewish Hospital, where he had under­gone an operation for a brain tumor. His funeral, held on December 23, was so elaborate and well attended that the St. Louis Globe-­Democrat featured a story headlined “All Limousines in City Hired for Mourners.” The article began, “A lavish and colorful funeral ser­v ice, followed by a pro­cession including a 30-­piece brass band and 46 limousines which tied up the heavy downtown Christmas traffic, marked the last rites yesterday of Joe Lin, unofficial mayor of St. Louis Chinatown.”51 The total cost of the funeral was $5,000, and 500 ­people, including Chinese leaders of the On Leong Association from

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twenty-­eight cities, local Chinese, and a large number of Joe Lin’s American friends, attended. The large attendance at the funeral spoke eloquently to On Leong’s power over the Chinese immigrant community. The ser­v ice also reflected the adaptive characteristics of Joe Lin and many Chinese immigrants—­a combination of the East and West, Chinese and American. Christian ser­v ices w ­ ere conducted in the Cantonese dialect, and a brass band played traditional Western funeral m ­ usic of the period, including “Onward Christian Soldiers” and “Adeste Fidelis.” Joe Lin was buried at Valhalla Cemetery, the final resting place for St. Louis Chinese.52

Charles Quinn Chu (Presidency: 1940–1950) Charles Quinn Chu (sometimes spelled Charles Quin Chu), also known as Charles Quinn, was another charismatic and power­ful leader. Born in Hong Kong in 1900, he came to St. Louis in 1912 with his parents. His ­father owned an import business at the corner of Eighth and Market Streets, the heart of Hop Alley. Growing up in Chinatown, Quinn spoke fluent Cantonese and En­glish. His restaurant, the Shanghai Café, was located at 6314 Delmar Boulevard, at which he also sold Chinese art objects as a sideline business.53 A prominent businessman, Quinn enjoyed social re­spect and economic comfort. His ­family lived at 434 Melville Ave­nue in a colonial brick ­house, handsomely furnished with just a touch of the Orient in vases and ornaments. A new Pontiac parked outside his h ­ ouse further indicated his economic well-­being. Quinn and his wife, Lum Shee, had one son, Chu Wah Chu, and two d ­ aughters, Rose Chu and Peggy Chu, who all received a college education. His elder ­daughter, Rose, a gradu­ate of Washington University School of Dress Design, married Man Hing Au, a gradu­ate of the Washington University School of Medicine in 1949.54 Tall and with a pleasant manner, Quinn gradually emerged as a leader of Chinatown. Even though he had been On Leong’s president since 1940, he was referred to as the “mayor of Chinatown” only ­a fter Joe Lin’s death in 1947. Like Joe Lin, Quinn also expanded the influence of the Chinese in St. Louis during his tenure as president of the St. Louis On Leong and president of the National Association of On Leong from 1938 to 1948, through a series of activities, especially the national convention of On Leong held in St. Louis in April 1949.55 Although his presidency of On Leong ended in 1950, Quinn remained influential and was known as the “mayor of Chinatown” u ­ ntil his death in 1976. News reports from time to time portrayed him as a power­ful leader of Chinatown. Dickson Terry, a reporter for the St. Louis Post-­Dispatch, interviewed Quinn in December 1950. During the interview, Quinn explained On Leong’s functions to Terry. When asked about the Communists’ takeover in China, he said that the entire St. Louis Chinese population was anti-­Communist, and they w ­ ere g­ oing to hold an anti-­Communist parade.56 This statement shows Quinn’s attempt to protect members of On Leong from investigation by the FBI for Communist affiliations during the time the United States was inflamed with McCarthyism.57 Charles Quinn retired from the restaurant business in 1961 and died of a heart ailment at the Clayton House Health Care Home in 1976 at the age of seventy-­six;

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Figure 7.1. ​The gravestone of Charles Quin Chu (1899–1976), the last “mayor of Chinatown,” in Valhalla Cemetery, 1999. The inscription is written in both En­glish and Chinese. Collection of the author.

he was laid to rest at Valhalla Cemetery (figure 7.1).58 With his death and, more impor­tant, the emergence of a new social organ­ization, the St. Louis Chinese Society, primarily comprising Chinese professionals, On Leong was slowly and gradually losing its control over and influence on the Chinese community in St. Louis. The age of the “mayors of Chinatown” ended. Among the “mayors of Chinatown,” Joe Lin and Charles Quinn ­were dominant figures, influential not only within but also outside of the Chinese community. However, they did not forge long-­term familial clout in the Chinese community as the aristocratic Moy, Wong, and Lin families did in Chicago’s Chinatown. The rivalry of the dominant clans in Chicago, first between the Moys and the Wongs and ­later between the Moys and the Lins, resulted in tong fights, murders, and po­liti­cal disunity within the community.59 In St. Louis, the absence of the major feuding clans helped On Leong operate as a unified community po­liti­ cal structure.

Headquarters of On Leong in St. Louis The headquarters of On Leong moved several times during the organ­ization’s history. In the early years of On Leong, the voluntary relocation of its headquarters was a result of the growing need of the Chinese community for more space to facilitate the organ­ization’s vari­ous functions. A ­ fter 1966, when Hop Alley was demolished ­under programs of urban renewal, the forced removal of On Leong headquarters reflected the discriminatory nature of urban renewal, which demanded the clearance of districts where ethnic minorities resided—­districts that w ­ ere deemed unsafe and unsanitary and therefore w ­ ere doomed. The forced removal of the On Leong

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headquarters also indicates the powerlessness and lack of resources and means of On Leong in fighting discrimination and social injustice.

First Headquarters at 20A South Eighth Street (1914–1948) On Leong’s first headquarters ­were located at 20A South Eighth Street from 1914 to 1948. The building included meeting rooms upstairs and a Chinese grocery store downstairs, which was first owned by the Wing Chong Tai Com­pany from 1914 to 1917, and then by Yen Lung and Com­pany from 1918 to 1944.60 During the first de­cades of the twentieth ­century, South Eighth Street was the busiest street within the Chinatown commercial area. In addition to Yen Lung and Com­pany, ­there w ­ ere 61 seven other Chinese grocery stores. Meanwhile, the Chinese community maintained a steady population of more than 300. Centrally located in the heart of Hop Alley, the headquarters ­were a con­ve­nient place for Chinese residents to congregate. Th ­ ere On Leong held its board meetings, and clansmen gathered to celebrate the Chinese New Year, such as the one in 1936, when more than 300 p ­ eople crowded the meeting hall on New Year’s Day. The festive spirit was seen everywhere in Chinatown, with ­owners of Chinese stores placing bowls of candied fruits, lily roots, and tangerines for anyone to take. Chinese ­children on the street received lucky money wrapped in red paper from adults. Firecrackers ­were set off, and a dragon dance was performed. About fifteen men paraded ­under the dragon costume, with the man in the head leading the crew in a conga line down the street.62

Second Headquarters at 720–724 Market Street (1948–1966) In September 1948, to better serve the community and to prepare for the organ­ ization’s national convention to be held in St. Louis the next year, On Leong planned to move its headquarters to a bigger space. A property at 720–724 Market Street was available for sale. The Chinese had already owned several other structures on the east side of Eighth Street and south of Market Street. The purchase of the new building would consolidate the Chinese holdings to the north of the main traffic artery. The board members, including Charles Quinn (president), Yee Hing (vice president), and Joe Jones (secretary-­treasurer), looked at the property and de­cided to purchase the building as On Leong’s new headquarters. A ­ fter necessary negotiations, On Leong agreed to pay $100,000 for the building. It was a two-­story brick structure with 12,000 square feet of floor space, including five stores on the first floor and a number of meeting rooms above, which could accommodate the 800 ­people who w ­ ere expected to attend the convention.63 On April 2, 1949, the annual national convention of the On Leong Merchants and Laborers Association opened as planned. The newly finished building, with its modern design, was furnished with handsome teakwood chairs and desks and expensive Oriental rugs. A fourteen-­course dinner of Chinese delicacies was served, including shark-­fin soup and abalone with oyster sauce, and lavish Chinese ­music entertained 125 delegates and their wives and c­ hildren from twenty cities in the eastern and midwestern states.64 The leisurely, three-­week-­long conven-

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tion impressed national delegates and promoted St. Louis’s Chinese businesses. The wealth displayed by On Leong at the convention contrasted sharply with the lives of most Chinese in St. Louis, who at the time earned about thirty dollars a month. The concentration of Chinese economic power enhanced On Leong’s social and po­liti­cal control over the community. ­A fter the convention, the headquarters continued to facilitate community activities. The Chinese Youth Association, for instance, utilized the large meeting rooms for its monthly dance party. Annie Leong’s ­family restaurant, the Asian Café, was moved from 714 Market Street to the downstairs of the On Leong headquarters in 1949. On the weekends, Leong and her friends would go upstairs to attend the Chinese Youth Association parties.65 The most elaborate and impor­tant activities held in the headquarters w ­ ere the annual Chinese New Year cele­brations. On January 27, 1952, about fifty guests attended the cele­bration of the 4,650th Chinese New Year, according to the Chinese lunar calendar. The association served Chinese oyster soup, which was made of seaweed and had a steamed oyster (a symbol of long life) served on top. Charles Quinn delivered a speech addressing his hope to see China be freed from Communist rule.66 On February 7, 1959, about a hundred members celebrated the 4,657th Chinese New Year. In keeping with Chinese tradition, no w ­ omen w ­ ere invited to the ceremony at the headquarters, although they could attend a more elaborate cele­bration a few weeks l­ater. The ceremony started before midnight. The men, nearly all of them born in China, walked solemnly t­ oward a shrine at the end of the meeting room. The statue of Guan Gong, considered the protector of merchants, was placed in the center of the shrine. Before the idol ­were three delicate cups filled with wine. In front of the cups two red candles ­were burning, and a jar of sand was placed between the candles. The men bowed to their protector and then lit aromatic joss sticks that they propped in the sand. Hai Leong, the president of On Leong, struck a brass gong to start the Chinese New Year. Following the ritual, the men ­were served a dinner of oyster and seaweed soup and a variety of vegetable dishes.67 In 1962, the fifty-­ninth annual national convention of On Leong was held in St. Louis, with 104 delegates from thirteen eastern and midwestern states gathered at the headquarters from April 19 to 23. The primary business of the convention was to hear and give advice or judgment on prob­lems among Chinese in individual communities. Al Delugach, a reporter from the St. Louis Globe-­Democrat, visited the convention and wrote an article that described the event: They take their food seriously. Serious enough to import five Chinese cooks from Chicago to fix their vittles. Some of the delicacies they whip up are shark fin soup, chicken stuffed with bird’s nest, abalone sauté with oyster sauce, steamed imported Chinese black mushrooms and other goodies. . . . It’s a men-­only affair. All the men we talked to ­were genially uncommunicative about the sort of prob­lems that actually are dealt with. They would smile and reply something like: “Any prob­lem.”

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Miss Leong, 27, who manages the Asia Restaurant downstairs, gave us some additional help: “ ‘On Leong’ means peaceful,” she pointed out. “If they have prob­lems and ­don’t know what to do or if ­t here is a dispute about payment of debts, they go to one of the two co-­presidents instead of ­going to a ­lawyer. The men at the meetings hear the story—­like a jury. They consult and the co-­presidents hand down a decision. You know, we Chinese like to keep our prob­lems within our community and solve them ourselves.” . . . Upstairs are curved teakwood furniture, incense burners, red drapes, a Gwan Gung (protector of merchants) idol and hosts of flowers. Before a gong signaled the start of the daily business session and our departure, we observed that the delegates’ places bore white pads of paper, fresh-­sharpened pencils and ashtrays—­just like the more usual businessmen’s conventions. The only difference: the name tags ­were in Chinese characters.68

This convention was prob­ably one of the last major events or­ga­nized by the St. Louis On Leong. In the 1960s, St. Louis began its urban renewal efforts, and Hop Alley was leveled to make way for the parking garage of the Busch Stadium proj­ect. In 1963, t­ here had been discussions about the relocation of Chinatown, and the sad news affected the annual cele­bration of the Chinese New Year. Annie Leong, who was born in 1935 in an apartment above the On Leong headquarters, lamented the feeling of loss among the Chinese residents: “I hate to see this place go. I’m the last of the Chinatown babies.” 69 The Chinese residents ­were not the only ones who ­were at a loss; the leaders of On Leong ­were also uncertain about where the headquarters would be moved to. The copresidents at the time, Ing Hong and Wai Lee, and the secretary, Joe Jone, had no immediate plan for the f­uture of the headquarters.70 The feeling of uncertainty continued ­u ntil the end of 1965, when On Leong fi­nally bought a building at 1509 Delmar, the old R. E. Funsten Com­pany nut-­ packing plant. The vacating of the headquarters was emotionally difficult, and for that reason the cele­bration of the Chinese New Year in 1966 was canceled.71 On Leong chose August 4, 1966, as its moving day. Beulah Schacht, a reporter from the St. Louis Globe-­Democrat, recorded the sad moment: I’ve been following the Chinese around our old ­little Chinatown, an area which once stretched from Seventh to Ninth streets and bounded by Market and Walnut streets, for so long they opened the door and let me see the moving-­day mess. But, they moved so quietly to their new quarters that a policeman came in right on my heels and said: “You should tell somebody. We d ­ idn’t know you w ­ ere h ­ ere.” All through the years, on very special occasions, the association has received gifts from China and from other associations in the United States—­gifts which would be impossible to replace. They ­were ­housed for so long in the headquarters at 720 Market St., t­ here are tears in the eyes of the old-­timers when they are reminded of the move. The precious carved teakwood chairs are covered with the usual “moving dust,” the intricately embroidered silk banners have been carefully placed on the

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Figure 7.2. ​On Leong headquarters in Chicago, 2008. Collection of the author.

very long ceremonial ­table and the shrine which ­houses Gwan Gung, protector of merchants, has been given special care. Framed embroidered silks have been carefully stacked against walls but ­there was no sign of the big gong which is sounded shortly before midnight to celebrate the arrival of the Chinese New Year. Annie Leong, who has called the new headquarters “the Chinese nut h ­ ouse,” said it’s g­ oing to be very difficult to make it take on the appearance of the old one.72

Two weeks ­after the move, like the rest of the buildings in the area, the old headquarters w ­ ere torn down to make way for commercial developments connected with the downtown stadium proj­ect.73 The On Leong headquarters in Chicago may provide readers some hints of the grandeur of its St. Louis counterpart (figure 7.2). The physical disappearance of Chinatown and the removal of the On Leong headquarters largely contributed to the decline of On Leong and its influence in the Chinese community.

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War Efforts and On Leong In 1931, the Japa­nese invaded Manchuria, China. The Nationalist government ­under Chiang Kai-­shek stressed its policy of “unification before re­sis­tance,” insisting that only a­ fter completely eliminating the Communist Party and its influence in China could the Nationalist government or­ga­nize an effective re­sis­tance against the Japa­nese invasion. Meanwhile, the League of Nations condemned the Japa­nese aggression without taking any effective action to stop the aggressors. Encouraged by the hesitation and in­effec­tive­ness of the Chinese Nationalist government and the lack of international sanction, Japan heightened its aggression by waging a full-­ fledged war against China starting on July 7, 1937. When news of the Japa­nese invasion reached the United States, Chinese communities throughout the country or­ga­nized fund-­raisers to assist China’s war effort. The Chinese Six Companies called an emergency meeting on September 21, 1931, immediately a­ fter the Japa­nese invasion of Manchuria. The meeting gathered representatives of ninety-­one Chinese organ­izations throughout the United States and resulted in the founding of the China War Relief Association of Amer­i­ca, which ultimately included forty-­seven chapters in the Western Hemi­sphere. The most urgent business of the association was to raise money for the war effort in China. One effective means of raising money was the Bowl of Rice Movement, which was the collective effort of Chinese in Amer­i­ca to raise funds and collect supplies to send to China during the war.74 The Chinese in St. Louis joined the collective effort at once u ­ nder the leadership of On Leong, which had formed a fund­rais­ing committee, with Joe Lin, the president of On Leong, as its trea­surer. Some 350 Chinese in St. Louis enthusiastically and generously contributed to the sacred cause. Although suffering from poverty and the effects of the ­Great Depression, they gave as much as they could each week. Joe Lin described the fund­rais­ing activity in an article in the St. Louis Globe-­ Democrat of October 14, 1937: “We are accepting subscriptions from anyone. A lot of Americans who patronized my restaurant voluntarily have given me small sums from time to time. Most of the money being raised is from Chinese, however. As trea­surer of the fund I transmit money from it at intervals to a New York bank, which in turn sends it to a bank in China.”75 On Leong also or­ga­nized many fund-­raisers. On June 17, 1938, a Bowl of Rice fund­rais­ing event was held at ­Hotel Chase by the St. Louis Committee of the United Council for Civilian Relief in China. Joe Lin and Rev. Phillip Y. Lee of the Chicago Chinese Christian Church spoke at the fund-­raiser. A total of 250 St. Louisans, most of whom w ­ ere Chinese, attended the event, at which Chinese musicians performed and Chinese boys and girls served tea to the guests. As the news report indicated, the fund-­raiser was a ­great success.76 According to the August 11, 1939, issue of the St. Louis Globe-­Democrat, the Chinese in St.  Louis contributed about $1,000 weekly to support China’s war efforts. Charles Quinn, secretary of the Chinese Emergency Relief Society, said the contributions had been made weekly since the Japa­nese invasion in July 1937; many Chinese

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gave a certain percentage of their income. The same system was employed throughout the United States and in other countries. From July 1937 to July 1939, Chinese in the United States contributed $15 million, and t­hose in Canada gave $13 million. Approximately $500,000 was used to purchase weapons to fight the Japa­nese.77 On Leong’s minutes recorded that in the year 1944, the organ­ization raised $35,000–50,000 to aid China’s war effort. Many individuals contributed from $500 to $1,000. Given the fact that at that time most Chinese earned only $30 a month, their contributions w ­ ere enormous.78

Assessment of On Leong The dominance of the On Leong Merchants and Laborers Association in St. Louis was a complex phenomenon. Unlike the hierarchical structure in traditional China, the power of the Chinese immigrant society in Amer­i­ca was controlled by businessmen who possessed better education and greater economic means, and thus ­were able to emerge as community leaders. Although publicly known as “On Leong Tong,” On Leong was by no means an organ­ization connected with tong wars. The formation and dominance of On Leong w ­ ere not a result of the cultural peculiarity of the Chinese, who had been falsely charged with forming secret socie­ties and committing crimes of gambling, smuggling, tong fighting, and prostitution. On the contrary, the emergence and existence of On Leong, as with other prominent Chinese community organ­izations, stemmed from the socioeconomic environment of the United States. As immigrants and a socioeco­nom­ically and legally oppressed group, the Chinese received protection from neither the Chinese government nor American authorities. Without the protection necessary for survival in a strange land, the Chinese had to rely on their own resources; consequently, On Leong emerged as an organ­ization to meet the social, economic, and ­legal needs of Chinese immigrants. Although its reputation had been tainted by criminal activities committed by some members, On Leong was generally a benevolent-­protective trade and community organ­ization, as well as a power­f ul group of businessmen within the Chinese community. This benevolent-­protective nature bears a resemblance to Chinese community organ­izations such as the CCBA and other traditional Chinatown community organ­izations. Meanwhile, the power of business leaders over the community suggests the hierarchical characterization of the Chinese immigrant society in St. Louis, and perhaps Chinese communities elsewhere. The vari­ous functions of On Leong w ­ ere also comparable to t­ hose of the CCBA. During its heyday, On Leong made g­ reat efforts to protect its members on all fronts. It maintained peace and order in the Chinese community by acting as an unofficial and despotic self-­governing body of Chinatown. It represented the Chinese community and negotiated with the American authorities in l­egal disputes and socioeconomic interactions with the larger society. It provided translation aid, lodging accommodations, and business assistance for new immigrants. On Leong also or­ga­nized vari­ous cele­brations of traditional Chinese holidays and significant

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occasions. It dutifully performed the funeral and burial ceremonies of its deceased members in the local cemeteries and the shipping of their remains to China for reburial. The l­ egal, social, economic, cultural, and spiritual functions of On Leong ­were invaluable and much needed for the Chinese community at a time when Chinese w ­ ere segregated from the mainstream society and w ­ ere vulnerable to physical attacks and the social ridicule of the larger society. On the other hand, the protective and hierarchical nature of On Leong prevented it from reaching out and bridging the gap between the Chinese community and the larger society and between the two cultures. The protection provided by On Leong was not only necessary for the social and economic functioning of the community but essential for the commercial success of the business leaders. Thus, the self-­confined nature of On Leong was s­ haped by both the alienating socioeconomic environment in the larger society and the socioeconomic hierarchy within the Chinese community. The “mayors of Chinatown,” like most of their counter­parts in other Chinese communities across the country, ­were chiefly benevolent community leaders. Their better educational training, English-­language skills, and financial ability enabled them to emerge as leaders of the immigrant community. Their colorful personal characteristics and their individual lives reflect the gradual changing socioeconomic and cultural ele­ments in both the homeland and the host society. The forced removal of On Leong headquarters clearly reveals the limitations of the organ­ization’s self-­defensive and self-­governing strategies and its lack of po­ liti­c al clout in the larger society. In conclusion, with all its positive and negative effects, On Leong played a significant role among the Chinese in St. Louis prior to 1966.

PA RT I I I

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New Community Structures

chapter 8

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The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act and the Formation of Cultural Community in St. Louis When Lyndon B. Johnson became president in November 1963, U.S. immigration policies, which severely restricted the admission of Asians and Africans, and preferred northern and western Eu­ro­pe­ans over southern and eastern ones, w ­ ere an embarrassment to him. A politician with an expansive vision of the possibilities of reform and known for his ability to get t­ hings done, Johnson took on the task of reforming immigration policy and pushed for the passage of a law that would accomplish this task. On October 3, 1965, with the overwhelming support from both the House of Representatives (326 to 70) and the Senate (76 to 18), Johnson signed the Immigration and Nationality Act into law at the foot of the Statute of Liberty, remarking, “This [old] system violates the basic princi­ple of American democracy, the princi­ple that values and rewards each man on the basis of his merit as a man. It has been un-­American in the highest sense, ­because it has been untrue to the faith that brought thousands to t­ hese shores even before we w ­ ere a 1 country.” The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, officially called “An Act to Amend the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1924,” abolished the 1924 system of quotas based on national origin and set up three immigration princi­ples of ­family reunification, the need for skilled workers, and the admission of refugees. ­These new criteria drastically impacted the landscape of American immigration everywhere. In St. Louis, Missouri, the new law contributed to the rise of a Chinese American “cultural community” built on a shared cultural identity rather than on living or working together in close proximity.2 This chapter explores the connection between the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 and the formation of a Chinese American cultural community in St. Louis, with an emphasis on the following points: First, the 1965 law contributed to the significant increase of the general U.S. population with Asian origins. Second, the Chinese American population in St. Louis came to be characterized 145

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by a significant majority of professionals and small entrepreneurs who are the direct beneficiaries of the 1965 law. Third, this demographic characteristic is significant to the formation and resilience of a cultural community. Fourth, a cultural community signifies a higher level of socioeconomic assimilation of a newer immigrant group. Fi­nally, merit-­based immigration policies like ­t hose within the 1965 act are imperative in protecting a country’s sovereignty while assuring its enduring strength and prosperity by absorbing newcomers. I have relied on two categories of primary sources—­information from American government rec­ords and public media, and evidence from the Chinese community. The formation and evolution of Chinese communities in Amer­i­ca have traditionally been perceived as products of American public policies and the enforcement of immigration legislation and other laws concerning Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans. To gain a comprehensive understanding of American public policies and their practice, I have examined sources from national, regional, and municipal rec­ords.3 Chinese St.  Louisans have not been merely passive victims of institutionalized exclusion and discrimination, and public prejudice and racial profiling; they have been active agents who collectively and individually s­ haped their communities and their history. This chapter pre­sents information I obtained from a standardized oral history interview questionnaire that I developed. I employed this questionnaire, which takes two hours to administer and covers immigration background, education, employment, marriage, ­family, and sociopo­liti­cal activities, to interview more than sixty individuals from the St. Louis area. The interviewees, who ­were located through business and commercial directories and through public and private agencies, ­were selected to represent a diverse background of Chinese Americans in the region.4 Similarly, the two local Chinese-­ language weekly newspapers, the St. Louis Chinese American News and the St. Louis Chinese American Journal, established in 1990 and 1996, respectively, have represented a strong voice of Chinese St.  Louisans from a broader and collective perspective. I have kept in mind that the history of Chinese St. Louisans cannot be separated from the larger history of St. Louis, Chinese Americans, American ethnicity and immigration, and American urban development. Consequently, I have placed the micro case study of Chinese St. Louisans within this broader frame­ oing so, I have consulted both primary and secondary sources. work. In d

Significance of the 1965 Immigration Act: Then and Now The Immigration Act of 1965 and the consequent influx of new Asian immigrants contributed to the transformation of Asian American society. The 1965 act abolished the 1924 quota system and replaced it with a system based on three broad preferences: ­family reunification, skilled workers, and providing a haven for refugees. According to ­these princi­ples, visas among quota immigrants from the Eastern Hemi­sphere w ­ ere allocated in the following percentages:

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1. 2 0 ­percent of total annual visas to unmarried c­ hildren of citizens of the United States; 2. 20 ­percent to spouses and unmarried c­ hildren of permanent residents; 3. 10 ­percent to professionals, scientists, and artists with “exceptional ability”; 4. 10 ­percent to married c­ hildren of citizens of the United States; 5. 24 ­percent to siblings of citizens of the United States; 6. 1 0 ­percent to skilled and unskilled workers in occupations “for which a shortage of employable and willing persons exists in the United States”; 7. 6 ­percent to refugees.5 The architects of the 1965 act intended to make immigration policies appear more humanitarian and impartial to applicants on the one hand and more beneficial to the United States on the other. The Immigration Act of 1924, also known as the Johnson-­Reed Act, ­limited the number of immigrants allowed into the United States through a national origins quota. The quota provided immigration visas to 2 ­percent of the total number of ­people of each nationality in the United States as of the 1890 national census. It completely excluded immigrants from Asia. The new law allowed 20,000 quota immigrants from e­ very country in the Eastern Hemi­ sphere to be admitted to the United States each year, regardless of the size of the country. It reserved 74  ­percent (including 20  ­percent in preference 1, another 20 ­percent in preference 2, 10 ­percent in preference 4, and 24 ­percent in preference 5) of the total 170,000 visas annually allotted for the Eastern Hemi­sphere for ­family reunification (120,000 visas annually ­were allotted to immigrants from ­every country in the Western Hemi­sphere). Although the 1965 Immigration Act was the first nonracist U.S. immigration law, lawmakers anticipated that Eu­ro­pean immigrants would continue to be the largest cohort of new immigrants, since ­t here was a very small percentage (0.5 ­percent of the total U.S. population in the 1960s) of Asian Americans in the country. Two occupational preferences (preference 3 and preference 6) allowed the Immigration and Naturalization Ser­v ice and the Department ­ abor to carefully select only applicants with special training and skills who of L would fill a vacuum in the American job market. In the years following passage of this act, the Asian American population increased dramatically, as immigrants from Eu­rope, the traditional primary source of immigrants, made up only a quarter of the newcomers, while nearly 30 ­percent of immigrants came from Asia, and the rest came from Latin Amer­i­ca, with Mexicans as the largest single national group. In addition to immigrants of the laboring class, a large number of professionals (the better-­educated and the wealthier from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia) also arrived in the period since 1965. Th ­ ese new immigrants benefited from the 1965 act, which gave priority to ­those who had close ­family members in the United States; to applicants who had skills, education, and capital; and to refugees. The 1965 Immigration Act and its amendments contributed to a continuous increase in the volume of immigration from Asia. From 1966 to 2009, the number of Asian immigrants totaled 9,552,207, as compared with fewer than 800,000 from

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1925 to 1965. Asia and Latin Amer­i­ca have become the main sources of immigration in recent years. The intention of the mea­sure was to preserve the country’s predominantly Anglo-­Saxon, Eu­ro­pean base. In the years following its enactment, however, the demand from Eu­ro­pean countries to immigrate to the United States declined, while the well-­educated and skilled immigrants from Asia and Latin Amer­i­ca established themselves in the United States and brought their families and relatives through the ethnic network. The number of new lawful permanent residents (or green card holders) ­rose from 297,000 in 1965 to an average of about 1 million each year since the mid-2010s. Accordingly, the foreign-­born population has risen from 9.6 million in 1965 to a rec­ord high of 45 million in 2015 as estimated by a study from the Pew Research Center Hispanic Trends Proj­ect. Immigrants accounted for just 5 ­percent of the U.S. population in 1965; in 2019 they made up 14 ­percent of the U.S. population.6

The Uniqueness of St. Louis In 1857, Alla Lee, a 24-­year-­old native of Ningbo, China, seeking a better life, came to St. Louis, where he opened a small shop on North Tenth Street selling tea and coffee. As the first and prob­ably the only Chinese t­ here for a while, Alla Lee mingled mostly with immigrants from Northern Ireland and married an Irish ­woman.7 A de­cade ­later he was joined by several hundred of his compatriots from San Francisco and New York who ­were seeking jobs in mines and factories in and around St. Louis. Most of the Chinese workers lived in boarding­houses located near a small street called Hop Alley. In time, as discussed in ­earlier chapters, Chinese hand laundries, merchandise stores, herb shops, restaurants, and clan association headquarters sprang up in and around that street; thus, Hop Alley became synonymous with Chinatown. Local rec­ords indicate that Chinese businesses, especially hand laundries, drew a wide clientele, and thus the businesses run by Chinese immigrants contributed disproportionally to the city’s economy. They provided 60 ­percent of the laundry ser­v ices for the city during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, although Chinese made up less than 0.1 ­percent of the total population.8 The city’s residents readily patronized Chinese businesses but they did not welcome the Chinese themselves, regarding them as “peculiar” creatures. Hop Alley was seen as an exotic place where criminal activities such as the manufacturing, smuggling, and smoking of opium, tong fighting, murder took place. Despite frequent police raids and bias among other residents, Hop Alley survived with remarkable resilience and energy u ­ ntil 1966, when urban renewal bulldozers completely leveled the area to make a parking lot for the new Busch Stadium downtown. While the old Chinese settlement around Hop Alley was disappearing,9 a new suburban Chinese American community had quietly but rapidly begun to emerge. As the Chinese American population grew, it spread beyond the city to St. Louis County, which constitutes the suburban municipalities in the south and west areas outside the city of St. Louis. The U.S. Census indicated that the number of subur-

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ban Chinese Americans increased from 106 (30 ­percent of the total Chinese in the St. Louis area) in 1960 to 461 (80 ­percent of the total) in 1970, to 1,894 (78 ­percent of the total) in 1980, and to 3,873 (83 ­percent of the total) in 1990.10 Since 1990, the Chinese population in the Greater St. Louis area has increased rapidly to 9,120 in 2000 and to 10,166 in 2010 according to the U.S. Census.11 Vari­ous unofficial estimates, however, show the figure being between 20,000 and 50,000, with an overwhelming majority scattered in suburban communities and constituting 1 ­percent of the total suburban population of the St. Louis metropolitan area.12 The discrepancy between the census figures and the community estimates may have resulted from the presence of many uncounted new immigrants, both l­egal and illegal. Although the Chinese population in St. Louis has increased substantially, one cannot easily spot ­either a commercial or a residential Chinese district. Signs of a Chinese American presence, however, are clear. Many of the city’s modern buildings and structures have involved the engineering design of a Chinese American consulting firm, William Tao and Associates. Two weekly Chinese-­language newspapers vie to serve the community. Three Chinese-­language schools offer classes in Chinese language, arts, and culture to St.  Louis Chinese American youth. A  dozen Chinese religious institutions attract significant numbers of members. More than forty community organ­izations in­de­pen­dently or jointly sponsor a wide array of community activities, ranging from cultural gatherings of hundreds to the annual Chinese Culture Days held in the Missouri Botanical Gardens, with more than 10,000 visitors. More than 450 Chinese restaurants cater to St. Louisans, who are fond of ethnic cuisine.13 How does one understand this phenomenon of a not quite vis­i­ble yet very active and productive Chinese American community? How did it evolve, and is it unique? For more than two de­cades, I have had ample opportunities to be an observer and participant in this community, interacting with its leaders (such as the presidents and board members of the St. Louis Branch of the Organ­ization of Chinese Americans, the St. Louis Chinese Society, and the St. Louis Chinese Association) and residents in a broad array of activities, as well as researching its historical evolution. My work has taken me to libraries and archives; public and private agencies; cemeteries with Chinese burial sites; and Chinese restaurants, grocery stores, bakeries, floral shops, law firms, acu­punc­ture clinics, and residences. This chapter pre­sents a model of cultural community that defines the Chinese American community in St. Louis since the 1960s. It also examines the applicability of the St. Louis model to a more general understanding of the multiethnic and multicultural American society.

Formation of the Cultural Community, 1960–2020 Defining Cultural Community and Its Significance Resting on the framework of social space, this chapter describes a new model of the Chinese American community in St. Louis as a cultural community. A cultural community does not always have par­tic­u­lar physical boundaries, but it is

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socially defined by the common cultural practices and beliefs of its members. It is constituted by the Chinese-­language schools, Chinese religious institutions, Chinese American community organ­izations, Chinese American cultural agencies, Chinese American po­liti­cal co­a li­tions or ad hoc committees, and the wide range of cultural cele­brations and activities facilitated by the aforementioned agencies and groups. The St. Louis Chinese community since the 1960s has been a typical cultural community. Its members dwell throughout the city and its suburban municipalities, and ­t here are no substantial business and residential concentrations or clusters to constitute a Chinatown or even a suburban Chinatown. Nevertheless, Chinese St. Louisans have formed their community through vari­ ous cultural activities or­ga­nized by community organ­izations and cultural institutions of Chinese-­language schools, churches, and other cultural agencies. They have preserved their cultural heritage and achieved ethnic solidarity without a recognizable physical community. Such a community therefore is better understood as a cultural community. A cultural community can also be identified by its economy, demography, and geography. Eco­nom­ically, the overwhelming majority population of a cultural community is professionally integrated into the larger society; therefore, the ethnic economy of the community does not significantly affect the well-­being of its members and the community as a ­whole. Demographically, a cultural community contains a substantial percentage of professionals and self-­employed entrepreneurs whose economic well-­being is more dependent on the larger economy than on an ethnic economy. The former mostly work for the employers of the larger society; the latter, though self-­employed, also depend on the general population for their economic success. The working-­class members, in terms of population, constitute only a minor part of the Chinese American community. Geo­graph­i­cally, a cultural community is more likely to be found in the hinterland and remote areas, where the transnational economy has ­limited penetration. Although St. Louis is not a small city, in the 1990s it ranked as the seventeenth-­largest American city; its heartland location and the subsequent lack of commercial and cultural ties with other international metropolises determined its specific socioeconomic position in the United States. Unlike the Chinese suburban communities in Flushing (New York), Monterey Park (California), Vancouver (British Columbia), or Toronto (Ontario), where Chinese Americans or Chinese Canadians invest substantially in banking, manufacturing, real estate, and ser­v ice industries, Chinese Americans in St. Louis are primarily professionals employed mostly by mainstream companies and agencies.14 Therefore, economic interest and economic networking are less likely the dominant motives for the formation of the St. Louis Chinese community. In St. Louis, Chinese congregate more frequently in cultural institutions of Chinese-­language schools, Chinese Christian churches and Buddhist t­ emples, and cultural activities or­ga­nized by vari­ous community organ­izations. Moreover, this community does not have clearly defined physical bound­aries, ­either in the inner city or in the suburbs. Therefore, the prevalent terms of Chinese

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American settlements—­“Chinatowns,” “urban ghettos,” “ethnic enclaves,” “suburban Chinatowns,” or “ethnoburbs” focusing on the physical space of the Chinese American communities—­are less adequate in explaining the Chinese American community in St. Louis.15

Development of the Cultural Community in St. Louis The development of a cultural community in St. Louis was a natu­ral product of the following ­factors. First, a significant majority of the Chinese Americans ­t here are professionals and self-­employed entrepreneurs, who work for the larger area employers or started businesses serving the larger society. Second, the continued urban renewal or gentrification movements halted the repeated efforts to build a physical Chinese business and residential center. Third, the less-­t han-­positive popu­lar images of the traditional Chinatowns characterized by crowdedness, poverty, and gang or tong conflicts discouraged the community leaders from advocating for the construction of a physical Chinatown, ­either downtown or in the suburbs. Beginning in the 1960s, the economy of Chinese St. Louisans underwent a remarkable transformation. The Chinese hand laundries dis­appeared one by one, and Chinese restaurants mushroomed throughout the area, especially in shopping malls and plazas. While the occupational shift from hand laundries to restaurants took place, the newly arrived Chinese American professionals ­were mostly recruited by a number of major employers of the region—­Washington University, Monsanto, the McDonnell-­Douglas Com­pany (changed to Boeing when purchased by the Boeing Com­pany in 1999), the Ralston-­Purina Com­pany, the Emerson Electric Com­pany, and the Anheuser-­Busch Com­pany. The Chinese economy in St. Louis ­after the 1960s was characterized by the following ­factors. First, the Chinese restaurant businesses ­were associated with a dual nature of dependence on ethnic networking in l­abor and capital and dependence on mainstream society in the market. On the one hand, Chinese restaurant businesses had to depend on an ethnic networking system for collecting capital, recruiting laborers, and ordering supplies, a characteristic common among overseas Chinese businesses in the United States, Canada, and Southeast Asia.16 As a link to global overseas Chinese businesses, the Chinese restaurant business in St. Louis ­after the 1960s was also bound by and benefited from ­t hese ethnic networks. Capital to start a restaurant business often came from f­ amily savings and loans from kin members. Laborers w ­ ere recruited mostly from unpaid f­amily members and underpaid relatives or clansmen. Supplies w ­ ere ordered at w ­ holesale prices from ethnic ­wholesalers. Ethnic networks thus w ­ ere indispensable to the operation of the Chinese restaurant business in St. Louis. On the other hand, as a food ser­v ice industry, Chinese restaurant businesses had to rely on the consumers they served—­not only Chinese customers but patrons of all ethnic backgrounds. The dependence of Chinese restaurants on the mainstream society for their clientele inevitably connected the ethnic Chinese economy with the larger economy. To find a profitable market and to avoid

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competition with counter­parts, the Chinese restaurants had to be geo­g raph­i­ cally dispersed, which enabled the survival and pos­si­ble success of individual restaurants but also hindered them from forming ethnic business concentrations in any given geographic locality. The geographic dispersion of Chinese restaurant businesses in St. Louis was partly responsible for the absence of a Chinese business district. Second, Chinese professionals enjoyed a complete professional and economic integration within the larger society. Employed primarily in major mainstream enterprises, they ­were cozily sheltered from risking the ups and downs of ­running a small business and completely subjugated to the economic force of the larger society for their livelihood and ­career advancement. Consequently, they ­were more concerned about the larger economy than with the Chinese ethnic economy. The duality of the Chinese restaurant businesses with ties in both the ethnic business sector and the mainstream economy and the economic integration of Chinese professionals affected, if not determined, the formation of a new type of Chinese community in St. Louis, one without physical bound­aries but dominated by the common cultural interests of its members. Meanwhile, the urban renewal movement repeatedly frustrated the community’s attempts to build a physical Chinese commercial district. Since the 1950s, urban renewal had demolished Hop Alley, the historical Chinatown in St. Louis. The urban renewal proj­ects of the 1970s halted the efforts of the Chinese to build a new Chinatown on Delmar Boulevard. The concerns and fears that f­ uture urban renewal development would nullify any Chinatown-­building effort effectively prevented Chinese St.  Louisans from making plans to redevelop a Chinatown. Throughout the years, proposals for developing a Chinatown along Olive Boulevard w ­ ere floated in numerous community meetings but failed to materialize, largely for this reason.17 At the same time, the denigrating ste­reo­t ypes associated with Chinatowns also discouraged many in the community from pursuing an action to rebuild a Chinatown.18 Yet ­t here still was a need for the existence of an ethnic community in order to survive and succeed. Survival and security now ­were focused not so much on economic needs as they had been in the past, since most Chinese in the region w ­ ere professionals and enjoyed a middle-­class lifestyle, but instead on cultural, emotional, and po­liti­cal needs. Culturally, the professionals needed to preserve the Chinese ethnic identity that they feared might be lost as the population dispersed. The establishment of Chinese-­language schools and cele­brations of Chinese culture w ­ ere the direct results of the desire to preserve cultural identity. Although most of the Chinese ­were professionally and eco­nom­ically integrated within the larger society, the feelings of cultural displacement and cultural conflict resulting from an immigrant life caused emotional anx­i­eties that could be better soothed by sharing issues and values with other members of the ethnic community. Moreover, to protect their socioeconomic achievements and make further pro­gress, the Chinese had to form a single, louder voice; an ethnic community would serve as a means of po­liti­cal empowerment. ­These cultural, emotional, and po­liti­cal needs

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therefore validated the existence of an ethnic community. Thus, in the place of a physical Chinese community, a Chinese cultural community emerged. In contrast to many other Chinese American communities throughout the country, the cultural community in St. Louis did not have identifiable physical bound­aries.19 Instead, it was defined within social bound­aries of community organ­ izations, Chinese churches, and Chinese-­language schools, as well as dispersed Chinese restaurants, grocery stores, and other ser­v ice businesses. Although most ele­ments of the cultural community such as Chinese churches and Chinese-­ language schools did occupy a physical structure where they rendered ser­v ices to the community, ­t hese structures did not constitute a physical Chinatown, since they ­were scattered throughout the city. Likewise, the dispersed Chinese businesses also failed to create a physical commercial district. However, the activities that w ­ ere offered by the community organ­izations and that took place in the cultural institutions generated a sense of community and constituted the social/emotional space of the cultural community. Therefore, the cultural community can be understood in two dimensions: physical and social/emotional. The facilities of the cultural institutions or community organ­izations, e­ ither owned or rented, constituted the physical space of the cultural community. The activities that took place in t­ hese facilities created the social space of the cultural community. The social space depended on the physical space but also was more significant than the physical space in creating a cultural community. Unlike other types of Chinese communities with physical bound­aries, the physical space of the cultural community was undefined and often unidentifiable, for a significant part of the community orga­nizational structure possessed no permanent physical space. In contrast, the social space of the cultural community was vis­i­ble and easily recognizable when Chinese-­language classes ­were held, religious congregations ­were convened, and cultural activities took place. Hence, the investigation of the social space of the community is more relevant and feasible than the examination of the physical space. Although it is difficult to gauge the social/ emotional dimension of the cultural community, the three integral components of the cultural community can define its social bound­a ries: community organ­ izations, Chinese churches, and Chinese-­language schools. They can also help us understand the social/emotional dimension of the cultural community. The new community organ­izations in St. Louis included the St. Louis Chinese Society, the St. Louis Chapter of the Organ­ization of Chinese Americans, the St. Louis Taiwanese Association, the St. Louis Chinese Jaycees, the Chinese Liberty Assembly, and the Chinese Cultural Center (the St. Louis Overseas Chinese Educational Activity Center). The Chinese churches consisted of the St. Louis Gospel Church, the St. Louis Chinese Christian Church, the Taiwanese Presbyterian Church, the St. Louis Chinese Baptist Church, the Light­house Chinese Church, the St. Louis Chinese Lutheran Church, the Lutheran Asian Ministry in St. Louis, Lutheran Hour Ministries, the Light of Christ Chinese Missions in St. Louis, the St. Louis Tabernacle of Joy, the Mid-­America Buddhist Association, the St. Louis Tzu-­Chi Foundation, the St.  Louis Amitabha Buddhist Learning Center, the

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St. Louis International Buddhist Association, and the St. Louis Falun Dafa. The original Chinese-­language schools ­were the St.  Louis Chinese Acad­emy and the St. Louis Chinese Language School. An examination of a third school, the St. Louis Modern Chinese Language School, helps one appreciate the importance and functions of community organ­ izations and agencies as the infrastructure of the cultural community. Founded in 1997, the school was established to meet the desires of Chinese Americans from mainland China who wished to pass their heritage on to the next generation through teaching the simplified Chinese characters they had learned in China, as the other two existing Chinese-­language schools, operated by the Chinese from Taiwan, taught only classical Chinese characters. The school started with two classes of about forty students learning only Chinese writing in the fall of 1997. Since then, enrollment has doubled e­ very semester, and by 1999 the school’s curriculum had expanded to include electives of Chinese arts, Chinese dance, and Chinese drum, in addition to the classes in Chinese language.20 Two years l­ater, the enrollment had increased to about 300 students, placed in sixteen classes, and the school further expanded its curriculum to include instruction in math, Chinese martial arts, and Chinese writing composition.21 The St. Louis Modern Chinese Language School serves not only as a place for Chinese ­children to learn Chinese language and culture but also as a cultural center for Chinese parents. While offering Chinese language and elective classes to ­children, the school has sponsored lectures for parents on practical topics such as filing tax returns, immigration laws, and Chinese American history to help ease the tension caused by cultural adjustments and assimilation to American life. The school also has facilitated art and photography exhibits displaying works by the parents and has or­ga­nized martial arts and aerobic exercise classes for the parents. More impor­tant, although it is a cultural institution, the St. Louis Modern Chinese Language School exhibits its potential po­liti­cal influence in the Chinese American cultural community of St. Louis. The school’s pro­gress and achievements are evident and are recognized by the larger Chinese community. To be on a par with the St.  Louis Modern Chinese Language School, the two older Chinese-­ language schools have also a­ dopted simplified Chinese characters and Pinyin, along with the traditional characters and zhuyin fuhao (a phonetic system used in Taiwan) in their curricula. The drum dance team of the St. Louis Modern Chinese Language School has been invited to perform at many impor­tant cultural events sponsored by organ­izations of both the Chinese community and the larger society in the St. Louis area. The establishment and development of Chinese community organ­izations, Chinese churches, and Chinese-­language schools between the 1960s and 1980s signified the formation of a Chinese American cultural community in St. Louis. From the very beginning, the cultural community possessed some unique characteristics. First, in examining the physical dimension of the cultural community, the absence of a geographic concentration of physical structures, facilitating community activities relating to Chinese American culture, was evident. Almost none of

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the Chinese community organ­izations owned or rented a property as headquarters and as places for their meetings and other activities. Instead, ­t hese organ­ izations convened in meeting rooms at institutions of the mainstream society or at homes of board members and also rented spaces from private or public facilities for large-­scale cultural activities. The Chinese churches, although mostly having permanent structures that ­were e­ ither rented or owned, ­were scattered in suburban municipalities. The Chinese-­language schools, similar to the Chinese churches, needed permanent locations for their regular weekend classes but managed to rent rooms from churches or educational institutions to meet this need. The absence of a geographic concentration of cultural facilities was partly a result of the residential pattern of Chinese St. Louisans, who spread among suburban middle-­class or upper-­middle-­class neighborhoods, but it also reflected a preference of the community that shunned the idea of forming an ethnic concentration, in fear of racial profiling from the larger society.22 A second characteristic was a predominance of professionals in the cultural community. Demographically, professionals constituted a majority of the population in the cultural community. Po­liti­cally, the professionals, especially ­those from Taiwan, had been the key power holders of the cultural community who established and operated most of the community organ­izations and institutions and w ­ ere primarily responsible for all the cultural activities and events took place. When examining the motives for the professionals’ involvement in the cultural community, it is clear that cultural interest overshadowed economic interest, since the professionals, who had eco­nom­ically integrated into the larger society and therefore had l­ittle vested interest in exploiting an ethnic community for economic benefit, still needed an ethnic community for their own cultural welfare and that of their offspring. Third, a class cleavage or confrontation, pre­sent in other types of Chinese American communities, was absent in the cultural community in St.  Louis. ­There the distinction between the community elite and the masses was blurred as both the community leaders and other members belonged to the same socioeconomic bracket. Although a working class existed in the cultural community of St. Louis, it was dispersed throughout the city in the kitchens of Chinese restaurants and in the backs of Chinese grocery stores and was unable to develop into a vis­i­ble and influential social force. Even without physical bound­aries, the cultural community still proved to be a functional, cohesive, and tightly knit ethnic community structure. With no physical concentrations, the myriad community organ­izations and cultural institutions still created a vis­i­ble and indispensable ethnic community. Through its wide array of activities and events, the cultural community effectively bound its members together and rendered them invaluable social/emotional ser­v ices. The cultural community has exhibited an alternative ethnic community model when a physical ethnic concentration is absent and a physical ethnic community is difficult to construct. ­After its building period from the 1960s to 1980s, the Chinese American cultural community in St. Louis entered a stage of rapid development in the 1990s and

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the early twenty-­first c­ entury. Demographically, it has embraced a more diverse population, including a large number of Chinese students and professionals from mainland China since the late 1980s. The presence of mainland Chinese has resulted in a structural realignment within the cultural community that is embodied by the increasing numbers of business o ­ wners and professionals from China, the incorporation of the teaching of simplified Chinese characters in the Chinese-­language schools, and the growing influence of the St. Louis Chinese Association—­a community organ­ization primarily comprising mainland Chinese. The rapid growth of the cultural community is also reflected in the development of the Chinese-­language media and the diversification of the new ethnic economy. The birth and growth of the Chinese-­language press in the community have been monumental in promoting a Chinese ethnic economy, preserving an Asian American ethnic heritage, and bridging the cultural community and the larger society. In 1990, the St. Louis Chinese American News was established to meet the needs of the community. As the community continued to develop, another newspaper, the St. Louis Chinese Journal, entered the Chinese media in 1996. The new ethnic economy of the cultural community is more diversified; it embraces not only a growing and more competitive food ser­v ice industry but also the rapidly expanding nontraditional ser­v ice industries of real estate, health, insurance, construction, architecture and design, ­legal consultation, accounting, auto repair, and computer ser­v ice.23 Meanwhile, the cultural community is also more diverse than ever before. The complexity of the community has divided its members along vari­ous lines of linguistics, birth origin, professional training and occupations, po­liti­cal inclinations, religious beliefs, and cultural interests. While the Chinese of St. Louis are profoundly divided, they are at the same time united ­under the common interest and commitment to preserving and promoting the ethnic Chinese American culture and to protecting and improving their conditions through socioeconomic integration and po­liti­cal empowerment.

Significance of the Cultural Community The significance of the cultural community model goes beyond the interpretation of the St. Louis Chinese American community. First, the idea of cultural community could serve as a new model for Chinese American communities, where the Chinese professionally assimilated into the larger society and their economies are not closely connected with the Chinese ethnic community. This model could be found in areas where t­ here are no significantly large Chinese populations to constitute physical ethnic concentrations, but the Chinese American populations are still substantial enough to form social communities even without physical bound­ aries. It could thus provide an alternative theory for understanding the complexity of con­temporary Chinese American communities. Second, the cultural community model helps one better understand the issue of cultural identity. A cultural community is formed not on the basis of economic

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need or mutual aid but b ­ ecause of the psychological need for cultural and ethnic identity. When Chinese Americans are scattered throughout middle-­class or upper-­ middle-­class neighborhoods, it is difficult and less practical to establish a physical Chinese ethnic concentration. But the desire to share, maintain, and preserve a Chinese cultural heritage validates the necessity to form a cultural community in the forms of Chinese-­language schools, Chinese churches, Chinese community organ­izations, Chinese cultural agencies, long-­term or ad hoc po­liti­cal committees, and cultural cele­brations and social gatherings. In ­these settings, the presence of a larger number of Chinese Americans makes cultural and ethnic identity easily recognizable. Cultural identity or ethnic solidarity in turn provides comfort to the Chinese who do not have significant ethnic surroundings in their daily lives. Third, the cultural community model exhibits a certain stage of assimilation and acculturation of ethnic groups in their American experiences. History has indicated that an immigrant or ethnic group’s socioeconomic advancement in the United States generally goes through three stages: physical concentration for economic survival, cultural congregation for ethnic identity, and po­liti­cal participation or co­a li­tions for a sense of democracy and justice.24 Most immigrant or ethnic groups in their socioeconomic evolution in American society need first to survive. Survival in an alienating and unwelcoming, often hostile, environment would necessarily and inevitably result in a practical strategy of mutual aid, which naturally binds the members of an ethnic group and creates a physical ethnic community. Such ethnic communities have historically been identified as “ghettos” or “enclaves”; ethnic settlements such as Germantown, Jewishtown, or Chinatown; or replicas of the ethnic groups’ original cultures, signified by the name of the capital city of a sending country, such as ­Little Tokyo or ­Little Saigon. In this stage, a physical ethnic settlement is essential to facilitate the survival of the ethnic group. When an ethnic group has become professionally and eco­nom­ically integrated within the larger society, its chief concern is no longer mutual aid for survival, and this change accounts for the abandonment of a physical ethnic settlement.25 The eco­nom­ically integrated yet geo­graph­i­cally dispersed ethnic group is now more concerned about how to maintain and preserve its cultural heritage without having a physical ethnic settlement. Eu­ro­pean immigrants up to the 1960s had mostly constituted the ­earlier and larger ethnic components of Amer­i­ca. Most of ­t hese groups had by this time moved out of the ethnically distinguished communities and had merged into the mainstream or “white” society. However, eco­nom­ically assimilated Eu­ro­pean ethnic groups, especially smaller ones such as the Jews, still have relatively pressing needs to preserve a distinctive ethnic and religious heritage to identify themselves. Th ­ ese needs therefore have produced a variety of Jewish communities embodied in synagogues, schools, theaters, and cultural and social gatherings.26 Asian immigrants have demonstrated similar patterns of preservation of ethnic identity. Scholars have documented the importance of cultural institutions such as Christian churches and community organ­izations in

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stabilizing the Korean American communities in New York.27 Similarly, Chinese Americans in St. Louis since the 1960s have formed a cultural community. In this stage, cultural and social space, rather than physical space, constitutes the ethnic community. When an ethnic group is eco­nom­ically secure, it also actively participates in mainstream politics, in forms of electoral and co­ali­tion politics, and in current controversial issues to preserve democracy and social justice. An example of this development can be seen in the Organ­ization of Chinese Americans in 1973 and that organ­ization’s continuing b ­ attles against discrimination and social injustice against Chinese Americans. The Committee of 100, formed a­ fter the Tian­anmen Incident in 1989 and consisting of 100 prominent Chinese Americans, has served as an active lobby to promote positive relations between the United States and China.28 Since the 1990s, Asian Americans have been more involved in local and national politics in order to protect their civil rights and freedom. In this stage, po­liti­cal manifestations of an ethnic community are more vis­i­ble. In summary, in the survival stage, a physical concentration of an ethnic community is imperative. In a ­later stage, to fulfill cultural and po­liti­cal needs, dif­fer­ ent forms of community structures such as cultural facilities, social gatherings, po­liti­cal activities, or even internet/cyberspace, rather than a physical community of Chinatown, suburban town, or global town, effectively constitute a cultural community.

Conclusion It is known that members of an ethnic group consciously congregate in social organ­izations and cultural activities to foster ethnic identity. In Boston, as historian Oscar Handlin has written, dif­fer­ent groups of immigrants all formed their own ethnic social organ­izations: “Canadians gathered in the British Colonial Society while Scotsmen preserved old customs, sported their kilts, danced to the bagpipe, and played familiar games, ­either in the ancient Scots Charitable Society, the Boston Scottish Society, or the Caledonian Club (1853). Germans, who felt that Americans lacked Gemütlichkeit, established in­de­pen­dent fraternal organ­izations which often affiliated with native ones.”29 ­These social groups enhanced ethnic identity and eased the daily coping of the uprooted p ­ eoples. In St. Louis, ­earlier immigrant groups, such as the Germans, the largest immigrant population in the city, had experienced a similar identity-­forging pro­cess. Questioning the conventional perception of immigrant communities as “ethnic ghettos” in her work on St. Louis Germans from 1850 to 1920, Audrey L. Olson contends that ­there was no “homogenous physical community” of Germans in St. Louis. In its place, the Germans in St. Louis in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries established scores of vereine, or socie­ties. The vari­ous socie­ ties shared a common trait in that “they w ­ ere carriers of Gemuthlichkeit, an untranslatable term connoting conviviality, camaraderie and good fellowship, love of cele­brations, card playing, praise of this so-­called German way of life, and all of

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t­ hese washed over by flowing kegs of good lager beer.”30 The flourishing vereine life, according to Olson, derived from the following: “First, diversity of purpose demanded a multiplicity of vereine. Second, the lack of a physical community and the mobility patterns led to the establishment of vereine of the same kind in ­d if­fer­ent neighborhoods; and third, dissension among Germans prompted a diversity of socie­t ies.”31 Though they had no coherent physical community, the heterogeneous Germans w ­ ere able to hold their immigrant community together by sharing common cultural habits and customs, celebrating traditional holidays, playing games, and, unquestionably, drinking beer. Such a community largely focused on cultural unity is thus defined by Olson as “a gemutlich community.”32 Even the smaller immigrant groups in St. Louis, such as the Japa­nese, enjoyed a comparable experience a half ­century ­later. In an article on Japa­nese American immigrants in St. Louis, Miyako I­ noue points out the lack of a physical Japa­nese American community. As of the 1980s, most Japa­nese Americans in St. Louis resided in white neighborhoods, belonged to white churches, and associated with white friends. Unlike the Germans, the Japa­nese have assimilated into the mainstream society as a result of their widespread residential pattern.33 A Chinese community structure similar to the cultural community in St. Louis is also found in Kansas City, Missouri. Prior to World War II, ­t here w ­ ere about 400 Chinese in Kansas City, most of them unmarried males from the siyi district, or the “four counties” of Taishan, Xinhui, Kaiping, and Enping in Guangdong Province. They worked primarily in laundries, restaurants, and grocery stores and as prac­ti­tion­ers of traditional Chinese medicine. More than thirty hand laundries, over twenty restaurants, three grocery stores, and three doctors of Chinese medicine w ­ ere protected by the chief community organ­ization, On Leong. The Chinese population in Kansas City declined drastically ­after the war, when most Chinese moved to the coastal areas or returned to China.34 In the early 1950s, a few Chinese students and resident physicians at St. Joseph Hospital and St. Luke’s Hospital and two Chinese restaurant ­owners constituted the entire Chinese population in Kansas City. More Chinese moved into the city in the 1960s, with a majority working as scientists and technicians at the Midwest Research Center at the University of Missouri at Kansas City and the Kansas University Medical Center. Other Chinese professionals, such as architects, engineers, professors, and accountants, ­ wners gradually joined the community. In 1966, about and also small business o 150 Chinese in Kansas City gathered to celebrate the Chinese New Year and de­cided to form the Kansas City Chinese Association, composed mainly of professionals.35 Since then, the association has been the dominant community organ­ization, responsible for the Chinese New Year cele­brations and other cultural activities. ­After the 1970s, Taiwanese Chinese professionals constituted the majority of the Chinese in Kansas City and formed the Kansas City Chinese Liberty Assembly. In 1973, the Greater Kansas City Chinese Language School was established to teach the classic Chinese characters.36 Two de­cades ­later, in 1993, the Chinese restaurant ­owners formed the Kansas City Chinese Restaurant Association.37 A second Chinese-­language school, the Kansas City Modern Chinese Language School, was

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founded in 1999, teaching simplified Chinese characters to serve the growing population from mainland China.38 In the same year, a group of professional musicians initiated the Kansas City Chinese Musicians Association.39 The rich and diverse cultural events sponsored by ­t hese cultural institutions and organ­izations have constituted a cultural community in Kansas City.40 The preceding examples indicate that throughout American history, ­whether on the coasts or in the hinterland, w ­ hether in major metropolises or in more remote urban centers, most ethnic groups, ­whether large or small, crave ethnic cohesion and consequently institute a broad range of ethnic social organ­izations and cultural cele­brations. When a physical ethnic community exists, the social and cultural organ­izations become integral parts of the community. When a physical ethnic community is absent, the social and cultural organ­izations emerge as community infrastructure, thus constituting a cultural community or a local variant of a cultural community. The history of Chinese St. Louisans demonstrates a significant transition of this population from Chinatown residents to Chinese Americans of a cultural community. The successful operation of Hop Alley, the pre-1966 St. Louis Chinatown, testifies to the necessity of the Chinatown model or any type of ethnic physical concentrations for the sustenance and survival of an ethnic community, through mutual aid, ethnic networking, and self-­governing at a time when the social climate was less accommodating to an ethnic minority. B ­ ecause a substantial number of the Chinese in St. Louis w ­ ere re-­migrants from the larger Chinese communities of San Francisco, New York, and Chicago, the ethnic Chinese economy in the St. Louis Chinatown largely resembled that in other Chinese communities. As in other old Chinese communities in Amer­i­ca, occupational segregation was the predominant feature of the Chinese economy. Most Chinese ­were heavi­ly involved in the traditional Chinese ethnic economic activities in hand laundries, grocery stores, and restaurants. Although characterized by isolation, drudgery, and meager income, t­ hese economic activities enabled their survival in Amer­i­ca. Unlike the old Chinatown, which was physically situated in the downtown district of St. Louis, the new cultural community in St. Louis since the 1960s does not physically contain ­either a commercial or a residential concentration. However, the narratives presented in this chapter have testified that the Chinese American cultural community in St. Louis is not an “­imagined community,” to borrow a notion from Benedict Anderson,41 but a real community mea­sured by both physical spatial scope and social spatial extent. It is a community without physical bound­aries, but with clearly identifiable social peripheries. The myriad community organ­izations and cultural institutions have served as community infrastructures, essential in forming the physical dimension of the cultural community. The wide array of cultural and po­liti­cal activities taking place in the community have supplied abundant opportunities for substantial and meaningful interpersonal and intergroup interactions that constitute the social space of the cultural community. As the postmodern approach f­ avors the notion of a community with flexible and sometimes overlapping bound­aries, a nation could be conceived as a “community”

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whose members share a deep “fraternity” or “comradeship.” 42 A nation could also be understood as a “symbolic universe” that consists of “individual men and ­women” who intellectually preserve their ethnic identity within their “linguistic communities.” 43 In the United States, a nation of nations, the concept of a cultural community, one that is “less territory-­centered,” 44 would precisely describe the nature of a given ethnic group. Two key f­ actors have contributed to the emergence of a cultural community—­ socioeconomic integration and preservation of ethnic identity. Socioeconomic integration would naturally dissolve a physical ethnic community, making way for a dif­fer­ent form of community. As demonstrated by U.S. ethnic history in general and Chinese American history in par­tic­u­lar, when the overall socioeconomic climate disfavors a minority group, that group’s economic survival requires a self-­ sufficient physical commercial and residential community, in which its members sustain themselves through internal mutual reliance. When the external environment improves and becomes more receptive ­toward a minority group, the physical bound­a ries of the minority community begin to break down and gradually erode. As shown in the history of the Chinese St. Louisans, while a physical ethnic community dis­appeared as its members became eco­nom­ically and residentially integrated into the larger society, a cultural community took its place. It is the socioeconomic integration that dismantles the physical concentrations of an ethnic group and forges a cultural community. Therefore, the more integrated a minority group is, the more likely the emergence of a cultural community among its members. However, socioeconomic integration alone is not sufficient to explain the formation of a cultural community. Socioeconomic integration ­causes the dispersal of an ethnic population, thus resulting in the absence of a physical ethnic community, but it does not necessarily create a dif­fer­ent form of ethnic community. Historically, integration has led to the assimilation of dif­fer­ent ethnic groups within the larger or “white” society. Only when an integrated ethnic group is conscious about preserving its ethnic identity may a cultural community emerge. Fearing the pos­si­ble loss of an ethnic identity ­because of integration, an ethnic group would strive to create a community to preserve that identity. If a physical community proves unfeasible, a cultural community or its variants would naturally arise, which is what has happened to the Chinese Americans in St. Louis. The dispersion of the Chinese ethnic economy and the integration of Chinese professionals have been attributed to an absence of physical concentrations of the Chinese community, ­either commercial or residential. Nevertheless, a strong sense of being Chinese and the keen desire to preserve their Chinese identity have motivated Chinese St. Louisans to build the cultural community’s infrastructures of community organ­ izations, Chinese churches, and Chinese-­language schools. Consequently, a cultural community is born. The reconstruction of the history of the Chinese in St. Louis is not merely another case study of Chinese American communities. The model of cultural community is not l­imited to St.  Louis but is applicable to communities where the

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physical concentrations of the ethnic minority groups are absent. It is applicable to communities where ethnic minority groups have become eco­nom­ically and professionally integrated within the larger society while remaining a distinct cultural group. It is also applicable to communities where the members of ethnic minority groups are overwhelmingly professionals. The cultural community in St. Louis has provided an alternative model for understanding the diversity and complexity of Chinese American communities. When the existing theories of Chinese communities are inadequate in explaining an ethnic community that is geo­graph­i­cally dispersed and intermingled with the majority society, yet consciously congregates in cultural events that distinguish it from the larger society, the model of cultural community stands out as a more appropriate and satisfactory interpretation. The cultural community as a variant of ethnic community also reflects the social advancement of an ethnic minority group in a classed and racialized society. The transformation of the Chinese community from a Chinatown to a cultural community hails the socioeconomic and po­liti­cal pro­g ress that Chinese Americans have achieved since the 1960s. In other words, the presence of a cultural community indicates the socioeconomic pro­gress of an ethnic minority. Thus far, the model of cultural community displays a prospective pattern for an ethnic community when it achieves socioeconomic integration yet still yearns to retain its cultural identity. It is certain that, as long as the United States remains a multicultural and multiracial society, one ­w ill be able to find vari­ous cultural communities. Meanwhile, it is impor­tant to note that a cultural community does not advocate cultural separatism but instead celebrates multiculturalism or cultural pluralism in a multicultural and multiracial society.

chapter 9

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The Tripartite Community in Chicago Formation of the Tripartite Chinese Communities, 1945–2010s Compared with the e­ arlier Chinese immigrants, post–­World War II newcomers ­were more diverse in their socioeconomic and geographic origins, contributing to the ever-­growing complexity of Chicago’s Chinese communities. Ethnic Chinese refugees from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia and other immigrants from Southeast Asia a­ fter the end of Vietnam War in 1975 propelled the growth of the new North Chinatown. Students-­turned-­professionals from Taiwan and the ­People’s Republic of China (PRC) created the suburban Chinese American cultural communities. The tripartite geographic division into South Chinatown, North Chinatown, and the suburban Chinese cultural communities, along with po­liti­cal, occupational, and linguistic differences among the Chinese in Chicago, posed new challenges: How to preserve and promote common cultural values, and how to protect and expand the ethnic Chinese economy in a diverse and complex Chinese American transnational community?

A New Generation Although Chinese families have existed in Chicago since the 1880s, a more rapid increase of the second-­generation Chinese American population occurred in the ­later 1940s, when more Chinese w ­ omen entered the country as war brides, fiancées of American GIs, displaced persons, refugees, and wives of American citizens.1 Anti-­Chinese sentiment had abated during World War II, when China became a member of the ­Grand Alliance and public images of the Chinese gradually changed. This trend ­toward a more favorable attitude ­toward China and Chinese Americans continued a­ fter World War II. Facing pressures from the public and from other interest groups, Congress repealed a large number of the discriminatory exclusion laws, which for years had denied Chinese Americans’ fundamental civil rights and ­legal protections.2 On December 17, 1943, Congress passed an act to repeal all the Chinese exclusion acts since 1882, permitted Chinese aliens in the United States 163

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to apply for naturalization, and allotted new preferences for up to 75 ­percent of the quota given to Chinese immigrants.3 In spite of the repeal of the Chinese exclusion acts, the Chinese immigrant quota designated by the American government was only 105 per year. This figure represented one-­sixth of 1 ­percent of the number of Chinese in the United States in 1920, as determined by the census of that year.4 Nevertheless, additional nonquota immigrants w ­ ere also allowed to immigrate. More Chinese scholars came to teach in the United States, an average of about 137 each year, in comparison with only 10 per year during the previous de­cade. More impor­tant, ­under the War Bride Act of December 28, 1945, and the GI Fiancées Act of June 29, 1946, alien wives and ­children of veterans and American citizens w ­ ere also permitted to enter the United States as nonquota immigrants. During the three years in which the War Bride Act was in effect, approximately 6,000 Chinese war brides ­were admitted.5 Thus, in 1947, the number of Chinese immigrants entering the United States climbed to 3,191, most of whom came on a nonquota basis.6 Many Chinese ­women also came ­under other laws. The Displaced Persons Act of 1948 and the Refugee Relief Act of 1953 allowed several thousand Chinese w ­ omen to immigrate to the United States. The 1948 act granted “displaced” Chinese students, visitors, and o ­ thers who already had a temporary status in the United States to adjust their status to that of permanent residents. The 1953 act allotted 3,000 visas to refugees from Asia and 2,000 visas to Chinese whose passports had been issued by the Chinese Nationalist government, which lost control of mainland China in 1949.7 On September 22, 1959, Congress passed an act ­under which more Chinese on the quota waiting list obtained nonquota status.8 Thus, according to the 1960 census, the number of Chinese in the United States had reached 237,292. This included 135,549 males and 101,743 females, of whom 60 ­percent had been born in the United States.9 Among the w ­ omen who immigrated in this period, many ­were so-­called war brides, who had hurriedly married Chinese American veterans before the expiration date of the War Bride Act in 1949. In her article “The Recent Immigrant Chinese Families of the San Francisco–­Oakland Area,” Rose Hum Lee described the war bride: “The most publicized case of ‘getting married quick’ was of the ex-­soldier who enplaned to China, selected his bride, was married, and landed at the San Francisco airport the eve­ning before his month’s leave of absence expired. His bride came ­later, a practice applying to many o ­ thers whose admission papers could not be pro­cessed rapidly.”10 Whereas during the 1930s an average of only 60 Chinese ­women entered the United States each year, in 1948 alone, 3,317 ­women immigrated. During the period from 1944 to 1953, w ­ omen made up 82 ­percent of Chinese immigrants to Amer­i­ca. For the first time, the number of Chinese ­women and families in the United States noticeably increased. The male/female ratio dropped from 2.9:1 in 1940 to 1.8:1 in 1950 and to 1.3:1 in 1960.11 Like their counter­parts across the country, the Chinese in Chicago benefited from ­t hese laws and brought their long-­separated families from China, as illustrated by the f­ amily history of Yolanda Lee. Her ­father was born in China in 1903

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and came to Chicago in 1924. He l­ ater returned to his hometown Taishan, Guangdong, to get married but had to leave his bride ­behind when he traveled back to the United States. Yolanda was born in Taishan in 1933 and spent her childhood ­t here. During World War II, her f­ ather served in the U.S. Army in order to enable his ­family to emigrate from China. ­After passage of the GI Fiancées Act on June 29, 1946, her ­father successfully arranged for Yolanda and her ­mother to come to Chicago in 1947. The f­ amily lived first in a trailer camp on the pre­sent site of Northwestern University and ­later, during Yolanda’s high school years, in a basement apartment on Alexander Street in Chinatown. Yolanda began attending Von Steuben High School at the age of 16 and graduated in three years with the rank of number four among the more than 200 se­niors. She was awarded a scholarship to the University of Illinois at Navy Pier. While attending college, Yolanda worked ­after school and on weekends at her f­ amily’s restaurant.12 Like most Chinese in Chicago concentrated in laundry, restaurant, and grocery businesses, the majority of Chinese youths w ­ ere c­ hildren of laundry operators, restaurant o ­ wners, or grocers. Many w ­ ere born in the cramped apartments of the tenement buildings in Chinatown or in the back rooms of their ­family businesses. Most of them helped with f­ amily businesses or worked in Chinese restaurants and other establishments a­ fter school and during their college years, as reflected in Yolanda’s f­ amily history as well as in the following stories. Celia Moy Cheung’s growing-up experience was typical of a second-­generation Chinese. Her ­father, Paul Moy, was born in Taishan, Gruangdong, in 1871 and ­later became a Presbyterian minister. He married Lillian Wong, twenty years his ju­nior, in Taishan through an arranged marriage. When a plague occurred at the turn of the c­ entury, Paul, Lillian, and their eldest d ­ aughter, Mary, left China, traveling to Amer­i­ca and settling in Chicago. Unable to find employment as a minister, Paul opened a hand laundry located on the northwest side of Chicago. The ­family lived in an apartment on Twenty-­Second Place in Chinatown, where ten more ­children ­were born. In their disciplined but loving home, Celia’s m ­ other was the matriarch, and her older s­ ister Mary took care of the c­ hildren, while her ­father was busy making a living for the ­family in the laundry. Celia was born in Chicago on July 24, 1933, as the tenth of the ­family’s eleven ­children (ten girls and one boy). As a child of the ­Great Depression, she worked as a cashier in a Chinese restaurant, the Junk Restaurant, ­a fter school and in a frozen food factory in the summer.13 Henry Yee’s f­ amily history in many ways resembles that of Celia Moy Cheung. Henry Yee was born in 1939 in China and a­ dopted by Shiu Kang Yee at the age of 3. Henry immigrated to the United States with his m ­ other in 1951 to join his ­father, and the f­ amily of three settled in Chicago’s Chinatown at 225 West Twenty-­ Third Street in 1953. His ­father, Shiu Kang Yee, and another relative started the Sun Lite Hand Laundry in Berwyn, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago. Between 1953 and 1959, his parents had five more c­ hildren. With his f­ather working long hours at the hand laundry, Henry took on the responsibilities of helping his m ­ other care for his younger siblings.14

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Harry Wu’s life story is also similar. His parents, John Eng and Mary Gwan, left Canton, China, in 1929 for a better life in Chicago and opened a f­ amily laundry on Cermak Road. Harry Wu was born on November 20, 1933, in Chicago, the third child of four siblings. A ­ fter their m ­ other passed away in 1940 when Harry was only 7 years old, his ­father remarried and expanded the ­family with two more sons. The f­ amily resided on Alexander Street, in the Chinatown district, and the ­children attended the local St. Therese Catholic School, then located in the On Leong building. Harry l­ ater attended St. Dominic High School on Chicago and Hudson Streets, graduating in 1954. To help make ends meet for the f­ amily, Harry and his siblings worked ­after school in Chinese restaurants or other establishments in Chinatown. A ­ fter high school, Harry worked for the U.S. Postal Ser­vice and was drafted into the army in 1956. He served fourteen months, including nine months in Pusan, K ­ orea. Upon leaving the army, Harry rejoined the Postal Ser­v ice, eventually retiring ­after thirty-­five years.15 Grace Chun was born in 1938 in Chicago. Her ­family lived on the city’s North Side, where her parents operated a hand laundry at 953 North Western Ave­nue. The laundry survived as a f­ amily business, depending on work from all the c­ hildren, Grace and her two younger b ­ rothers, who worked a­ fter school and on the weekends. Grace and her ­brothers would bring coal for the furnace that heated the irons. The laundry also survived b ­ ecause of its low prices—­for example, twenty-­two cents for laundering a shirt.16 While a busy routine of school and working still marked the lives of many Chinatown youths, it is also evident that the general socioeconomic conditions for the new generation of Chinese Americans had dramatically improved in post–­ World War II Amer­i­ca, as demonstrated in Corwin Eng’s f­ amily history: My ­father was born in China and came to the United States in 1925. My ­mother was born in Chicago. My parents owned and operated the Kai Kai Coffee Shop from 1942–1992. I was born on February 16, 1952 in Chicago. We lived on the second floor of a three-­story brick building at 2219 S. Went­worth Ave­nue. The apartment had two bedrooms, hot r­ unning w ­ ater and gas heat. I attended the Chinese Christian Union Church Nursery School, Haines Elementary School, Midwest Christian Acad­emy and graduated from Senn High School in 1970. I received a degree in Social Science from Northern Illinois University in 1974. My fondest memory in Chinatown was watching the parades of Chinese New Year and Double Ten Cele­brations; being a member of the Wah Mei Drum and Bugle Corp. We traveled outside of Chicago and played in New York City and on the steps of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. I was employed as a Public Health Administrator by the Chicago Department of Public Health from 1974 u ­ ntil my retirement in 2004. I worked with Bernice Wong of the Chinese American Ser­v ice League for 26 years to provide ser­v ices for the Chinese community.17

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The f­ amily history of Benjamin C. Moy is a quin­tes­sen­tial story that reflects the changing socioeconomic conditions the new generation embraced. Benjamin, ­later known as Ben, was born Moy Chin Quong in his ­family home in China in 1921. His grand­father came to the United States in the 1860s to build the western part of the transcontinental railroad and became a crew chief in the 1920s. His ­father was born in Portland, Oregon, but was returned to China when he was 2 or 3 years old. a common practice among the e­ arlier Chinese immigrants to save money and provide their c­ hildren with a Chinese education, and remained t­ here u ­ ntil his 20s, when he came back to the United States. ­After that, he then returned to China only twice, once for his marriage in the home village and the other time to bring his son Ben back to the United States. Ben attended school in China for five and a half years before traveling to the United States with his f­ ather on the President McKinley in 1934. Inquisitive and intelligent, Ben learned to speak En­glish while staying with a neighbor of his cousin. His intelligence and En­glish proficiency enabled him to gradu­ate from McClaren School in one and a half years. Ben continued his schooling by attending night school at Crane High School for a c­ ouple of years while working in a Chinese laundry during the day. He received his high school diploma at the Central YMCA College, which ­later became part of Roo­se­velt University. Ben married Susan Lowe in 1949, and the ­couple had two ­daughters. Ben had always enjoyed m ­ usic, so in between working and attending school he started playing the violin. He held a variety of sales jobs before g­ oing into business for himself, starting his business operation out of a truck before opening a grocery store in Chinatown. His store was located in the front of the building, and ­t here was a chicken-­slaughtering shop in the back. ­Later he engaged in other business ventures before opening the Bird Restaurant at the Skokie Swift Station on Dempster Ave­ nue in Niles, a northwestern suburb of Chicago. He ­later moved the restaurant to Melrose Park, a western suburb. Ben fi­nally moved to Oak Brook, also a western suburb of Chicago but closer to the city, where he opened a cooking school and taught cooking u ­ ntil his retirement, a­ fter which he fi­nally had time to play his musical instruments during the day.18 ­These second-­generation Chinese Americans w ­ ere better educated than their parents’ generation, with many earning undergraduate degrees and even postgraduate degrees. Among the college-­bound Chinese Americans in the 1930s and 1940s, many majored in engineering or chemistry.19 The primary reason for the heavy concentration of Chinese in engineering and sciences lay in the perception that ­t hese fields ­were more objective and ­free from social and cultural biases and prejudices, and therefore offered more equal opportunities for Chinese. In addition, the demands on one’s spoken En­g lish ­were not as g­ reat as in the social sciences. George Eng’s story best illustrates this pattern. George was born into a Chinese immigrant ­family in Chicago in 1920. His ­father, Gow Eng, had tried three times before fi­nally gaining l­egal entry to the United States in 1910. George’s parents owned several Chinese restaurants in Chicago, including the California Inn on

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California and Madison, the Golden Pheasant on Clark and Madison, and the Golden Pheasant on Lawrence and Broadway. Though he lived in Chinatown for a short time, George attended school on the West Side of Chicago, where his ­family’s restaurants ­were located. ­After graduating from John Marshall High School, George went to the ­Virginia Military Institute to study civil engineering. Three years ­later he enrolled in the military, but he returned to the institute a­ fter the end of World War II to complete his degree. As an engineer, he was hired by the city of Chicago and served on the commissioner’s staff in the Department of Public Works from 1964 to 1970. In the 1970s, he was hired by the city government as the deputy commissioner of public works, becoming the first Chinese in Chicago to hold such a high post in the city government.20 Howard Chun’s life history tells a similar story. Howard was born in New York in 1936 into a Chinese immigrant ­family. His ­father was a cook in a Chinese restaurant, and his ­mother worked as a seamstress. B ­ ecause his ­father was often sick, his ­mother became the primary breadwinner, and the ­family had to depend on public welfare assistance. A studious student, Howard earned his bachelor of science degree in physics, with a minor in electrical engineering, in 1959. He then joined the army, serving in the Corps of Engineers. While stationed at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, Howard met Grace Hong, also a second-­generation Chinese, who was attending Northern Illinois University and majoring in history. Howard married Grace in 1961, and ­after retiring from the U.S. Army with the rank of col­ o­nel, in 1977 he and his wife came to Chicago, where he worked as a computer scientist and systems engineer.21 Despite their better educational backgrounds, many second-­generation Chinese Americans still found it difficult to find employment in the fields in which they ­were trained, largely ­because of discrimination in the business and professional worlds.22 It was not unusual to find college-­educated waiters and restaurant ­owners. Discouraged by ­limited opportunities in Amer­i­ca, some second-­generation Chinese Chicagoans went to China ­after graduation. One of them was G. P. Moy, son of a local Chinese merchant, T. L. Moy. G. P. Moy graduated from the Armour Institute’s school of electrical engineering, with an excellent rec­ord, in 1936. Upon graduation, he left Chicago and went to China to look for a position in Shanghai or Canton.23 The earliest examples of Chinese professionals w ­ ere the three men hired by the ­Great Lake Trust Com­pany, a Chicago bank owned by white Americans along with a few Chinese businessmen. When it opened in 1922, the bank was able to overcome cultural and racial prejudice to start a Chinese department headed by Howard Ying Fook Moy and staffed by Won Soon Lee and Shule Eng. The department provided interpreter ser­v ices to Chinese customers who ­were unable to speak En­glish and also handled t­ hese customers’ remittances to China and Hong Kong. Several years ­later, the bank merged with the Central Trust Bank, which continued the operation of the Chinese department u ­ ntil the three men retired.24 Like their white counter­parts in the professional fields, Chinese American professionals also formed organ­izations to promote their common interests. Alpha

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Lambda was reportedly the first Chinese American professional organ­ization in Chicago. ­Because of the difficulty of joining American college and professional organ­izations due to discrimination, the Chinese de­cided to form their own in the mid-1930s to meet the demands of the college-­educated second generation who ­were starting to break away from the traditional ethnic occupations of restaurants and laundries.25 Similarly, the Chinese American Citizens Alliance was founded in 1950 to promote Americanization and assimilation into the American mainstream. In the same year, the Midwest Chinese American Civic Council was founded with the same purposes.26

Newcomers Compared with their pre­de­ces­sors, the newcomers a­ fter World War II w ­ ere more diverse in their socioeconomic backgrounds and geographic origins. They came not only from the southern Chinese provinces of Guangdong and Fujian but also from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Southeast Asian countries, as presented in the following cases. Cho Tuk Lo’s ­family was one of the many that had migrated continuously to escape war and po­liti­cal turmoil in China. Cho Tuk Lo was born in Guangdong, China, in 1926, and his f­ amily moved to the British colony of Hong Kong when he was 11. The ­family lived in a pawnshop owned by Lo’s ­father and ­uncle, where Lo was exposed to Western instruments and learned to play protest songs when the Japa­nese invaded Hong Kong in 1938. Lo’s musical talents made him well known in Hong Kong and China, and he was invited to teach Cantonese opera and folk ­music in China. Lo came to Chicago in the 1970s, sponsored by his ­sister, who was an American citizen. While working in a Chinese restaurant, he found time to teach many Chinese students ­music for ­free. He once played the erhu, a traditional two-­stringed Chinese musical instrument, for Mayor Richard J. Daley.27 Catherine Wong Chin was born in Hong Kong on December 23, 1931, into a ­family of Chinese mi­grants from Taishan, Guangdong. She had one older b ­ rother and two older s­ isters. During the Japa­nese invasion and the subsequent occupation of Hong Kong, her ­family, along with all other Hong Kong residents, suffered a ­great deal. The Japa­nese did not permit the Chinese ­children to go to school; to earn money ­u ntil the war was over, Catherine and her ­mother had to sell their clothing at a flea market. ­After World War II, Catherine finished high school and college; she became a teacher at a boy’s school in Hong Kong where she taught third and sixth grade. In June 1956, she married David Chin, and the ­couple moved to Chicago that year. In Chicago, Catherine had vari­ous jobs, first as an interpreter for the Immigration and Naturalization Ser­v ice, and ­later as an instructor at the Berlitz School of Languages and the Metropolitan Life Insurance Com­pany.28 Many of the newcomers had complex transnational backgrounds prior to their immigration to the United States, as evidenced in the stories of Ian Roo­se­velt Chin, Susana Fong, Dato’ Seri Stanley Thai, and Cheryl Tom. Ian Roo­se­velt Chin was born in Jamaica, West Indies, in 1943. Ian’s great-­g randfather left Guangdong, China, in the late 1890s ­because of its poor economic conditions. Although the

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Chin ­family sent out scouts throughout the world to find a suitable new home, they could not get into the United States ­because of limits established by the Chinese Exclusion Act. They fi­nally settled in Jamaica, which permitted families including ­women to emigrate and whose climate was very similar to that in southern China. Chin Foo Sing, Ian’s ­father, was born in 1900 in China. He came to Jamaica in 1911 with his parents when he was 11 years old, and ­later owned a general store in the village of Moneague. The youn­gest of nine c­ hildren (five girls and four boys), Ian wanted to move to the United States to further his education, which he did in 1961 as a student at the University of Miami, majoring in architectural engineering. Three years l­ater, Ian transferred to the University of Illinois b ­ ecause he thought ­t here w ­ ere a lot of mountains ­t here where he could go skiing. He earned his bachelor of arts degree in architecture and a master of science degree in structural engineering. ­After working for the city of Chicago for several years, he joined the prestigious architectural engineering firm of Wiss, Jannet, Elstrer Associates, where he was vice president and se­nior principal. He had served on numerous professional committees, such as the Chicago Committee on High Rise Buildings, the Chicago Committee of Standards and Tests, and the American Society for Testing and Materials. He married his wife, Shelia, in 1977, and they raised three c­ hildren.29 Susanna Fong was born on October 7, 1953, and was raised in Penang, Malaysia, as the fifth child of Wah Swee Loh (Hong) and Suan Tan, who ­were both from Fujian, China. Susanna’s ­father, Wah Swee Hong, was sold at a young age to the Loh f­amily in Fujian. At the time of the Communist takeover in China in 1949, Wah Swee was 14 years old. Desperate to leave China and to join his four older birth ­brothers who had relocated to Malaysia, Wah Swee traveled alone for four months, without shoes, money, or any means. By hopping trains and boats, he fi­nally found freedom in Malaysia. Malaysian life and the older ­brothers, however, ­were unwelcoming to Wah Swee. Nevertheless, he persevered and became a successful businessman in the fashion and fabric industry in Malaysia. Susanna was the first child born in Malaysia ­after her ­father brought his entire ­family ­there from China. While attending school in Taiwan, Susanna met her husband, Patrick Fong, a Taiwanese. They married in Malaysia in May 1979 and immigrated to the United States in September of that year, beginning Susanna’s journey in a new country without her large extended ­family and friends. With more than two de­cades of perseverance and hard work, Susanna thrived in Chicago as a successful businesswoman and m ­ other.30 Dato’ Seri Stanley Thai was born in Malaysia in 1960, as the f­ourteenth of seventeen ­children. His ­father had two wives, one he married in China and one in Malaysia. He left China for Malaysia in 1949, with his first wife arriving ­later. The two wives and their respective ­children lived side by side in separate ­houses. The ­family had a farm where they raised poultry and pigs. Stanley worked at the farm in the morning and attended classes in the after­noon. He ­later went to Toronto to study business administration at the University of Windsor, where he met his f­ uture wife, Cheryl Tom, one of his classmates in the business administration program. Cheryl Tom was born in 1961 in Johor, Malaysia, as the second youn­gest of eight

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­children in her f­ amily of five boys and three girls. Her grand­fathers w ­ ere born in Fujian, China, and immigrated to Malaysia as laborers. Her ­father moved up the social ladder in Malaysia, eventually owning a rubber plantation. Together, Stanley Thai and Cheryl Tom founded the Super Max Glove Com­pany, a worldwide business headquartered in Chicago, in 1997. In recognition of Stanley Thai’s business success and contributions, a sultan in Malaysia bestowed upon him the title Dato’ Seri, equivalent to a knighthood.31 Chinese from other American cities also moved to Chicago in the post–­World War II era in response to the city’s growing business opportunities. James Chiu was a native of Xinhui, Guangdong, China, and immigrated to the United States in 1920 to make his fortune in New York, leaving his young wife and newborn son, Herman, ­behind in the homeland. At the age of 18, Herman was sent for by his ­father to attend boarding school in New York. The ship Empress of Rus­sia brought Herman from China to New York, where he met his ­father for the first time in his life. The growing business demand in Chicago also attracted James Chiu to Chicago in 1948. That year Yun-­Tsung Chao, the proprietor of China Farm, a flourishing Chicago restaurant supplier, invited James Chiu to join his business partnership. Together the two men built China Farm into one of the city’s largest Chinese restaurant suppliers, with fifteen employees delivering to suburban customers who ­were unable to come into the city for supplies. China Farm was also Chicago’s largest bean sprout grower and supplier. Herman, a gradu­ate of the Mas­sa­chu­setts Institute of Technology, became a chemical engineer. ­After returning home from his full-­time job ­every day, he assisted in the ­family business, waiting for late delivery d ­ rivers and closing up China Farm.32 Unlike the early Chinese immigrants who mostly worked in the traditional Chinese businesses of laundries, grocery stores, and restaurants, many newcomers now branched out to embrace other economic opportunities, largely in professional fields, and resided in the suburban areas. In 1950, the Chinese resided in sixty-­five of the city’s seventy-­seven community areas. Although South Chinatown remained the single largest concentration of Chinese, with 1,250 Chinese residents, almost twice that figure (2,084) lived outside of Chinatown, mostly on the North Side.33 In 1961, a vast majority (84 ­percent) of the suburban dwellers w ­ ere professionals.34

The Santa Fe Proj­ect and South Chinatown Expansion The construction of the Dan Ryan and Stevenson Expressways in the 1950s had cut through South Chinatown and reduced its size by half. In 1962, Chinatown was bounded by Archer, Twenty-­Fifth, Stewart, and LaSalle Streets. In 1969, the apartment buildings and ­houses located along the east side of Went­worth Ave­nue from Eigh­teenth Street to Cermak Road and from Twenty-­First Place and Went­worth Ave­nue w ­ ere demolished. Th ­ ese losses caused a severe housing shortage in the Chinatown area, and waves of new immigrants further compounded the situation. The acute issue in Chinatown caught the media’s attention. An article in the Chicago Sun-­Times on June 17, 1962, noted, “The need for action to preserve the character of the community became evident early in 1959.”35

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The leaders of the Chinese community did take action. Gung-­Hsing Wang was a central figure in the community’s response to the situation. Wang had been a prominent presence in the area since the 1930s, when he served as vice-­consul of the Chinese consulate in Chicago and appeared frequently at impor­tant community events. He then served as the consul general in the Chinese consulate in New Orleans from 1938 to 1949. When the Communists took over China in 1949, he stayed in the United States and lectured at Tulane University in New Orleans for several years. In 1952, he came to Chicago, a city to which he was socially and emotionally very attached, and became a private developer. In 1959, along with two other businessmen, Wang formed Neighborhood Redevelopment Assistance, Inc. (­later changed to Chinatown Redevelopment Assistance, Inc.), a nonprofit organ­ ization, and served as its managing director. The organ­ization had three primary objectives: to rehabilitate and restore the neighborhoods within or near the Chinatown area, to construct and sell residential properties to meet the housing needs of Chinatown on a nonprofit basis, and to own and operate residential properties on a cooperative basis.36 Over the next two de­cades, with government funding and private donations, Chinatown Redevelopment Assistance, Inc. acquired land and built a total of sixty-six new town­houses at dif­fer­ent locations within the Chinatown vicinity, and the nine-­story Chinatown El­derly Apartments, with 139 units. In addition, the agency donated a strip of land located on Twenty-­Fourth Place to the city to develop as a public park, ­later named Dr. Sun Yat-­sen Park. By 1980, the agency had eight town­houses as public housing at 312–326 West Twenty-­Fourth Street; the Wah-­Yuen town­houses with eight living units; twelve condominium apartments at the northwest corner of Twenty-­Fourth Place and Went­worth Ave­nue; twelve town­houses at the southwest corner of Twenty-­Fourth Place and Went­ worth Ave­nue; eight town­houses at the northwest corner of Twenty-­Fifth Place and Went­worth; the Appleville condominium, with 132 units, at Canal and Twenty-­Fourth Place; and Chinatown Courts, a five-­building development with 22 units at Twenty-­Sixth Street and Shields Ave­nue. ­These developments helped solve the housing shortage in Chinatown, stabilize the community, and expand Chinatown’s bound­aries. By then, Chinatown had extended south to Twenty-­ Fifth Place and west to Canal Street.37 While Chinatown Redevelopment Assistance, Inc. was significant in pushing the bound­aries of South Chinatown farther south and west, the Santa Fe Proj­ect was monumental in expanding Chinatown’s territory farther north. In 1984, the Chinese American Development Corporation was formed, with an ambitious plan to acquire the thirty-­two-­acre property located just north of Chinatown then owned by the Santa Fe Railroad. If the housing developments undertaken by the Chinatown Redevelopment Assistance, Inc. ­were chiefly aimed at addressing the housing shortage, the Santa Fe Proj­ect was a more complex and full-­fledged venture that developed both residential and commercial properties. It aimed not only to attract suburban Chinese American families but also to accommodate the expected influx of immigrants from Hong Kong, with an annual arrival of 100 to

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200 families a­ fter the British colonial government handed Hong Kong back to the PRC government in 1997. The proj­ect’s design combined modern urban residences with traditional Chinese aesthetics, with an Eastern appearance and Western amenities. The proj­ect not only provided residential properties for Asian Americans but also created more commercial opportunities for area business ­owners. Phase I and Phase II of the proj­ect each planned for fifty-­t wo two-­story commercial units, along with 180 town­houses, a ­hotel, a riverfront marina, a museum, and botanical gardens. Phase III and Phase IV envisioned an Asian Trade Center.38 In 1993, land in the old Santa Fe Railroad rail yards along the Chicago River north of Cermak Road and Archer Ave­nue was developed into Chinatown Square, featuring a two-­level retail commercial center with a multitude of colorful shops and restaurants. In the center of the square stands the Pan Asian Cultural Center, surrounded by twelve beautiful bronze Chinese zodiac figures. In front of the square stands a dramatic forty-­foot-­by-­eight-­foot mural, made of 100,000 hand-­ painted tiles from China, depicting the history of Chinese immigrants to Chicago. At the four ends of the square are four imposing bronze gates illustrating the four greatest Chinese inventions: gunpowder, the compass, paper, and printing.39 In 1999, the twelve-­acre Ping Tom Park along the Chicago River just north of Chinatown Square was completed, and in 2004 the new building of the Chinese American Ser­vice League (CASL) at 2145 South Tan Court was finished, further expanding the northwest bound­aries of South Chinatown. Together, CASL, the Chicago Chinatown Chamber of Commerce (CCCC) at 2169-­B South China Place, and the Pan-­Asian Cultural Center in Chinatown Square provide community ser­vice, ethnic business promotion, and the preservation of Asian cultural heritage in the Chinatown Square area, the new focal point of South Chinatown (figures 9.1 and 9.2). Throughout the year, Chinatown residents, city dwellers, and out-­of-­town visitors enjoy cultural cele­brations and per­for­mances in the plaza of Chinatown Square and recreational activities in Ping Tom Park. Within the ten-­block commercial and residential area of South Chinatown, nearly 8,000 Chinese made their homes. According to the Chinatown Business Listing provided by the CCCC in 2004, t­ here was a diverse range of businesses, including (in descending order) 56 restaurants; 55 retail and w ­ holesale groceries; 37 gift, book, and video stores; 36 health ser­v ice providers; 25 florists and beauty shops; 22 attorneys; 18 travel agencies and h ­ otels; 17 Chinese herb stores and drugstores; 15 construction and remodeling companies; 14 accountants; 7 real estate companies; and 7 noodle companies. In addition, South Chinatown is also home to 45 associations, including churches and nonprofit and civic groups.40 ­These numerous commercial and cultural ser­v ices made South Chinatown a magnet for new immigrants and one of the primary tourist attractions in Chicago. While t­ hese new residential and commercial developments in South Chinatown offered improved living conditions to ­t hose residents who could afford the new units, the overall living conditions w ­ ere still less than ideal, a common prob­lem shared by other major Chinese urban communities.41 South Chinatown was one of the highest-­density neighborhoods in Chicago. Constructed in the 1940s, most

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Figure 9.1. ​South Chinatown, Chicago, 2008. Collection of the author.

residential buildings t­ here w ­ ere substandard and deteriorating. Twenty to 32 ­percent of the area’s residents ­were living in overcrowded units, with more than one person per room.42 Many new working-­class immigrants found themselves living in such substandard apartments in Chinatown. Xiaoyu Wong and her husband came to Chicago in 2003 as immigrants sponsored by her husband’s ­brother. Prior to immigration, Wong had worked as an accountant in a large food retailing com­pany in Jiangmen, Guangdong; Wong’s husband had been a man­ag­er in a video camera com­ pany that had gone bankrupt, leading to the c­ ouple’s emigration. Upon their arrival in Chicago, Wong’s husband found a job as a cook in a Chinatown restaurant, working more than ten hours daily from Monday to Saturday and bringing home a monthly income of $1,000. Two years ­later, their son came to join them and enrolled at Chicago City College downtown, meanwhile working as a food deliverer for a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown and a cashier in a supermarket. To supplement the f­amily income, Wong found a job as a h ­ ouse­keeper at the Hyatt ­Hotel downtown, with a starting wage of $7.25 per hour. With this meager in­ come, the ­family rented a two-­bedroom basement apartment in Chinatown at $700 per month.43 While South Chinatown was undergoing steady expansion, Bridgeport, the adjacent area just to the southwest, has quietly but rapidly been growing into a major Chinese American population center, with a population exceeding that of the old South Chinatown itself. According to the 2000 census, the Chinese popu-

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Figure 9.2. ​Chinese school in South Chinatown, West Twenty-­Third Street, 2008. Collection of the author.

lation in Bridgeport was 8,273, while in the so-­called Armour Square area, the location of the original South Chinatown, the Chinese population was only 7,148.44 This rapid population growth in Bridgeport has propelled community leaders and academics to redefine South Chinatown as the “Chinatown vicinity” or “Chinatown communities” and to suggest redrawing the geographic bound­aries of the South Chinatown community to include Bridgeport as an integral part.45 Historically a white, working-­class neighborhood, Bridgeport had embraced dif­ fer­ent waves of Eu­ro­pean immigrants: Irish, Germans, Lithuanians, Czech­o­slo­ vak­i­a ns, Poles, Ukrainians, and Italians. Among ­t hese ethnic groups, the Irish remained po­liti­cally active and dominated the po­liti­cal scene in Chicago for more than a c­ entury; five of Chicago’s mayors emerged from Bridgeport, including the famous Richard J. Daley and his son, Richard M. Daley. Bridgeport was a focal point of a devastating anti–­African American race riot in 1919, which resulted in many casualties. The Chicago Commission on Race Relations identified the stockyards district, located within Bridgeport, as the area with the highest number of injuries in the riot. The chronic racial confrontations between white and Black citizens in the following de­cades have kept the surrounding Black neighborhoods from expanding into Bridgeport.46 Bridgeport began experiencing a multiracial transformation in the 1980s, however, when an influx of immigrants from Asia and Latin Amer­i­ca caused an exodus of some of the white population along its eastern and northern borders. By

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2000, Asian Americans in Bridgeport accounted for 26 ­percent of the population, Latinos 30 ­percent, whites 41 ­percent, and Blacks 1 ­percent.47 The rapid increase of the Chinese population in Bridgeport began in the 1980s and 1990s, when a number of Chinese American developers started constructing town­houses that ­were marketed ­toward Chinese Americans and Chinese immigrants. The Chinese who purchased properties in Bridgeport did so ­because of its proximity to the core of South Chinatown. Gradually, block by block, the Chinese have taken over much of the neighborhood.48 While the presence of Chinese homeowners revitalized the area’s real estate market and increased property prices, tensions between Chinese Americans and the more established white residents also ­rose, and racial harassment of Asian Americans occurred. On November 3, 1999, two male Asian American teens w ­ ere physically assaulted by three male white teens. The white youths shouted racial slurs and beat the Asian teens.49 In the following year, a Chinese restaurant on South Halsted Street in Bridgeport was set on fire, resulting in the frightened owner moving his business to the suburbs.50 Bridgeport’s history of white racial vio­lence against Blacks has no doubt also affected its Chinese residents, and vio­lence against Chinese often paralleled that against Blacks. In 1998, an 18-­year-­old Chinese American was beaten by several white youths in Bridgeport. The assailants reportedly yelled, “I’ll beat you like a fucking n—­—. I hate n—­—­s and Chinamen” while beating the victim.51 In 2002, a Chinese high school student was walking on the border between Bridgeport and Chinatown, when a car drove by and three white teens inside yelled at him, “Hey, are you a n—­—­?” They then jumped out of the car and punched the Chinese youth in the eyes.52 This overlap of Chinese American and African American experiences, Shanshan Lan asserts, testifies to the “per­sis­tence of the Black/White binary and the die-­hard nature of anti-­Black racism in Bridgeport.”53 Lan further observes that new Chinese immigrants are more likely to remain invisible to mainstream American racial politics, as their racial experiences are often overshadowed by the public understanding that Blacks are the “default targets” for racism in the United States.54

Multiethnic North Chinatown Since 1975, when South Vietnam fell to the Communists, more than 2 million refugees fled Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, forming waves of refugees escaping the turmoil. The Indochinese refugee exodus was s­ haped by complex po­liti­cal and socioeconomic ­factors. The first wave of Viet­nam­ese refugees was primarily from an elite class, who fled the Communist takeover. They included army officers and their families, government bureaucrats, teachers, doctors, engineers, l­ awyers, students, businessmen, and Catholic priests and nuns. The l­ater flows consisted of masses from more modest backgrounds, many of whom ­were ethnic “overseas Chinese,” including farmers and fishermen fleeing continuing regional military conflicts and deteriorating economic conditions.55 The Viet­nam­ese elites and

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professionals w ­ ere soon joined and outnumbered by the masses of ­later refugees, who w ­ ere temporarily relocated to American bases in Guam and the Philippines ­under the emergency conditions a­ fter the fall of Saigon in 1975, before being transferred to the United States. As the Communist government consolidated its rule over South Vietnam, it discriminated heavi­ly against the ethnic “overseas Chinese” community, particularly in the Cholon district of Saigon (presently Ho Chi Minh City), ­because of their involvement in business and their historical overseas connections with China. In North Amer­i­ca, Chicago became one of the major points of settlement for Indochinese refugees. When the Viet­nam­ese refugees first set foot in Chicago in the mid-1970s, Chinatown, the traditional point of entry for new immigrants, was already overwhelmed by an influx of newcomers, mostly from Hong Kong since 1965, and was unable to provide adequate housing, social ser­v ices, or employment opportunities, thus forcing ­t hese new Southeast Asian refugees to look for alternative areas for settlement. They quickly found refuge in an emerging new Chinatown located on Argyle Street between Sheridan Road and Broadway, on Chicago’s North Side. This burgeoning new ethnic Chinese neighborhood traced its roots to the relocation of the headquarters of the Hip Sing Merchants’ Association from the remnants of an even older Chinese community just south of the downtown Loop area. In 1974 the federal government had acquired the Hip Sing property on Clark Street by eminent domain in order to construct a jail and a parking garage. With assistance from the Nationalist government in Taiwan, Hip Sing purchased several buildings along Argyle Street on the city’s North Side and made ambitious plans for a beautiful mall complete with fountains and pagodas.56 Although this new Chinatown in Argyle was less successful than the leaders of Hip Sing had envisioned, it did form the nexus of a new Chinese American community and thus attracted the ethnic Chinese and other refugees from Southeast Asia to s­ ettle ­there and revitalize the neighborhood. Hip Sing and the newly founded Chinese Mutual Ser­v ice Agency welcomed t­ hese newcomers and encouraged the further development of the area. The resident Chinese Americans and Southeast Asian refugees together transformed Argyle Street (figures 9.3–9.5) into a productive Asian business district, now referred to as North Chinatown. The elevated train stop at Argyle Street was especially designed with a Chinese-­style red and green roof and became a con­spic­u­ous symbol of this new North Chinatown, competing with the Chinese memorial arch over Went­worth Ave­nue at Cermak Road in the older South Chinatown. North Chinatown, however, was much smaller than and distinctively dif­fer­ent from its rival on the South Side. While the businesses in the older South Chinatown w ­ ere exclusively Chinese, serving local Chinese residents, non-­Chinese Chicagoans, and tourists, ­these North Chinatown businesses catered primarily to ethnic Chinese from Vietnam and other immigrants from Southeast Asia. The North Chinatown major thoroughfares of Argyle and Broadway Streets are lined with restaurants, grocery stores or mini-­supermarkets, gift stores, and jewelers, as

Figure 9.3. ​Argyle Street, North Chinatown, Chicago, 2008. Collection of the author.

Figure 9.4. ​Viet­nam­ese Chinese grocery store and restaurant on Argyle Street, North Chinatown, Chicago, 2008. Collection of the author.

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Figure 9.5. ​Menu from a Chinese takeout shop, Argyle Street, Chicago, 2008. The bilingual menu is easy for both Chinese and non-­Chinese customers to read. Collection of the author.

well as real estate offices, banks, accountants, and medical doctors, mostly catering to ethnic Chinese and o ­ thers from Indochina. Many grocery stores sell meats, vegetables, and cooking ingredients to the Chinese and Southeast Asian immigrant families living in the neighborhood, and most restaurants combine Chinese and Viet­nam­ese cuisines. According to a MapQuest search I conducted in 2009, among the more than twenty most popu­lar Viet­nam­ese restaurants in the Chicago metropolitan area, half ­were located in the Argyle area, including the Viet­nam­ese Thai Binh Restaurant at 1113 West Argyle Street, Pho Viet at 4941 North Broadway Street, Viet My at 1119 West Argyle Street, Dong Ky Chinese and Viet­nam­ese at 4877 North Broadway Street, Dong Thanh at 4925 North Broadway Street, the Pho Xe Tank Restaurant at 4953 North Broadway Street, the Hoang Café at 1010 West Argyle Street, the Anh-­Linh Restaurant at 1032 West Argyle Street, and the Hai Yen Restaurant at 1055 West Argyle Street. While most of t­ hese restaurants had modest decor, a few ­adopted a more modern design and interior decor, appealing to a broader-­based clientele. For example, Hai Yen Restaurant, one of the Viet­nam­ese restaurants with a fresh and sleek look, was ranked as the best new restaurant by Chicago Magazine in May 2001 and featured in the Chicago Tribune in November 2001.57 As many ethnic Chinese from Southeast Asia opened businesses on and near Argyle Street, they also purchased homes in the area. Residents of North Chinatown are more likely to be ethnic Chinese from Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and other

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South Asian countries, as exemplified by Du Huang, Jenny Ling, and Toung Ling. Du Huang was born in China in 1934. His f­ ather had had a tea import business in Vietnam, and a­ fter World War II his f­amily moved to Vietnam from China. Du Huang had five years of formal schooling in China and finished m ­ iddle school in Vietnam. ­A fter Vietnam fell to the Communists in 1975, Du Huang and his ­family fled in two small boats: he took some of his c­ hildren in one boat, and his wife took the rest of their c­ hildren in another. They all arrived on an island off Malaysia, where they lived in refugee camps, waiting for clearance and sponsorship in the United States. The Huang ­family fi­nally arrived in Los Angeles in 1977 and then moved to Chicago in 1978. While in Vietnam, Du Huang had owned a factory that made agricultural motors and engines; in Chicago he started a garment factory, among his other vari­ous businesses. Du Huang’s business success enabled him to emerge as a community leader. He founded the Chinese Mutual Aid Society in North Chinatown and remained very active in ethnic Chinese organ­izations, for which he received numerous awards from state and local governments.58 Jenny Ling was an ethnic Chinese born in Cambodia in 1963, and has three younger ­brothers. She started her schooling at age 6 or 7. Unfortunately, her ­father passed away when she was 8, and she had to live with an ­uncle. A ­ fter the Khmer Rouge took over the Cambodian government when she was 13, her f­ amily obtained passports to Laos and from t­ here moved to a refugee camp in Thailand, where she attended school and learned En­glish. Jenny Ling and her ­family fi­nally came to the United States in the late 1970s. In 1988 she moved to Chicago and attended Truman College near North Chinatown. She had worked as a hairstylist in North Chinatown since 1990.59 Toung Ling, another ethnic Chinese, was born in Cambodia in 1962. He escaped from Cambodia in 1982 and stayed in a refugee camp in Thailand with three friends for about a year. Then a cousin in Texas sponsored him to come to the United States, where he found his first job as a baker in a doughnut shop. He moved to Chicago in 1990, where he married Jenny Ling, whom he had known in Cambodia.60 Historically, the Uptown area where North Chinatown is now located has been a favored neighborhood for successive waves of mi­grants, including impoverished whites from the American South and ­later relocated Japa­nese Americans from the West Coast ­after World War II. The new influx of Southeast Asian refugees from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia redefined the area, making it an active multiethnic commercial and residential urban community.61

The Suburban Cultural Communities While new immigrants have revitalized or expanded the inner-­city Chinatowns, they have also accelerated the suburbanization of the Chinese population around the city of Chicago, mostly in surrounding Cook County and its suburbs. In 1980, ­there w ­ ere 721 Chinese residents recorded in Skokie Village, north of Chicago. Nine other cities, towns, and villages in Cook County each had 100 or more Chinese residents. By 1990, twenty-­one cities, towns, and villages in Cook County had a

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sizable Chinese population. The western suburb of Naperville in nearby DuPage County had over 1,000 Chinese residents. Together ­t here w ­ ere 20,700 Chinese living in the suburbs, nearly half of the Chinese population reported by the 1990 census.62 According to the 2000 census, the Chinese American population in Illinois increased by 54 ­percent, rising from 28,597 in 1980 and 49,936 in 1990 to 76,725 in 2000. At that time, the largest number of Chinese Americans, or 48,058, resided in Cook County, representing 0.9 ­percent of the county’s population.63 This trend continued in 2010.64 Occupationally, most of the Chinese American suburbanites are American-­ educated professionals from Taiwan and mainland China employed by the area’s high-­tech industries and research institutions, such as Argonne National Laboratory, Fermilab, Abbott Laboratories, Motorola, the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois at Chicago, Northwestern University, the Illinois Institute of Technology, and many other such research institutions, universities, and colleges located in the western, northwestern, and northern suburbs surrounding Chicago. Their stable income, ­human capital, and class resources afford them the lifestyle linked to suburban communities. Gravitating t­ oward new housing developments, better school systems, and newly emerging ethnic supermarkets and ser­vices, Chinese American suburbanites readily blend into the dominant American suburban culture. They are content with their suburban living conditions and rarely depend on the traditional Chinatown for employment, ser­v ices, or entertainment, except for sporadic visits on special occasions. As the Chinese American suburban population climbed, ethnic shops and supermarkets sprang up in or around ­t hese population centers to serve its needs. The most illuminating example is the DiHo Supermarket complex in the suburb of Westmont, which attracts a large number of Chinese American residents from nearby areas. Owing to their occupational and residential patterns, t­ hese suburban Chinese Americans form sharply dif­fer­ent communities from ­t hose of their counter­parts in the South and North Chinatowns in the city. While they are dispersed in their mainstream workplaces and dwell in predominantly white suburban neighborhoods, they congregate during weekends and holidays in Chinese-­language schools, in churches, or at Chinese social gatherings. In my ­earlier book Chinese St. Louis: From Enclave to Cultural Community on the Chinese community in St. Louis, as well as in chapter 8, I defined such a fluid and flexible community structure as a cultural community.65 The suburban Chinese American communities in Chicagoland, as the greater metropolitan Chicago area is locally known, are amazingly akin to their counter­ parts in St. Louis. The members of ­t hese communities work largely in American companies and reside in dispersed suburban neighborhoods. They sporadically visit the inner-­city Chinatowns only to dine or to shop for ethnic foods, even when the latter needs can be sufficiently met by the large suburban Asian supermarkets such as the DiHo in suburban Westmont. Chicago-­based historian Ling Z. Arenson, in her study on the post-1945 Chinese American communities in Chicago,

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observes the detachment of Chinese American suburbanites from the urban Chinatowns and notes that most suburban Chinese Americans “rarely participate in the social structure of the two Chinatowns.” 66 While maintaining their distance from the inner-­city Chinatowns, Chinese American suburbanites frequently congregate in cultural and social activities among themselves. The Chinese-­language and heritage schools serve as fundamental community structures among the Chinese American suburban population. Although mostly well-­educated biculturally and bilingually, having higher educational degrees from both their homeland and the host country, and speaking En­glish fluently at work and Mandarin or Taiwanese at home, they are e­ ager to have their ­children preserve their Chinese linguistic and cultural heritage. This strong desire for linguistic and cultural preservation motivates them to form weekend Chinese-­language schools, which usually offer classes on Saturdays. In 1971, Chinese American professionals from Taiwan founded the Cooperative Chinese Language School in the western suburbs. While the ­earlier Chinese American suburbanites from Taiwan formed Chinese-­language schools that taught the “classic” or old-­style Chinese characters, schools founded by the newer residents from mainland China, such as the Xilin Association of Chinese Schools, founded in 1989, which operates seven affiliated schools throughout Chicago’s suburbs, teach the new standard “simplified” Chinese characters that have been used in the PRC since 1954.67 The 1998–1999 Chicago Chinese Yellow Pages listed thirty-­five Chinese-­ language schools, among which eight ­were in South Chinatown, one in North Chinatown, and twenty-­one in the Chicagoland suburbs, not counting the seven Xilin schools.68

Tripartite Division The development of separate Chinese communities within greater South Chinatown (including adjacent Bridgeport), North Chinatown on Argyle, and the cultural communities in the northern and western suburbs may be termed a “tripartite division” (map 9.1).69 Indeed, the con­temporary Chinese in Chicagoland are divided not only by geographic locations but more profoundly by their diverse orientations in homeland and host country politics, educational levels, professional training, language, and birth origins. While the traditional divisions in Chinatown ­were by and large along patrilineal and patrilocal lines, in recent de­cades the Chinese communities in Chicagoland, like their counter­parts across the country, have been affected by politics both in the homeland and in the United States. Traditional Chinatown organ­izations such as the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA), the On Leong, the Hip Sing, and f­amily associations had long been fervent supporters of President Sun Yat-­sen and his Nationalist Party, and they remained pro-­Nationalist ­after the party’s defeat by the Communists and their retreat to the island of Taiwan in 1949. In the 1950s, with the “Red Scare” of McCarthyism, many Chinese in Chicago declared that they had no connection with the Communist Party in China.70

Map 9.1. ​Chinese American communities in Chicago, with the South Chinatown, North Chinatown, and the suburban ethnic areas forming a triangular community. Prepared by Winston Vanderhoof, Truman State University Publications.

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This staunch anti-­Communist stance was reinforced by new immigrants from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the non-­Communist Southeast Asian countries. However, the Nixon administration’s reconciliation with the PRC in 1972, followed by the establishment of formal diplomatic relations between the two counties in 1979, caused new po­liti­cal divides among the Chinese communities across geographic bound­aries. Chinese from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asian countries ­were mostly pro-­Taiwan, while many Chinese from the PRC supported the Communist government in China. As noted ­earlier, most residents in the suburban Chinese cultural communities ­were American-­educated professionals from Taiwan and the PRC. While the members of the two groups mingle and collaborate at work and may even form individual friendships, as groups they form their separate Chinese-­ language schools and community organ­izations. In addition to the major divide of pro-­Taiwan versus pro-­PRC, ­there are further subdivisions. For instance, among immigrants from Taiwan, tensions between ­t hose who support the Nationalist Party (mostly ­those who fled with Chiang Kai-­shek’s forces to Taiwan in 1949) versus ­those who support the native Taiwanese Demo­cratic Progressive Party are almost as high as ­those of the major divide, especially during election years in Taiwan. Ling Arenson’s work well documents t­hose complex divides between mainland Chinese and Taiwanese in the United States.71 John Rohsenow, a linguist, has scrupulously analyzed language use in Chicago’s three dif­fer­ent Chinese-­speaking communities, which correlate with historical and con­temporary sociopo­liti­cal forces. Historically, the majority of the immigrants in Chicago’s South Chinatown consisted of rural and urban working-­ class Cantonese speakers from southern China, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia. They ­were largely less educated than the l­ater and suburban-­bound immigrants from Taiwan and China. In 1980, the median number of years of schooling completed among ­those aged 25 or older in South Chinatown was 10.4 years, while their counter­parts in Cook County had 12.46 years of schooling. As a result, 92 ­percent of the South Chinatown residents spoke Chinese (mostly Cantonese) only. In 1990, more than 60 ­percent of the Chinese in the South Chinatown area did not speak En­glish very well.72 In addition, a­ fter the 1970s, b ­ ecause of increased immigration from Hong Kong and other parts of south China and Southeast Asia, the “Chinatown lingua franca” shifted from the rural Taishan dialect of Cantonese to the more standard Guangzhou City Cantonese.73 In North Chinatown, most of the ethnic Chinese refugees from Indochina ­were originally from coastal Fujian, the province that historically had dispatched its residents to Southeast Asia (popularly known among Chinese as Nanyang), who brought their Fujianese dialect with them but also learned Cantonese and Mandarin to conduct businesses.74 Immigrants from Taiwan and mainland China ­were mostly students-­turned-­professionals who all speak Mandarin, although with dif­fer­ent ac­ cents, depending on their province of origin. They came to Chicago for postgraduate education in area universities and colleges. Upon completing degrees mostly in engineering, computer science, or accounting from the University of Chicago, North-

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western University, the University of Illinois at Chicago, the Illinois Institute of Technology, or other area universities, they joined the high-­tech companies in the suburbs. On campus they had formed their own separate student organ­izations, and such social separation tended to continue ­after their graduation.75 ­These linguistic differences correlate with the class distinctions among the Chinese. While the well-­educated professionals are employed in mainstream U.S. high-­tech companies or in the health care industry, earning stable incomes and living in new developments, including ones with million-­dollar luxury homes, the residents of South Chinatown and North Chinatown are concentrated in low-­skill jobs mostly within the ethnic businesses of grocery stores, restaurants, noodle factories, or the like, earning minimum wage and residing in substandard housing. This socioeconomic polarization consequently results in social distancing between the two groups.76

Converging as Chinese Chicagoans Although Chicagoland Chinese Americans are divided by their differences in politics, socioeconomic status, linguistics, and birth origins, they also realize that their well-­being and a better f­uture depend on ethnic solidarity. In recent de­cades, they have made concerted efforts to rise above their intergroup differences and have focused more on ­those common issues affecting the Chinese communities the most such as housing shortages, employment training, English-­language proficiency, el­derly assistance, youth development, preservation of their ethnic heritage, and protection of civil rights. To better serve t­ hese needs, they have formed cross-­cultural, po­liti­ cal, and social organ­izations to provide social ser­vices and have worked side by side with other Asian ethnic groups, and with Euro-­American citizens as well. In comparison to the previous power structure of the old Chinatown-­based community organ­izations such as the CCBA, On Leong, Hip Sing, and vari­ous ­family associations, ­t hese new community organ­izations share a number of features that distinguish them from the older ones. The prominent new community organ­izations are more akin to the ser­v ice organ­izations or agencies in the larger society. While decision-­making rests with boards of governors, consisting largely of successful professionals and business leaders from vari­ous subcommunity organ­izations or business corporations, social ser­vices are executed by professionals and paid staff members. They garner revenues primarily from governmental funding and donations from private and corporate sources. Their social ser­v ices also reach out to a broader range of constituencies. Among ­t hese social ser­v ice organ­izations, the Chinese American Ser­vice League and the Chinese Mutual Aid Association provide exemplary cases in point.

The Chinese American Ser­vice League In 1978, a group of Chinese Americans gathered for a potluck dinner at which they discussed the needs of the Chinese community for English-­language assistance, refugee settlement assistance, and help with applications for Social Security

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benefits and de­cided to form the Chinese American Ser­vice League. The initial reaction within the community was mixed, as the values and concepts of social ser­ vice agencies ­were culturally unfamiliar to most Chinese residents, and Chinese traditionally have shunned assistance from outside their own groups for resolving personal prob­lems. By 1980, CASL had become a permanent member of Chicago’s United Way and thus attracted groups from outside of Chinatown to join its efforts. The enlarged CASL added more programs: a core ser­vice program and an employment and training ser­vice. By 1983, CASL had grown into an agency with seventeen staff members, and its 700-­square-­foot office at 219 West Cermak Road had become too small. By May  1985, ­a fter an unpre­ce­dented capital campaign that brought visibility, recognition, and support from diverse constituencies of the  community, CASL began operating in a new, renovated 10,000-­square-­foot fa­cil­i­ty, formerly a truck ware­house, at 310 West Twenty-­Fourth Place. In this new home, CASL was able to provide more ser­v ices. Soon a multilingual and multicultural day care center was established. A chef training and baking program was also added to the list of ser­v ices. CASL formed its neighborhood development and community-­organizing program to respond to issues that affected the Chinese community citywide. L ­ ater, after-­school programming, youth outreach programming, and academic tutoring and youth mentoring came into operation. What had initially seemed an enormous building became crowded, and CASL launched its second fund­rais­ing campaign and added a 9,000-­square-­foot fa­cil­i­ty—­the C ­ hildren and Youth Center—on nearby Canal Street. By 1995, a small, one-­story building at 306 West Twenty-­Fourth Place was added to ­house the expanding El­derly Ser­v ice Department. Between 1996 and 2004, with the arrival of more and newer immigrants, additional new programs ­were created to meet the ever-­growing needs. An innovative adult day care program was added, necessitating the acquisition of new facilities at 300 and 302 West Twenty-­Fourth Place, and CASL also began to operate a fleet of vehicles to transport clients and ­t hose participating in the youth and ­family programs. In 1998, CASL opened a ninety-­one-­ unit residential fa­cil­i­t y for el­derly Chinese. This rapid expansion again required CASL to look for a new fa­cil­i­t y, where it could combine its disparate sites into a single unit. In the fall of 2002, CASL broke ground for its new community ser­v ice center at 2141 South Tan Court. By 2004, the new building was completed and occupied, ushering in a new era in CASL’s history. Correspondingly, the financial capacity of the agency had grown exponentially throughout t­hese de­cades. In 1985, CASL operated with a bud­get of less than $300,000. A de­cade ­later, the 1995 fiscal year saw CASL’s bud­get at more than $2.5 million. In 2010, its bud­get soared to $10.3 million, and it hired over 300 multilingual and multicultural professionals and supporting staff members. Its programs in child education and development, employment ser­v ices, counseling, and social ser­v ice reached more than 17,000 clients annually, most of whom lived primarily in surrounding South Chinatown, Armour Square, and Bridgeport. Additional clients from across Chicago, neighboring suburban communities, and adjacent midwestern states also utilized CASL’s ser­v ices.77

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As a nonprofit agency, CASL acquires its support mostly from government funding and middle-­class Chinese Americans. About 70 ­percent of its bud­get comes from government funding, and the remaining 30 ­percent has to be raised by the agency itself from private foundations, corporate contributions, and individual donations.78

The Chinese Mutual Aid Association The Chinese Mutual Aid Association (CMAA) also began as a volunteer group serving ethnic Chinese immigrants from Southeast Asia in the late 1970s. In 1981, it was formally incorporated as a nonprofit social ser­v ice agency with government funding and was located at 1016 West Argyle Street, the heart of the city’s North Chinatown. With a mission to serve the needs, promote the interests, and enhance the well-­being of Chinese and other immigrants and refugees in Chicago, and to foster their participation in American society, CMAA has also garnered funding from state and local governments, foundations, corporations, and private individuals. With generous financial support, it has evolved into a vibrant and multifaceted social ser­v ice agency. In 2009, it hired nearly forty full-­t ime multilingual administrators, professionals, and staff members to work in its vari­ous departments: education and workforce development, computer and information technology, citizenship and immigration, social ser­v ices, youth, and a multicultural youth proj­ect. Many of CMAA’s programs serve the basic needs of new immigrants for En­glish education, job training, and citizenship assistance. Its literacy programs, which are designed to help new immigrants improve communication, gain better employment, understand American culture, and prepare for U.S. citizenship, include classes in En­g lish as a second language, one-­on-­one tutoring, and the Families Learning Together curriculum, where ­mothers could bring their young ­children with them. By fiscal year 2001, t­ hese programs served nearly 500 clients. Although it continued to focus on the most urgent survival needs of immigrant and refugee Chinese, the agency has broadened its initial visions by expanding the scope of its ser­v ices and the diversity of its clients. Recognizing the higher rate of depression and health care needs among the aging parents of suburban middle-­ class Chinese Americans, CMAA also established an office in suburban Westmont near the DiHo Supermarket complex to provide medical workshops, transportation to and from medical facilities, and En­glish and citizenship classes.79 CMAA’s Multicultural Youth Proj­ect (MCYP) cooperates with five other North Side agencies: the Bosnian-­Herzegovinian American Community Center, the Cambodian Association of Illinois, Centro Romero, the Ethiopian Community Association of Chicago, and the Viet­nam­ese Association of Illinois. The presence and collaboration with so many cultural groups in the Uptown area around North Chinatown created the opportunity to build a strong and diverse community organ­ization. The youth proj­ect brought together young ­people from dif­fer­ent backgrounds for fun, friendship, dialogue, skill building, team building, ser­v ice, and community activism. Interaction between youths from the six partner agencies occurs during

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events and activities such as sports leagues, outings, camp retreats, workshops, training, community cele­brations, and cultural exchanges. In 2002, MCYP directly served 295 youths, whose ages ranged between 10 and 18. In 2009, its diverse programs served more than 13,000 p ­ eople in the Chicago metropolitan area.80 In addition, CMAA has excelled in promoting interethnic harmony and collaboration with other Chinese community organ­izations and other ethnic agencies. It has developed a close partnership with its s­ ister agency, CASL, as well as with such traditional community organ­izations as the CCBA and with other Southeast Asian immigrant community organ­izations such as the Viet­nam­ese Association of Illinois and the Lao American Community Ser­v ices to provide social ser­v ices in twenty dif­fer­ent dialects and languages to the diverse immigrant families in north side Uptown.81 CMAA’s multicultural programs provide excellent examples of ethnic harmony in crowded urban ethnic communities. This sharply contrasts with such unfortunate racial and ethnic conflicts as the racial riots involving Korean Americans and African Americans in Los Angeles’ Korea­town in 1992 and ­later ethnic tensions between the Korean American and Bangladeshi American residents in Los Angeles in April 2009 in the controversy over the naming of the area as Korea­town or ­Little Bangladesh.82 Both CASL and CMAA serve as examples of social ser­v ice organ­izations that help transform new immigrants into American citizens and promote ethnic harmony and cohesion while maintaining ethnic heritage. Other prominent community organ­izations also work in collaboration to promote the Chinese American economy and culture. The CCCC, formed in 1983, focuses on the business development of South Chinatown. With a mission to improve and expand business opportunities and to educate ­others on the history, culture, and customs of the Chinese American community, the CCCC aims to increase revenue streams for local businesses by making Chinatown a major destination for visitors to the Midwest, the state of Illinois, and the city of Chicago. Its board of directors gathers business leaders from banks, real estate and insurance offices, travel agencies, law firms, food factories, and restaurants. The CCCC’s ser­v ices focus on promoting and marketing Chinatown, community beautification, and business and development assistance to its members and community businesses. Working in conjunction with city hall and other organ­ izations, the CCCC successfully promotes the businesses in Chinatown; it holds educational workshops, classes on sanitation, and a Chinatown luncheon series. It promotes partnerships with the local police district and with other Asian American organ­izations. It created landscaped entrances along the nearby expressway ramps and maintains beautification proj­ects throughout Chinatown. It also provides ­free summer shut­t le ser­v ice and concierge programs at local ­hotels to attract tourists. Its colorful tourist brochure highlights Chinatown’s businesses and attractions, with beautiful snapshots that depict the community’s cultural activities. To preserve cultural heritage and promote tourism, it sponsors popu­lar annual cultural events such as the Chinese Lunar New Year’s Parade in January or February, Asian American Heritage Month in May, the Chinatown Summer Fair and Dragon

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Boat Race, the LaSalle Bank’s Chinatown Marathon in October, and the Miss Friendship Ambassadors of Chinatown Pageant in November.83 This combination of ethnic-­flavored tourism and business development follows similar new trends in the larger Chinese ethnic communities on the East and West Coasts. In addition to promoting tourism and business to outsiders, the activities or­ga­ nized by the CCCC reinforce a common ethnic identity of Chinese Chicagoans among the diverse groups of Chinese Americans in the metropolitan area. For instance, the top finalists of the 2010 Miss Friendship Ambassador contest included young Chinese American w ­ omen of varying ethnic backgrounds. Jessica Lin, winner of the Miss Friendship Ambassador contest in 2010, and Christine Trinh, first runner-up in the 2011 contest, ­were descendants of Taiwanese Chinese and Viet­ nam­ese Chinese, respectively.84 The Chinese American Museum of Chicago (CAMOC) is another unique community organ­ization that strives to promote the cultural and historical heritage of Chinese Americans in Chicago. The museum is governed by the board of directors of the Chinatown Museum Foundation, founded in February 2002 by a group of area businessmen, professionals, and individuals who w ­ ere interested in the research, education, and promotion of Chinese American heritage in the midwestern United States. Since the foundation’s conception and incorporation as a tax-­ free cultural institution, the members of the foundation, many of whom are retirees, have tirelessly collected rare historical photo­graphs and artifacts, interviewed residents of the Chinese American communities, and or­ga­nized two annual exhibits each year beginning in 2005, when the museum at 238 West Twenty-­Third Street in the heart of South Chinatown was opened to the public. The CAMOC was inspired by the Ling Long Museum in Chicago, reportedly the first museum in the United States operated by Chinese immigrants. Founded in 1933 on Went­worth Ave­nue in response to the ­Century of Pro­gress Exposition, the Ling Long Museum displayed twenty-­four dioramas of Chinese historical stories and other statues designed by a San Francisco–­based Chinese artist and made in Foshan, Guangdong, along with a painting of the Buddhist goddess Guangyin. The museum closed in the 1970s and then the interior became a restaurant.85 Although the pre­sent CAMOC has been operating successfully, a fire occurred on September 19, 2008, that destroyed much of its permanent collection. Twenty-­t hree historic dioramas, antique embroidered wall hangings, and a Peking Opera costume w ­ ere lost in the blaze. Saddened and devastated by the fire and the loss of ­t hese valuable materials, the surrounding community rallied to assist the members of the Chinatown Museum Foundation in restoring and rebuilding the museum, which reopened on September 25, 2010 (figures 9.6 and 9.7).86 In addition to such community-­focused orga­nizational efforts, many community volunteers also work across ethnic and cultural lines. For example, Howard Chun, the retired military officer and engineer mentioned ­earlier in this chapter, since 1990 had volunteered for the Chicago branch of the Korean American Community Ser­v ice, where he offered private tutoring in computer skills to el­derly Korean immigrants. His wife, Grace Chun, had been a longtime supporter of

Figure 9.6. ​Asian American community leaders from diverse ethnic groups, Chicago, 2008. Collection of the author.

Figure 9.7. ​Dinner hosted by the board members of the Chinese American Museum of Chicago, 2008. The author is in the front row, third from the left. Collection of the author.

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Boundless Readers: The Fund to Make Reading a Part of C ­ hildren’s Lives, a literacy group that provides books to classrooms and libraries throughout the Chicago area.87

Conclusion Chinese Chicagoans have found answers to the challenge posed by the ever-­growing diversity of ethnic communities. They have made concerted efforts to form more inclusive and broad community ser­vice organ­izations that attempt to cover a cross-­ region, cross-­culture, and cross-­ethnicity clientele. To increase their capacity to serve this broader clientele, they have largely relied on funds from government, private agencies, and individual donations and have hired professional staff members to operate ­these ambitious and complex ser­v ice programs. However, melding a large ethnic community with geographic, cultural, and occupational differences is a difficult task, requiring the understanding and cooperation of all ­these concerned groups, a goal that Chinese Chicagoans are still striving to achieve. At the same time, their successes in the United States have allowed them to join with other overseas Chinese to celebrate and support their connections with native places in China.

chapter 10

•

Conclusion convergences and divergences

During the research, writing, and dissemination of my studies on Chinese Americans in the heartland, I have frequently encountered questions from my readers and my lecture audiences, asking me about the similarities and differences between Chinese Americans in the heartland and on the coasts. I am still searching for answers, as the field and the research by nature are a dynamic and ever-­changing endeavor. ­Here, I w ­ ill share what I have gathered thus far in terms of the convergences and divergences between Chinese Americans in the heartland and their counter­parts on the coasts. In this comparative and comprehensive, internal as well as transnational migration study, I have investigated the following significant markers of migration, from both internal and international/transnational perspectives: (1) locality of the migration/immigration destination, (2) demographic composition of the migrants/ immigrants, (3) socioeconomic structure and activities of the migrants/immigrants, (4) connectedness of Chinese Americans in the heartland and on the coasts, and (5) the interactions of Chinese Americans and the local society. Locality. Accessibility is a primary f­actor that draws migrants/remigrants to the destination of their migration. The e­ arlier Chinese settlements or Chinatowns emerged in the entry or port cities such as San Francisco and New York, where Chinese immigrants first landed when entering the United States. Similarly, the major Chinese American settlements or Chinatowns in the heartland are also located at the hinterland port cities such as Chicago and St. Louis. Chicago, as a hub of land, w ­ ater, rail, and air transportation, connects the East Coast and the West Coast, industry and agriculture, and urban and rural Amer­i­ca. St. Louis, at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers links the North and the South waterway transportation, as well as the nation’s land, rail, and air communications. This is the first commonality of the Chinese American communities on the coasts and in the heartland. At the same time, the dif­fer­ent destination sites have resulted in divergence in terms of the nature of migration. While the coastal entry cities/sites are the desti192

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nations for immigrants who enter the United States from a foreign country or region, the heartland entry cities/sites more likely served as destinations for internal or regional migration. Demographic composition. In this pa­ram­e­ter, the demographic landscapes on the coasts and in the heartland tend to diverge. In the larger Chinatowns on the coasts, the ethnic populations are more likely working-­class and less-­educated individuals (60 ­percent), whereas in the major Chinese American communities in the heartland, the ethnic residents tend to be better-­educated professionals and self-­ employed small business ­owners (80 ­percent). In both Chicago and St. Louis, as well as in smaller rural communities in the heartland, Chinese Americans are more likely to be professionals or small business o ­ wners, as indicated in the chapters of this book. Socioeconomic structure and activities. In this regard, it is necessary to examine the coastal and the heartland Chinese American communities chronologically, with the 1960s as an approximate watershed as immigration reforms of 1965 brought the subsequent Asian population influx to the country, at the same time the civil rights movement prompted American society’s greater ac­cep­tance of cultural and ethnic diversity. While the pre-1960 Chinatowns mostly functioned as dual commercial and residential districts, the post-1960 Chinese American communities have manifested in more diverse settlement models of suburban Chinatown, global city, or ethnoburb on the coasts, and cultural community (St. Louis) or tripartite communities (Chicago) in the heartland.1 Within the ethnic businesses, however, the business structure and operation in the coastal and heartland communities are consistent with one another. From accumulation of venture capital to business operations and recruitment of employees, the internal/transregional/transnational networks are essential, as illustrated in chapters 2 and 3 of the volume. Connectedness. The connectedness between Chinese Americans in the heartland and on the coasts has prompted that the former share many similarities as well as the differences with the latter. In terms of similarities, both enjoy the common occupational characteristics in the small business operation’s dependence on ethnic internal/transnational networks for capital accumulation, procurement of supplies, and employment. At the same time, the connectedness does not affect the small businesses’ dependence on the general population in the heartland. This separation of ethnic business orga­nizational structure and business clientele dictates the dispersion of ethnic businesses and thus the absence of a geographic Chinatown in St. Louis. Interactions between the host society and the newcomers. The extent of a host society’s rejection or ac­cep­tance of ethnic newcomers has been a determining f­ actor for Chinese Americans’ settlement in the heartland. For the older Chinese immigrants in Chicago and St. Louis, the “more friendliness” as reported by Moy Tong Chow in Chicago in the 1870s and the “curiosity” displayed by St. Louisans in the 1860s, rather than the hostility and expulsion Chinese experienced on the West Coast since the 1870s, made them feel safer and less frightened in t­ hose heartland locales, and very likely in the other communities of the region.

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In more recent de­cades, the divergence of the community models between Chicago and St.  Louis also demonstrates the importance of more supportive municipal policies that would e­ ither encourage or discourage the formation and development of the urban Chinatown. In Chicago, South Chinatown not only survived the myriad challenges facing the community but also expanded from its original site to encompass the old Santa Fe Railroad rail yards and the adjacent Bridgeton community. The expanded and rejuvenated South Chinatown therefore became a more significant commercial, cultural, and social center for Chinese Americans in Greater Chicago, as well as the largest Chinatown in the heartland and the third-­largest one in the country. St.  Louis’s Chinatown, or Hop Alley, on the contrary, could not survive, let alone expand, due to repeated urban renewal proj­ects or gentrification initiated by the city government. This socioeconomic climate has therefore resulted in the formation of a cultural community, a community without identifiable geographic bound­aries yet with vis­i­ble and flexible social bound­aries of Chinese religious institutions, language schools, professional and community organ­izations, and the vari­ous and dynamic cultural activities sponsored by ­t hese agencies. In summary, most Chinese/Asian Americans in the heartland agree that the greater local ac­cep­tance, the cheaper cost of living, especially for real estate, and the better socioeconomic integration of Chinese/Asian Americans within the mainstream society are the major attractions of the Midwest. The Chinese/Asian American population shift from the more crowded, diverse, and expensive coastal communities to t­ hose in the heartland therefore is a deliberate, logical, and natu­ ral h ­ uman choice.

Acknowl­edgments

The idea of writing a book on Chinese Americans in the heartland emerged more than thirty years ago, when I encountered Paul C. P. Siu’s The Chinese Laundryman while working on my doctoral dissertation. At the time that I was writing Chinese St. Louis: From Enclave to Cultural Community, published in 2004, I felt that a comprehensive volume on Chinese in Chicago and St. Louis would be very helpful in advancing the importance of Chinese communities in the Midwest. Research and data collection for this proj­ect have taken me to archives, libraries, museums, and community sites on both sides of the transnational migration. During this long journey, in both time and distance, many individuals and institutions have provided me with invaluable assistance and support. Without their generous help, this book could not have been completed in its current form. Jinan University in Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province, China, where I have been an adjunct professor for the Institute of Overseas Chinese Studies since 2007, facilitated my field trip to qiaoxiang, the ancestral villages of overseas Chinese, in Taishan, Guangdong. Colleagues and gradu­ate students from Jinan University, especially ­t hose from the Institute of Overseas Chinese Studies, inspired me with their intellectual energy and ingenuity. My gratitude first goes to Professors Gao Weinong and Chao Longqi of the institute for their hospitality, assistance in my fieldwork, and generosity in sharing sources and research outcomes with me. Mr. Huang Deyi, director of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of Duanfen Town, guided my trip to the qiaoxiang of Duanfen and informed me about many families originating from Duanfen. Mr. Wang Minghui, division chief of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the ­People’s Government of Guangdong Province, and Mr. Guan Xinqiang, vice-­chairman of the Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese of Taishan City, provided invaluable assistance to my research. My deep gratitude also goes to Mr. Weng Songping and his ­family, Mrs. Mei Yuqing and her f­ amily, and to other local residents for welcoming me into their homes for interviews. I am also very thankful to the late Professor Mei Weiqiang of Wuyi University in Jiangmen City, Guangdong, who compiled the most recent Meishi Zongqin 195

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Zupu [The Moy ­family genealogy] and whose scholarship has been invaluable to this book. I am very thankful to the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council of the P ­ eople’s Republic of China, the All-­China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese, the Chinese Institute for Overseas Chinese History Studies, the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of Guangdong P ­ eople’s Government, the Overseas Exchange Association of Guangdong Province, and the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the Fujian P ­ eople’s Government for providing assistance to my research and conference trips in China. I am indebted to my colleagues and friends in the field of Asian American Studies in the United States and Canada, who have encouraged me on this proj­ect, commented on parts or the entirety of the manuscript, and offered steadfast support: Ling Z. Arenson, Kendra Boileau, Shehong Chen, Yong Chen, Roger Daniels, Madeline Y. Hsu, John Jung (deceased), Peter S. Li, Wei Li, Jinqi Ling, Haiming Liu, Lisa Mar, Adam McKeown (deceased), Soon Keong Ong, George Anthony Peffer, Barbara Posadas, Yuan Shu, John Kuo Wei Tchen, Zuoyue Wang, Fenggong Yang, Phillip Q. Yang, Xiaohuang Yin, Henry Yu, Renqiu Yu, Xiaojian Zhao, Da Zheng, Min Zhou, and Li Zong. I am most thankful to the following individuals in Chicago: Delilah Lee Chan, Ian Roo­se­velt Chin, Joe Chiu, Grace Chun, Howard Chun, Eugene Kung, Ruth Kung, Margaret Larson, David  K. Lee, Soo Lon Moy, Tom O’Connell, John  S. Rohsenow, Andrea Stamm, Loong-­yan Wong, and Judy Zhu, all volunteers of the Chinese American Museum of Chicago (CAMOC), for their friendship and hard work preserving the Chinese American heritage in Chicago; Si Chen, branch man­ ag­er of the Chicago Public Library Chinatown Branch, for assisting my research; and Esther Wong of the Chinese American Ser­vice League, Steve Brunton of the Chinese Mutual Aid Association, Leonard M. Louie of the Chinese American Civic Council, and Run-­Hao Hu of the Southeast Asian Center for providing information about their organ­izations. The following individuals have generously shared their ­ nder my supervision; their names are life histories with me (or with my students u followed by an asterisk): from Chicago, Dhru Boddupalli,* Grace Chun, Howard Chun, K.  B. Dheerendra,* Eugene Kung, Ruth Kung, David  K. Lee, Tammy Sun Spencer, Wong Xiaoyu, Bill Yoshino,* and Ling Zhang, and from St. Louis, Richard Ho, Don Ko, Annie Leong, Chung Kok Li, and Rachel Wang. I have also benefited from interviews with the following individuals, which w ­ ere conducted by members of the CAMOC: Celia Cheung, Catherine Wong Chin, Ian Roo­se­velt Chin, Herman Chiu, Corwin Eng, Susanna Fong, Doc Huang, Yolanda Lee, Jenny Ling, Toung Ling, Cho Tuk Lo, Rich Lo, Ben Moy, Dato’ Seri Stanley Thai, Charles W. Tun, Lorrain Moy Tun, Harry Wu, and Henry Yee. I also want to thank Ruth Kung for sharing her interview of Lorraine Moy Tun, and John Jung for introducing me to the CAMOC and for sharing his life history and writings on Chinese Americans. Without ­these individuals’ participation, this book could not be completed. I am grateful to the staff members and officers of the following institutions and organ­izations: the Asian ­Human Ser­vices Chinatown Office, Chaozhou Tongxiang

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Hui, the Chicago chapter of the Organ­ization of Chinese Americans, the Chicago Chinatown Chamber of Commerce, the Chicago Chinese American Historical Society, the Chicago History Museum, the Chicago Public Library Chinatown branch, the Chicago North Chinese School, the Chinese American Cultural Center, the Chinese American Museum of Chicago, the Chinese American Ser­ vice League, the Chinese Christian Union Church, the Chinese Community Center, the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, the Chinese Language School, the Chinese Mutual Aid Association, the Hip Sing Association, the Hong Men Zhigong Tang, the International Overseas Chinese Association (Chicago branch), the Lee ­Family Association, the Longgang Qinyi Gongsuo, Mercy Medical in Chinatown, Mount Auburn Cemetery, the Moy ­Family Association, the National Archives and Rec­ords Administration–­Great Lakes Region (Chicago), the Newberry Library, the On Leong Merchants and Laborers Association, Pacific Global Bank, Pui Tak Center, Pui Tak Christian School, the Rosehill Cemetery, the Special Collection of the Joseph Regenstein Library at the University of Chicago, and the St. Therese Catholic Chinese School. The following Chinese American or Asian American businesses have also provided assistance to the proj­ect: Anh Linh Restaurant, Argyle Medical Center, Chinatown Smoke Shop, Chiu Quon Restaurant and Bakery, C. P. Louie Travel, Dûc Hûng Video, Fat Lee Grocery, Heng Heng Jewelry, Hon Kee Restaurant, House of Fortune Restaurant, Kim Hing Jewelry, Oriental Gifts and Food, Pacific Realty, Inc., Speed Kleen Laundromat, Thai Grocery, Three Happiness Restaurant, Tiên Giang Restaurant, and Viêt Hoa Oriental Grocery Store. My gratitude also goes to the many Chinese Americans in St. Louis. From the inception of the idea to the completion of the proj­ect, they have enthusiastically supported me in e­ very way pos­si­ble. The two Chinese-­language newspapers, the St. Louis Chinese American News and the St. Louis Chinese Journal, kindly supplied me with the weekly issues in the past years. While hundreds of Chinese St. Louisans provided useful information on the subject, over sixty individuals ­ ouses, businesses, and offices to me, conwarmly and generously opened their h tributing time and life experience to the proj­ect. I give my heartfelt thanks to Lillie Hong (deceased), Ann Ko, Don Ko, and Annie Leong (deceased), former residents of Hop Alley, without whose participation the proj­ect would not have been completed; to Richard Ho, an old-­timer of the St. Louis Chinatown but also an out-­of-­towner, who sought me out a­ fter reading the newsletter of the Chinese Historical Society of Amer­i­ca that listed this proj­ect as a news item and corresponded with me through mails despite suffering from vari­ous physical ailments; and to Hong Sit, another former Hop Alley resident now residing in Houston, Texas, who generously offered his life history and a published autobiography. I am particularly grateful to Doris Bounds, Haiyan Cai, Kin Cai, James Chi, Patti Chi, Edwin Chiu, Jean Chiu, Mi Chou, Miller Chow, Anna Crosslin, Ngoc Doan, Hung-­ Gay Fong, Tony Gao, Melissa Henry, Eric Huang, Wen Hwang, Xinsheng Jiang, Lily Ko, Walter Ko, Yee M. Kwong, Harold Law, Hong L. Le, Susanne LeLaurin, Chung Kok Li, Jerry Li, Zhihai Liang, Sherwin Liou, Min Liu, Grace Shen Lo, Grace

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Yin Lo, Andrew Lu, Chris Lu, Jenny Lu, Karman Mak, Ed Moncada, Samuel Pan, Dachung Pat Peng, Tzy C. Peng, Eliot F. Porter Jr., Ed Shew, Mrs. Siu, Yuan-­sheng Sui, Bin Sun, Ching-­Ling Tai, Austin Tao, Peter Tao, William K. Y. Tao (deceased), Tong Wang, Nelson Wu (deceased), Hsinyi Yang, James Yeh, Patricia L. Yeh, Grace Chen Yin, Guanzheng Yu, Francis Yueh, May Yueh, James Zhang, Peter Zhang, Anning Zhu, and Wubing Zong. Many more Chinese St. Louisans who have contributed significantly to the Chinese community and to the larger society are well deserving but are not individually included in the book, due to limitations of my time and the space of a monograph. Yet, I am certain that they can readily identify themselves with the collective experience of Chinese St. Louisans reflected in the book. I am very grateful to the staff members at the Missouri Historical Society Library and Research Center; the St.  Louis Mercantile Library; the John  M. Olin Library; the West Campus Library at Washington University; the St. Louis Public Library; the Recorder of Deeds at St. Louis City Hall; the St. Louis Art Museum; the National Archives and Rec­ords Administration–­C entral Plains Region, Kansas City; the International Institute of Metropolitan St. Louis; and Valhalla Cemetery for their selfless ser­v ices and advice. Special thanks to Truman State University, my home institute, for providing me with faculty summer research grants and sabbatical grants; to Lori Allen of the Pickler Memorial Library for tirelessly acquiring numerous materials through interlibrary loans; to Winston Vanderhoof of University Publications for creating the maps for the book; and to my colleagues in the History Department for giving me endless support, especially to Jason McDonald, a scholar on American ethnicity and immigration, who read the manuscript and provided valuable insights, along with sharing bibliography on ethnic Chicago. I am deeply indebted to the students at Truman who took courses on Asian American Studies from me; they inspired me and confirmed my belief in the significance of Asian American Studies in the heartland. At Rutgers University Press, two anonymous readers endorsed my manuscript and provided g­ reat comments and insightful suggestions. Jasper Chang, Vincent Nordhaus, Kimberly Guinta, Laura Lassen, John Donohue, and Susan Ecklund have guided me through the final stages of the publication and transformed my manuscript into a beautiful book. My husband, Sammy, has been my creative muse, candid critic, and resilient technical support throughout all my intellectual enterprises. Without his constant counsel, comfort, and companionship, I would not have been able to complete this book.

Notes

chapter 1 ​—­ ​introduction 1. The term “heartland” was coined by British geographer Halford MacKinder in 1904, referring to the heart of the Eurasian land mass, a strategic center of industry, natu­ral resources, and power. It was brought to Amer­i­ca by World War II veterans to describe a cultural region that is the central land area of the United States, usually the Midwest. The U.S. Census Bureau defines the Midwest as the twelve states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. In this book, the terms “heartland,” “Midwest,” and “hinterland” are used interchangeably. 2. Kristin  L. Hoganson, The Heartland: An American History (New York: Penguin, 2019). 3. William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the ­Great West (New York: W. W. Norton, 1991); Walter Johnson, The Broken Heart of Amer­i­ca: St. Louis and the Violent History of the United States (New York: Basic Books, 2020). 4. See chapters 8 and 9 of this volume. See also Huping Ling, Voices of the Heart: Asian American W ­ omen on Immigration, Work, and ­Family (Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2007), an oral history based on over 300 interviews of Asian American ­women from the heartland. 5. Since 2000, a group of professors affiliated with universities and colleges in the Midwest and South have sponsored roundtable teaching panels at the annual meetings of the Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS). For instance, at the 2012 AAAS annual conference in Washington, DC, at a roundtable panel entitled “The ­Great Third Coast: How Teaching in the Midwest and South Challenges Asian American Studies,” panelists engaged in lively discussions with participants. 6. I faced t­ hese sorts of challenges during the nine-­year pro­cess of establishing the Asian American Studies Program at Truman State University. My counter­parts at other institutions in the region have had similar experiences. 7. See the program for the 2012 AAAS annual conference in Washington, DC, at https://­ aaastudies​.­org​/­aaas​-­conference​/­past​-­conference​-­locations​/­past​-­booklet​-­covers​/­. 8. See https://­a sianam​.­i llinois​.­edu​/­admissions​/­about​-­us; see also Huping Ling, “Asian American Studies Programs at the Big 12 Research Universities (13 Campuses)” (unpublished manuscript).

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9. Cynthia Boyd, “Asians Fastest-­Growing Ethnic Group in Minnesota,” Minnpost, June 18, 2013, http://­w ww​.­minnpost​.­com​/­community​-­sketchbook​/­2013​/­06​/­asians​-­fastest​-­g rowing​ -­ethnic​-­group​-­minnesota. 10. See http://­aas​.­umn​.­edu. 11. See http://­www​.­truman​.­edu​/­majors​-­programs​/­majors​-­minors​/­interdisciplinary​-­studies​ -­major​/­asian​-­studies​-­minor​/­. Although the South is not the focus of this book, it is instructive to look at the dif­fer­ent patterns in developing AAS programs t­ here. In the South, student protests in the 1990s prompted the establishment of the Center for Asian American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin (UT-­Austin) in 2000. The power and strength of the Asian American community are reflected in the growth of the Asian American student population at UT-­Austin, which doubled ­every six to eight years in the 1990s, reaching 6,236 in 2000. Members of the rapidly growing Asian American student body soon discovered that their image was missing from the educational mirror and consequently initiated the movement to create an AAS program in 1992. This student initiative fi­nally resulted in the founding of the Center for Asian American Studies in 2000, which was the first AAS program in the nation that was a creation of student activism. 12. Nina Glick Schiller, Linda Basch, and Cristina Blanc-­Szanton, eds., ­Towards a Transnational Perspective on Migration: Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism Reconsidered (New York: New York Acad­emy of Sciences, 1992), ix. 13. See, for example, Aihwa Ong, Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999); Alejandro Portes, Luis  E. Guarnizo, and Patricia Landolt, “The Study of Transnationalism: Pitfalls and Promise of an Emergent Research Field,” Ethical and Research Studies 22, no.  2 (1999): 224; and Philip Q. Yang, “Transnationalism as a New Mode of Immigrant ­Labor Market Incorporation: Preliminary Evidence from Chinese Transnational Mi­g rants,” Journal of Chinese Overseas 2, no. 2 (2006): 173–192. 14. For historical works with a transnationalism approach, see, for example, Renqiu Yu, “Chinese American Contributions to the Educational Development of Toisan 1910–1940,” Amerasia Journal 10, no. 1 (1983): 47–72; Yu, To Save China, to Save Ourselves: The Chinese Hand Laundry Alliance of New York (Philadelphia: T ­ emple University Press, 1992); Haiming Liu, “The Trans-­Pacific ­Family: A Case Study of Sam Chang’s ­Family History,” Amerasia Journal 18, no. 2 (1992): 1–34; Madeline Y. Hsu, Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home: Transnationalism and Migration between the United States and South China, 1882–1943 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000); Yong Chen, Chinese San Francisco, 1850–1943: A Trans-­Pacific Community (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000); Adam McKeown, Chinese Mi­grant Networks and Cultural Change: Peru, Chicago, Hawaii, 1900–1936 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001); and Huping Ling, Chinese Chicago: Race, Transnational Migration, and Community since 1870 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012). 15. See, for example, Yang, “Transnationalism as a New Mode of Immigrant ­Labor Market Incorporation.” 16. Washington University, A Partial Bibliography of Resources on the History of Saint Louis Ethnic Cultures (St.  Louis: Sociology Department, Washington University, n.d.). This bibliography lists 201 studies relating to the history of St.  Louis ethnic cultures divided by ethnic groups, yet no work on Chinese was listed. For works on Chinese in St. Louis, see C. Fred Blake, “The Chinese of Valhalla: Adaptation and Identity in a Midwestern American Cemetery,” Markers: Journal of the Association for Gravestone Studies 10 (1993): 53–89; Huping Ling, “Hop Alley: Myth and Real­ity of the St.  Louis Chinatown, 1860s–1930s,” Journal of Urban History 28, no.  2 (January  2002): 184–219; Ling, Chinese

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St. Louis: From Enclave to Cultural Community (Philadelphia: ­Temple University Press, 2004); and St. Louis Chapter of the Organ­ization of Chinese Americans, ed., Ironing Out the Fabric of Our Past: An Oral History of Five Chinese Americans in St. Louis, the Early 1900’s (St.  Louis: St.  Louis Chapter of the Organ­ization of Chinese Americans, 1993).

chapter 2 ​—­ ​transnational migration and businesses in chinese chicago, 1870s–1930s Portions of this chapter are drawn from Huping Ling, “Chinese Chicago: Transnational Migration and Businesses, 1870s–1930s,” Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010): 250–285, and Ling, “The New Trends in American Chinatowns: The Case of Chinese in Chicago,” in Chinatowns around the World: Gilded Ghettos, Ethnopolis, and Cultural Diaspora, ed. Bernard Wong and Tan Chee-­Beng (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 55–94, and are reproduced h ­ ere with permission. 1. Chinese American Museum of Chicago (hereafter CAMOC) exhibition. 2. Tin-­Chin Fan, “Chinese Residents in Chicago” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1926), 14. 3. Fan, “Chinese Residents in Chicago,” 14. 4. Paul C. P. Siu, The Chinese Laundryman: A Study of Social Isolation, ed. John Kuo Wei Tchen (New York: New York University Press, 1987), 28–30. 5. Huping Ling, Chinese St. Louis: From Enclave to Cultural Community (Philadelphia: ­Temple University Press, 2004), 36–37; Renqiu Yu, To Save China, to Save Ourselves: The ­ emple University Press, 1992). Chinese Hand Laundry Alliance of New York (Philadelphia: T 6. “Where Orient and Occident Meet,” The Graphic, February 17, 1894, 131. 7. For anti-­Chinese vio­lence in New York, Boston, and Milwaukee, see, respectively, Mary Ting Yi Lui, The Chinatown Trunk Mystery: Murder, Miscegenation, and Other Dangerous Encounters in Turn-­of-­the-­Century New York City (Prince­ton, NJ: Prince­ton University Press, 2005); K. Scott Wong, “ ‘The Ea­gle Seeks a Helpless Quarry’: Chinatown, the Police, and the Press, The 1903 Boston Chinatown Raid Revisited,” Amerasia Journal 22, no. 3 (1996): 81–103; Victor Jew, “Broken Win­dows: Anti-­Chinese Vio­lence and Interracial Sexuality in 19th ­Century Milwaukee,” in Asian Pacific American Genders and Sexualities, ed. Thomas K. Nakayama (Tempe: Arizona State University, 1999), 29–51. 8. Testimony of Lim Yee, December 5, 1913, Chicago Chinese Case Files for District No. 9, Chicago, 1898–1940, Chicago District Office, Rec­ords of the Immigration and Naturalization Ser­vice, RG 85, National Archives and Rec­ords Administration–­Great Lakes Region (Chicago) (hereafter CCCF), file 2005/183; testimony of Au Tat, June 5, 1924, CCCF, file 2005/1608. 9. Fan, “Chinese Residents in Chicago,” 15. 10. Susan Lee Moy, “The Chinese in Chicago: The First One Hundred Years, 1870–1970” (master’s thesis, University of Wisconsin-­Milwaukee, 1978), 43; Adam McKeown, Chinese Mi­g rant Networks and Cultural Change: Peru, Chicago, Hawaii, 1900–1936 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 212. 11. Thekla Ellen Joiner, Sin in the City: Chicago and Revivalism, 1880–1920 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2007), 21. 12. Lizabeth Cohen, Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919–1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 13, 28. 13. Barbara M. Posadas, “Ethnic Life and L ­ abor in Chicago’s Pre-­World-­War-­II Filipino Community,” in L ­ abor Divided: Race and Ethnicity in United States ­Labor Strug­gles, 1835–1960, ed. Robert Asher and Charles Stephenson (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), 63–80.

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14. Noting that immigrants have lived lives across geographic borders and maintained close ties to home, some anthropologists employed the term “transnationalism” to describe such cross-­national, cross-­cultural phenomenon in the early 1990s, and a number of historians have endorsed the idea in their monographs. For work on transnationalism, see Nina Glick Schiller, Linda Basch, and Cristina Blanc-­Szanton, eds., T ­ owards a Transnational Perspective on Migration: Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism Reconsidered (New York: New York Acad­emy of Science, 1992), ix. For historical works with a transnationalism approach, see, for example, Renqiu Yu, “Chinese American Contributions to the Educational Development of Toisan 1910–1940,” Amerasia Journal 10, no. 1 (1983): 47–72; Yu, To Save China, to Save Ourselves; Madeline Y. Hsu, Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home: Transnationalism and Migration between the United States and South China, 1882–1943 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000); Yong Chen, Chinese San Francisco 1850–1943: A Trans-­Pacific Community (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000); McKeown, Chinese Mi­grant Networks and Cultural Change; and Haiming Liu, Transnational History of a Chinese ­Family: Immigrant Letters, ­Family Business, and Reverse Migration (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005). 15. Siu, Chinese Laundryman, 296–297. 16. McKeown, Chinese Mi­grant Networks and Cultural Change, 1–6. In addition, Henry Yu, Thinking Orientals: Migration, Contact, and Exoticism in Modern Amer­i­ca (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), and Mae M. Ngai, “Transnationalism and the Transformation of the ‘Other,’ ” American Quarterly 57, no. 1 (March 2005): 59–65, offer valuable insights to Chinese in Chicago. 17. Siu’s work primarily utilized his fieldwork among the city’s Chinese laundries, while McKeown employed the INS rec­ords mainly in depicting the conflict between the major clans. 18. San Min Morning Paper, 1933. 19. San Min Morning Paper, 1933. 20. Testimony of Hong Sling, December 2, 1913, CCCF, file 2005/182-­E; testimony of Moy Dong Hoy, April 11, 1906, CCCF, file 463. 21. Testimony of Moy Dong Hoy, April 11, 1906, CCCF, file 463. 22. Meishi Zongqin Zupu (The Moy ­family genealogy) (Taipei, 1991), 111–113. 23. Testimony of Chin Wing, October 25, 1907, CCCF, file 616; testimony of Chin F. Foin, January 16, 1906, CCCF, file 440; testimony of Chin F. Foin, June 25, 1908, CCCF, file 660. 24. Testimonies of Moy Dung and Moy Sam, September 18, 1907, CCCF, file 596. 25. Numerous case files indicate the personal loans to kinsmen or friends took place in a major grocery store in Chicago such as Wing Chong Hai at 281 South Clark Street or Sing Lung at 309 South Clark Street. See, for example, testimony of Chin Wing, October 25, 1907, CCCF, file 616; testimony of Moy Gee Nie, November 4, 1907, CCCF, file 617. 26. Numerous case files indicate that the personal loans to kinsmen or friends had no type of written rec­ord b ­ ecause the lenders “trusted him” as a kinsman or a good friend. See, for example, testimony of Lum Joy, September 7, 1904, CCCF, file 360; testimony of Moy Kee Doy, July 17, 1905, CCCF, file 365; and testimony of Chan Wing, August 23, 1905, CCCF, file 369. 27. Testimony of Lum Joy, September 7, 1904, CCCF, file 360. 28. Testimony of Moy Kee Doy, July 17, 1905, CCCF, file 365. 29. Hsu, Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home, 41. 30. Testimony of Au Tat, June 5, 1924, CCCF file 2005/1608. 31. Testimonies of Lim Yee and Lim Shear Lett, December 5, 1913, CCCF, file 2005/183. 32. Annie Leong, interview with the author, December 17, 1998.

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33. Testimony of Jack Sam Tsai, June 5, 1924, CCCF, file 2005/1608. 34. Case no.  2, Fung’s f­amily, Paul Siu, “Chinese ­Family in Chicago,” Ernest Watson Burgess Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Regenstein Library, University of Chicago (hereafter EWB Papers), box 137, folder 8. 35. Siu, Chinese Laundryman, 103–104. 36. Richard Ho, letter to the author, August 3, 2002. 37. Testimony of Louie Yap, June 26, 1906, CCCF, file 375. 38. Testimony of Gong Dock Death, November 2, 1926, CCCF, file 2005/1613. 39. “Cele­bration of Chinese New Year’s,” Chicago Tribune, January 30, 1892, 7:4. 40. Fan, “Chinese Residents in Chicago,” 39. 41. Fan, “Chinese Residents in Chicago,” 38. 42. San Min Morning Paper, 1933. 43. Testimony of Chin  F. Foin, January  16, 1906, CCCF, file 440; Paul Siu, “A Case of Assimilation,” EWB Papers, box 136, folder 7. 44. Testimony of Ham Sam, September 18, 1905, CCCF, file 374; Chuimei Ho and Soo Lon Moy, eds., Chinese in Chicago, 1870–1945 (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2005), 43. 45. Testimony of Ham Sam, September 18, 1905, CCCF, file 374. 46. Testimonies of Hum Sing and Hum Sam, September 16, 1905, CCCF, file 374. 47. Ho and Moy, Chinese in Chicago, 42. 48. Ho and Moy, Chinese in Chicago, 43. 49. San Min Morning Paper, 1933. 50. Ho and Moy, Chinese in Chicago, 46, 44. 51. CAMOC exhibition. 52. Testimony of Ah Song, August 16, 1906, CCCF, file 405. 53. Testimony of Moy Sam, August 16, 1906, CCCF, file 405. 54. Testimonies of Tom Lok, Charles F. Hille, and H. L. Henson, July 1, 1924, CCCF, file 2005/1614. 55. Testimony of Eng Gow, October 8, 1920, CCCF, file 2005/763. 56. CAMOC exhibition. 57. Testimony of Kong Ming, July 15, 1924, CCCF, file 2005/1615. 58. Testimony of Wong Lung, October 27, 1920, CCCF, file 2005/739. 59. Chinese American (Chicago), vol. 1, no. 1, 1893. 60. Peggy Spitzer Christoff, Tracking the Yellow Peril: The INS and Chinese Immigrants in the Midwest (Rockland, ME: Picton Press, 2001); Soo Lon Moy, Chinese American Museum of Chicago (CAMOC), https://­ccamuseum​.­org​/­category​/­current​-­upcoming​-­events​/­. 61. Mae M. Ngai, “Transnationalism and the Transformation of the ‘Other,’ ” American Quarterly 57, no. 1 (March 2005): 59–65. 62. Chicago Daily Tribune, February 18, 1893, 10; see also Chicago Daily Tribune, May 20, 1893, 3; “Chinese-­Americans at the 1893 Chicago World Fair,” CAMOC, accessed August 8, 2007, https://­ccamuseum​.­org​/. 63. William Walton, Art and Architecture (Philadelphia: G. Barrie, 1893). 64. “1933 World’s Fair Objects & Scenes,” CAMOC, accessed August 11, 2008, https://­ ccamuseum​.­org​/. 65. Siu, Chinese Laundryman, xxv–­x xvi. 66. Testimony of Moy Gee Nie, November 4, 1907, CCCF, file 617. 67. Testimonies of Chin Wing and Chin Show, October 25, 1907, CCCF, file 616. 68. Testimony of Mark Do Wea, August 9, 1905, CCCF, file 367. 69. Testimony of Chan Wing, August 23, 1905, CCCF, file 369. 70. Testimony of Goon Pon Sing, October 17, 1907, CCCF, file 598.

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71. David Lee, interview with the author, April 19, 2008. 72. Testimony of Kong Choon, November 7, 1913, CCCF, file 2005/171. 73. Testimony of Louis Fook, June 26, 1906, CCCF, file 375. 74. Testimony of Lum Joy, September 7, 1904, CCCF, file 360. 75. Testimony of Moy Len, July 16, 1920, CCCF, file 2005/719. 76. Testimony of Hum Sing, September 18, 1905, CCCF, file 374. 77. Testimony of Moy Gee Nie, November 4, 1907, CCCF, file 617. 78. Although the Scott Act of 1888 nullified 20,000 re-­entry certificates, the applications during the 1910s in the CCCF w ­ ere recorded as for laborer’s return certificates. 79. Testimony of Goon Pon Sing, October 17, 1907, CCCF, file 598. 80. Testimonies of Chin Wing and Chin Show, October 25, 1907, CCCF, file 616. 81. Testimony of Lam Lap Goey, November 7, 1905, CCCF, file 383. 82. Fan, “Chinese Residents in Chicago,” 33–37. 83. Fan, “Chinese Residents in Chicago,” 41. 84. Testimony of Kong Choon, November 7, 1913, CCCF, file 2005/171. 85. Hsu, Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home, 41. 86. Hsu, Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home, 40. 87. Xinning Magazine, no. 4 (2006): 14–15. 88. Testimony of Moy Gee Nie, November 4, 1907, CCCF, file 617. 89. Author’s field research, July 10, 2007. 90. Author’s field research, July 10, 2007. 91. “Exploration and Discovery,” CCTV 10, July 6, 2007; and Xinning Magazine 新寧雜誌, no. 4 (2004): 14–15. 92. Taishan xian huaqiao zhi 台山县华侨志 (Taishan County Gazetteer on overseas Chinese from Taishan) (Taishan, Guangdong: Taishan County Gazetteer Compilation Committee, 1992), 120–127.

Chapter 3 ​—­ ​Building “Hop Alley” Portions of this chapter are drawn from Huping Ling, “Hop Alley: Myth and Real­ity of the St. Louis Chinatown, 1860s–1930s,” Journal of Urban History 28, no. 2 (January 2002): 184–219, and are used with permission. 1. Missouri Republican, December  31, 1869; Kennedy’s, 1859–1863; Edward’s, 1864–1871; Gould’s, 1872–1879. See also U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Census, 1860, for data on Alla Lee. 2. Marriage Register, book 9, p. 40, recorded September 21, 1858, Recorder of Deeds, City Hall of St. Louis. 3. C. Fred Blake, “­There O ­ ught to Be a Monument to Alla Lee,” Chinese American Forum 15, no. 3 (January 2000): 23–25. 4. Blake, “­There O ­ ught to Be a Monument.” 5. Leslie Allen, Ellis Island (Liberty Island, NY: Evelyn Hill Group, 1995), 20. 6. Missouri Republican, December 31, 1869; William Hyde and Howard L. Conard, Encyclopedia of the History of St.  Louis: A Compendium of History and Biography for Ready Reference, 3 vols. (St. Louis: The Southern History Com­pany, 1899), 357–358. 7. Blake, “­There O ­ ught to Be a Monument.” 8. Missouri Republican, December  31, 1869; Louisville Courier-­Journal, December  30, 1896; Lucy M. Cohen, Chinese in the Post–­Civil War South: A ­People without a History (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984), 86–87. 9. Missouri Republican, January 23, 1870. 10. Roger Daniels, Asian Amer­i­ca: Chinese and Japa­nese in the United States since 1850 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988), 9.

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11. Sucheng Chan, Asian Americans: An Interpretive History (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1991); Thomas W. Chinn, Bridging the Pacific: San Francisco Chinatown and Its ­People (San Francisco: Chinese Historical Society of Amer­i­ca, 1989); Ping Chiu, Chinese L ­ abor in California: An Economic Study (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1967); Sandy Lydon, Chinese Gold: The Chinese in the Monterey Bay Region (Capitola, CA: Capitola Book Com­ pany, 1985); Sylvia Sun Minnick, Samfow = Chin-­shan San-­pu: The San Joaquin Chinese Legacy (Fresno, CA: Pa­norama West Publishing, 1988); Alexander Saxton, The Indispensable ­Enemy: ­Labor and the Anti-­Chinese Movement in California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971). 12. Daniels, Asian Amer­i­ca, 70. 13. Chan, Asian Americans, 46. 14. Chan, Asian Americans, 46. 15. Chan, Asian Americans, 48; William R. Locklear, “The Celestials and the Angels: A Study of the Anti-­Chinese Movement in Los Angeles to 1882,” Historical Society of Southern California Quarterly 42 (1960): 239–256; Elmer C. Sandmeyer, The Anti-­Chinese Move­ ment (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1973), 48, 97–98. 16. Cohen, Chinese in the Post–­Civil War South, 82–83. 17. Missouri Republican, December 30, 1869; Cohen, Chinese in the Post–­Civil War South, 86–87. 18. Hyde and Conard, Encyclopedia of the History of St. Louis, 357–358. 19. Chinese Exclusion Cases Habeas Corpus Petitions, case file 103, National Archives and Rec­ords Administration–­Central Plains Region, Kansas City, MO. 20. U.S. Bureau of the Census, United States Ninth Census: 1870, vol. 1, 386. 21. James Neal Primm, Lion of the Valley: St. Louis, Missouri (Boulder, CO: Pruett Publishing, 1990), 273–275. 22. U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Censuses, 1870–1890. 23. George Lipsitz, The Sidewalks of St. Louis: Places, ­People, and Politics in an American City (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1991), 34–37. 24. Comments by Diana Ahmad at the 44th  Annual Missouri Conference on History, Kansas City, MO, April 18–20, 2002. 25. Annual Report of the St. Louis Board of Police Commissioner, 1896. 26. “50 Years Ago—­Wednesday, August 26, 1925,” St. Louis Globe-­Democrat, August 26, 1925. 27. Highbinder was the name given to members of certain oath-­bound Chinese secret socie­ties in American cities by American police and the press. It was believed that t­ hese secret socie­ties had their origins in the ­Great Hung League, or Hung-­men, a po­liti­cal organ­ization aimed at overthrowing the Manchu Qing dynasty in China. The terms “Highbinders” and “tongs” ­were often used interchangeably. 28. Hyde and Conard, Encyclopedia of the History of St. Louis, 1024. 29. “75 Years Ago—­Thursday, June 8, 1892,” St. Louis Globe-­Democrat, June 9, 1967. 30. The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act banned laborers for ten years. It was renewed in 1892 and 1902, and made indefinite in 1904. 31. Number of arrests of Chinese by St. Louis Police Department, 1874–1920, tallied by the author from Chinese Exclusion Cases Habeas Corpus Petitions. 32. “75  Years Ago—­Wednesday, August  25, 1897,” St.  Louis Globe-­Democrat, August  25, 1972. 33. Chinese Exclusion Cases Habeas Corpus Petitions. 34. K. Scott Wong, “ ‘The Ea­gle Seeks a Helpless Quarry’: Chinatown, the Police, and the Press, the 1903 Boston Chinatown Raid Revisited,” Amerasia Journal 22, no.  3 (1996): 81–103; Shirley Sui-­Ling Tam, “Police Round-­Up of Chinese in Cleveland in 1925: A Case

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Study in a Racist Mea­sure and the Chinese Response” (master’s thesis, Case Western Research University, 1988). 35. Letter from Orville Spreen to Miss Douglas, January  6, 1951, Orville Spreen Papers, 1900–1982, Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis. 36. Theodore Dreiser, “The Chinese in St. Louis,” in Journalism, vol. 1, Newspaper Writings, 1892–1895, ed. T. D. Nostwich (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988), 239–249. 37. “75  Years Ago—­Wednesday, August  25, 1897”; Chung Kok Li, interview with the author, October 12, 1998. 38. U.S.A. v. Jeu Lime; U.S.A. v. Jeu Young; and U.S.A. v. Chu Dock Yuck, Chinese Exclusion Cases Habeas Corpus, RG 21, National Archives and Rec­ords Administration–­ Central Plains Region, Kansas City, MO. 39. Letter from Claudia Rhodes to Huping Ling, February 18, 2002, in author’s possession. 40. Gould’s St. Louis Directory, 1873, 1036. 41. Gould’s St. Louis Directory, 1874, 1106. 42. Gould’s St. Louis Directory, 1873–1889. 43. Gould’s St. Louis Directory, 1873–1889. 44. Many of the surnames mentioned ­here are prob­ably not real Chinese surnames, as non-­Chinese might refer to individual Chinese by the name of the store or might confuse the Chinese given name with the surname. Kee, for instance, is the Cantonese pronunciation of ji, meaning “a store” or “a brand.” 45. Chung Kok Li, interview with the author. According to historian Sue Fawn Chung, the restriction was established by the Chinese laundry associations in the 1860s in San Francisco and V ­ irginia City. 46. Victor G. Nee and Brett de Bary Nee, Longtime Californ’: A Documentary Study of an American Chinatown (New York: Pantheon Books, 1972); Renqiu Yu, To Save China, to Save Ourselves: The Chinese Hand Laundry Alliance of New York (Philadelphia: ­Temple University Press, 1992), 9; Paul C. P. Siu, The Chinese Laundryman: A Study of Social Isolation, ed. John Kuo Wei Tchen (New York: New York University Press, 1987); and Victor Jew, “Broken Win­dows: Anti-­Chinese Vio­lence and Interracial Sexuality in 19th ­Century Milwaukee,” in Asian Pacific American Genders and Sexualities, ed. Thomas K. Nakayama (Tempe: Arizona State University Press, 1999), 33. 47. Nee and de Bary Nee, Longtime Californ’; Yu, To Save China, to Save Ourselves; Siu, Chinese Laundryman. 48. Hyde and Conard, Encyclopedia of the History of St. Louis, 357–358; Missouri Republican, January  23, 1970; and numerous newspaper articles in the St.  Louis Globe-­ Democrat, St. Louis Post-­Dispatch, Missouri Republican, and St. Louis Times. 49. Siu, Chinese Laundryman, 58. 50. Papers Relating to the Campaign to Save Sam Wah Laundry, Correspondence, 1978–1986, 9 folders, Eliot F. Porter Jr. Papers, Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis. 51. Gould’s St.  Louis Directory, 1887–1952; Polk’s St.  Louis City Directory, 1955–1980 (St. Louis: R. L. Polk & Co., n.d.). 52. John M. McGuire, “Chinese Laundry Being Pressed,” St. Louis Post-­Dispatch, November 12, 1978, 3G. 53. Papers Relating to the Campaign to Save Sam Wah Laundry. 54. Lillie Lee Hong, interview with the author, February 2, 1999. 55. Business Directory and Mercantile Register of St.  Louis, 1903–1904; Gould’s St.  Louis Directory, 1905–1910. 56. Hong, interview with the author.

N o t e s t o Pa g e s 5 5 – 6 1

207

57. St. Louis Organ­i zation of Chinese Amer­i­c a, ed., Ironing Out the Fabric (St. Louis: St. Louis Organ­ization of Chinese Amer­i­ca, 1990), 1, 5. 58. St. Louis Organ­ization of Chinese Amer­i­ca, Ironing Out the Fabric, 2, 5. 59. McGuire, “Chinese Laundry Being Pressed”; Eliot F. Porter Jr., former reporter and editor, Post-­Dispatch, and or­ga­nizer, the Campaign to Save Sam Wah Laundry, interviews with the author, December 28, 1998, and January 5, 1999. 60. Dick Wood, “The Chinese Colony of St. Louis,” St. Louis Republic, magazine section, July 29, 1900, 2. 61. Hong, interview with the author. 62. Hong, interview with the author. 63. Gould’s St. Louis Directory, 1888. 64. Gould’s St. Louis Directory, 1889. 65. Gould’s St. Louis Directory, 1890–1910. 66. Gould’s St. Louis Directory, 1912–1914. 67. Gould’s St. Louis Directory, 1919–1929. 68. Gould’s St. Louis Directory, 1906–1910. 69. Wood, “Chinese Colony of St. Louis.” 70. Huping Ling, Surviving on the Gold Mountain: A History of Chinese American ­Women and Their Lives (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 64–70. 71. Wood, “Chinese Colony of St. Louis.” 72. Hong Sit, former Hop Alley resident and retired minister, telephone interview with the author, September  19, 2003; see also Hong Sit, My View from a Bridge (Houston: Blessing Books, 1999), 24–25. 73. Miller Chow, interview with the author, June 2, 1999. 74. Connie Young Yu, “The World of Our Grand­mothers,” in Making Waves: An An­ thology of Writings by and about Asian ­Women, ed. Asian W ­ omen United of California (Boston: Beacon Press, 1989), 37. 75. Lily Chan, “My Early Influences,” October  25, 1926, William Carlson Smith Documents, MK-2, Special Collection, Main Library, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon. 76. Dreiser, “Chinese in St. Louis.” 77. John Kuo Wei Tchen, New York before Chinatown: Orientalism and the Shaping of American Culture, 1776–1882 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), 264–265. 78. Tchen, New York before Chinatown, 266. 79. Wong Chin Foo, “The Chinese in New York,” Cosmopolitan 5 (March–­October 1888): 305. 80. U.S.A. v. Jeu Lime. 81. “2 S­ isters Arrested in Chop Suey Raid,” St. Louis Republic, August 22, 1910. 82. Liu Bo-ji, Meiguo Huaqiao Shi (History of the overseas Chinese in the United States) (Taipei: Li Ming Publishing Co., 1981), 297. 83. Wood, “Chinese Colony of St. Louis.” 84. “House­keeping in St.  Louis Chinatown,” St.  Louis Republic, magazine section, Au­ gust 14, 1910, 4. 85. Annie Leong, interview with the author, December 17, 1998. 86. Richard Ho, letters to the author, March 2 and August 3, 2002. 87. Leong, interview with the author. 88. Ho, letters to the author, March 2 and August 3, 2002. 89. Gould’s St. Louis Directory, 1859. 90. Kennedy’s, 1860; Edward’s, 1864–1871; and Gould’s St. Louis Directory, 1872–1880. 91. Hyde and Conard, Encyclopedia of the History of St. Louis, 357–358.

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92. “Gradual Disappearance of the Chinatown of St.  Louis,” St.  Louis Post-­Dispatch, September 25, 1902. 93. Gould’s St. Louis Directory, 1899. 94. U.S.A. v. Hop Hing, Chinese Exclusion Cases Habeas Corpus, RG 21, National Ar­­ chives and Records Administration–­Central Plains Region, Kansas City, MO. 95. U.S.A. v. Leong Choey, Chinese Exclusion Cases Habeas Corpus, RG 21, National Archives and Records Administration–­Central Plains Region, Kansas City, MO. 96. U.S.A. v. Sing Lung, Chinese Exclusion Cases Habeas Corpus, RG 21, National Ar­­ chives and Records Administration–­Central Plains Region, Kansas City, MO. 97. U.S.A. v. Wong Lung, Chinese Exclusion Cases Habeas Corpus, RG 21, National Ar­­ chives and Records Administration–­Central Plains Region, Kansas City, MO. 98. “Gradual Disappearance of the Chinatown of St. Louis.” 99. St. Louis Police Annual Report, 1896 (St. Louis: City Hall, n.d.). 100. According to my conversations with an African American community preservationist, November 28, 2000, and March 16, 2001, St. Louis, MO. 101. Dreiser, “Chinese in St. Louis”; Wood, “Chinese Colony of St. Louis.” 102. Dreiser, “Chinese in St. Louis,” 103. Irene E. Cortinovis, “China at the St. Louis World’s Fair,” Missouri Historical Review 77 (1977–1978): 59–66. 104. St. Louis Post-­Dispatch, July 3, 1903; see also Betty Burnett, St. Louis at War: The Story of a City 1941–1945 (St. Louis: The Patrice Press, 1987), 289. 105. Cortinovis, “China at the St. Louis World’s Fair,” 63. 106. Cortinovis, “China at the St. Louis World’s Fair,” 63–64. 107. Cortinovis, “China at the St. Louis World’s Fair,” 66. 108. Henry S. Iglauer, “The De­mo­li­tion of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904,” Missouri Historical Society Bulletin 22, no. 4 (1965–1966): 457–467. 109. St.  Louis Post-­Dispatch, July  3 and October  18, 1903; St.  Louis Globe-­Democrat, De­­ cember 5, 1904. 110. St. Louis Globe-­Democrat, December 5, 1904. 111. Cortinovis, “China at the St. Louis World’s Fair,” 63.

chapter 4 ​—­ ​the intellectual tradition of the heartland 1. Robert Park, “­Human Migration and the Marginal Man,” American Journal of Sociology 33, no. 6 (May 1928): 881–893. 2. Ernest Watson Burgess and Donald Joseph Bogue, eds., Contributions to Urban Sociology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), 5. 3. Historian Henry Yu’s brilliantly written Thinking Orientals offers a comprehensive depiction of the Chicago sociologists and their research. Similarly, historian John Kuo Wei Tchen, in his introduction to Paul C. P. Siu’s The Chinese Laundryman: A Study of Social Isolation, provides a penetrating discussion of the Chicago School and works by students of Robert Park and Ernest Burgess. See Henry Yu, Thinking Orientals: Migration, Contact, and Exoticism in Modern Amer­i­ca (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); and Paul  C.  P. Siu, The Chinese Laundryman: A Study of Social Isolation, ed. John Kuo Wei Tchen (New York: New York University Press, 1987). 4. Tin-­chiu Fan, “Chinese Residents in Chicago” (master’s thesis, University of Chicago, 1926), vii. 5. Fan, “Chinese Residents in Chicago,” vii. 6. In the 1920s, Robert E. Park and his colleagues launched a massive proj­ect, the Survey of Race Relations on the Pacific Coast, which contains interviews with and essays by

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second-­generation Chinese Americans and Japa­nese Americans from the Pacific coast states and Hawaii. It has served as a rich primary source for generations of scholars. 7. Ching-­Chao Wu, “Chinatowns: A Study of Symbiosis and Assimilation” (PhD. diss., University of Chicago, 1928). 8. Wu, “Chinatowns,” 327–328. 9. Wu, “Chinatowns,” 327–328. 10. Ruth Joan Soong, “A Survey of the Education of Chinese C ­ hildren in Chicago” (master’s thesis, University of Chicago, 1931). 11. Bingham Dai, “Opium Addiction in Chicago” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1937). 12. Dai, “Opium Addiction in Chicago,” 187. 13. Fan, “Chinese Residents in Chicago,” 88. 14. Fan, “Chinese Residents in Chicago,” 89. 15. Fan, “Chinese Residents in Chicago,” 90. 16. Wu, “Chinatowns,” 329–330. 17. Soong, “Survey of the Education of Chinese ­Children in Chicago,” 106–107. 18. Dai, “Opium Addiction in Chicago,” 191. 19. Yu, Thinking Orientals, 116. 20. Yu, Thinking Orientals, 125. 21. Rose Hum Lee, “The Growth and Decline of Chinese Communities in the Rocky Mountain Region” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1947); Yu, Thinking Orientals, 125–133; “Rose Hum Lee,” in Encyclopedia of World Biography (Detroit: Gale Group, 2004), http://­w ww​.­encyclopedia​.­com​/­doc​/­1G2​-­3404707842​.­html. 22. Rose Hum Lee, “The Marginal Man: Re-­evaluation and Indices of Mea­sure­ment,” Journal of ­Human Relations 5 (Spring 1956): 27–28. 23. As displayed in her private letter to her ­daughter. 24. Siu, Chinese Laundryman. 25. Clarence Glick, “The Chinese Mi­grant in Hawaii” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1938). 26. Siu, Chinese Laundryman, 296–297. 27. See, for example, Nina Glick Schiller, Linda Basch, and Cristina Blanc-­Szanton, eds., ­Towards a Transnational Perspective on Migration: Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism Reconsidered (New York: New York Acad­emy of Sciences, 1992), ix. 28. See, for instance, Philip Q. Yang, “The ‘Sojourner Hypothesis’ Revisited,” Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies 9, no. 2 (Fall 2000): 235–258. 29. Margaret Gibbons Wilson, “Concentration and Dispersal of the Chinese Population of Chicago: 1870 to the Pre­sent” (master’s thesis, University of Chicago, 1969), 29, 39, 60, 101. 30. Peter S. Li, Occupational Mobility and Kinship Assistance: A Study of Chinese Immigrants in Chicago (San Francisco: R & E Research Associates, 1978). 31. Li, Occupational Mobility and Kinship Assistance, 123. 32. Susan Lee Moy, “The Chinese in Chicago: The First One Hundred Years, 1870–1970” (master’s thesis, University of Wisconsin–­Madison, 1978), 175–176. 33. Susan Lee Moy, “The Chinese in Chicago,” in Ethnic Chicago: A Multicultural Portrait, ed. Melvin G. Holli and Peter d’A. Jones (­Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1995), 378–408. 34. Harry Ying Cheng Kiang, Chicago’s Chinatown (Lincolnwood, IL: Institute of China Studies, 1992). 35. Minglan Cheung Keener, “Chicago’s Chinatown” (master’s thesis, University of Illinois at Urbana-­Champaign, 1994).

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36. Linda Qingling Wang, “Chinese Immigrant Adaptation in an American Urban Context” (PhD diss., University of Wisconsin–­Madison, 1997), 350–353. 37. Adam McKeown, Chinese Mi­g rant Networks and Cultural Change: Peru, Chicago, Hawaii, 1900–1936 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 1–6. 38. Yu, Thinking Orientals, 114–116, 125–140. 39. Shanshan Lan, “Learning Race and Class” (PhD diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-­Champaign, 2007), iv. 40. Huping Ling, Chinese St. Louis: From Enclave to Cultural Community (Philadelphia: ­Temple University Press, 2004); Ling, Chinese Chicago: Race, Transnational Migration, and Community since 1870 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012). 41. Wayne Hung Wong, American Paper Son: A Chinese Immigrant in the Midwest, ed. and intro. Benson Tong (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006). 42. See, for example, Ling Z. Arenson, “Beyond a Common Ethnicity and Culture: Chicagoland’s Chinese American Communities since 1945,” in Asian Amer­i­ca: Forming New Communities, Expanding Bound­aries, ed. Huping Ling (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2009), 65–86; Yvonne M. Lau, “Chicago’s Chinese Americans: From Chinatown and Beyond,” in The New Chicago: A Social and Cultural Analy­sis, ed. John P. Koval, Larry Bennett, Michael I. J. Bennett, Fassil Demissie, Roberta Garner, and Kiljoong Kim (Philadelphia: ­Temple University Press, 2006), 168–181; Huping Ling, “Governing ‘Hop Alley’: On Leong Chinese Merchants and Laborers Association, 1906–1966,” Journal of American Ethnic History 23, no. 2 (Winter 2004): 50–84; Ling, “Hop Alley: Myth and Real­ity of the St. Louis Chinatown, 1860s–1930s,” Journal of Urban History 28, no. 2 (January 2002): 184–219; Ling, “Reconceptualizing Chinese American Community in St. Louis: From Chinatown to Cultural Community,” Journal of American Ethnic History 24, no.  2 (Winter 2005): 65–101; Mae M. Ngai, “Transnationalism and the Transformation of the ‘Other,’ ” American Quarterly 57, no. 1 (March 2005): 59–65; John S. Rohsenow, “Chinese Language Use in Chicagoland,” in Ethnolinguistic Chicago: Language and Literacy in the City’s Neighborhoods, ed. Marcia Farr (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2004), 321–355; Sook Wilkinson and Victor Jew, eds., Asian Americans in Michigan: Voices from the Midwest (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2015).

Chapter 5 ​—­ ​­Family and Marriage among Chicagoland Chinese, 1880s–1940s Portions of this chapter are drawn from Chinese Chicago: Race, Transnational Migration, and Community since 1870, by Huping Ling. © 2012 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Ju­nior University. Published by Stanford University Press. All rights reserved. 1. Paul Siu, “Chinese F ­ amily in Chicago,” Ernest Watson Burgess Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Regenstein Library, University of Chicago (hereafter EWB Papers), box 137, folder 8; Chinese American Museum of Chicago (hereafter CAMOC) exhibit. 2. Testimony of Moy Dong Hoy, April 11, 1906, Chicago Chinese Case Files for District No. 9, Chicago, 1898–1940, Chicago District Office, Rec­ords of the Immigration and Naturalization Ser­vice, RG 85, National Archives and Rec­ords Administration–­Great Lakes Region (Chicago) (hereafter CCCF), file 463; Chuimei Ho and Soo Lon Moy, eds., Chinese in Chicago, 1870–1945 (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2005), 50. 3. Ho and Moy, Chinese in Chicago, 84. 4. Testimony of Chin F. Foin, January 16, 1906, CCCF, file 440. 5. Testimony of Chin F. Foin, January 16, 1906, CCCF, file 440; Ho and Moy, Chinese in Chicago, 50; Adam McKeown, Chinese Mi­grant Networks and Cultural Change: Peru, Chicago, Hawaii, 1900–1936 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 203.

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6. Siu, “Chinese ­Family in Chicago.” 7. Siu, “Chinese ­Family in Chicago.” 8. Huping Ling, Surviving on the Gold Mountain: A History of Chinese American W ­ omen and Their Lives (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 18–20, 25–39. 9. Some examples are the marriages of the Moy ­brothers and Chin F. Foin. 10. Louis Chu, Eat a Bowl of Tea (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1979). 11. Madeline  Y. Hsu, Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home: Transnationalism and Migration between the United States and South China, 1882–1943 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000). 12. Siu, “Chinese F ­ amily in Chicago.” 13. Siu, “Chinese ­Family in Chicago.” 14. Siu, “Chinese F ­ amily in Chicago.” 15. Confucius, Lunyu [Conversations]. 16. John King Fairbank, East Asia: Tradition and Transformation (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973), 142. 17. See Ba Jin, ­Family (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1972). 18. Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo Hunyin Fa [Marriage law of the PRC] 1980, in Zhongguo falu nianjian bianjibu [Editorial department of the law yearbook of China], Zhongguo Falu Nianjian 1987 [Law yearbook of China 1987] (Beijing: Falu Chubanshe, 1987), 168–169. 19. For examples of the financial inability of Chinese immigrant men, see Case 19571/18-5, RG 85, National Archives and Rec­ords Administration–­Pacific Sierra Region (San Bruno, CA); “Survey of Race Relations,” document 251, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace Archives, Stanford University, Stanford, CA; and Ling, Surviving on the Gold Mountain, 25–26. For examples of Chinese patriarchal control, see Cases 19571/18-5 and 14284/4-4, RG 85, National Archives and Records Administration–­Pacific Sierra Region (San Bruno, CA); Ling, Surviving on the Gold Mountain, 26–27; and Sucheng Chan, Asian Americans: An Interpretive History (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1991), 104. 20. Case 3358d, Entry 134, “Customs Case File No. 3358 Related to Chinese Immigration, 1877–1891”; Case 1355, Entry 132, “Chinese General Correspondence, 1898–1908,” RG 85, National Archives, Washington, DC. 21. Case 19571/18-5, RG 85, National Archives and Records Administration–­Pacific Sierra Region (San Bruno, CA); Lin Yutang, Chinatown ­Family (New York: John Day, 1948), 196–197. 22. David Beesley, “From Chinese to Chinese American: Chinese W ­ omen and Families in a Sierra Nevada Town.” California History 67 (September 1988): 174. 23. Siu, “Chinese F ­ amily in Chicago”; CAMOC exhibit. 24. Testimony of Moy Dong Hoy, April 11, 1906, CCCF, file 463. 25. Ho and Moy, Chinese in Chicago, 84. 26. Siu, “Chinese F ­ amily in Chicago.” 27. David Lee, interview with the author, April 19, 2008. 28. Beesley, “From Chinese to Chinese American,” 174. 29. Sucheng Chan, This Bittersweet Soil: The Chinese in California Agriculture, 1860–1910 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 395. 30. For further discussion on the impact of the Page Law on Chinese immigrant w ­ omen, see George Anthony Peffer, “Forbidden Families: Emigration Experiences of Chinese ­Women ­under the Page Law, 1875–1882,” Journal of American Ethnic History 6 (1986): 28–64. 31. Roger Daniels, Asian Amer­i­ca: Chinese and Japa­nese in the United States since 1850 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988), 96. 32. Daniels, Asian Amer­i­ca, 96. 33. Daniels, Asian Amer­i­ca, 96–97.

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34. Entry 132, “Chinese General Correspondence, 1898–1908”; Entry 134, “Customs Case File No.  3358 Related to Chinese Immigration, 1877–1891”; Entry 135, “Chinese Smuggling File, 1914–1921”; Entry 136, “Chinese Division File, 1924–1925”; and Entry 137, “Applications for Duplicate Certificates of Residence, 1893–1920,” RG 85, National Archives, Washington, DC. 35. For works on anti-­m iscegenation laws, see Sucheng Chan, “Exclusion of Chinese ­Women,” in Entry Denied: Exclusion and the Chinese in Amer­i­ca, 1882–1943, ed. Sucheng Chan (Philadelphia: T ­ emple University Press, 1991), 128–129; Chan, Asian Americans, 59–60; Megumi Dick Osumi, “Asians and California’s Anti-­Miscegenation Laws,” in Asian and Pacific American Experience: ­Women’s Perspectives, ed. Nobuya Tuschida et al. (Minneapolis: Asian/Pacific American Learning Resource Center and General College, University of Minnesota, 1982), 1–37; Robert J. Sickels, Race, Marriage, and the Law (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1972), 64; and Betty Lee Sung, Chinese American Intermarriage (New York: Center for Migration Studies, 1990), 2. 36. New York Times, March 13, 1966, sec. 4, p. 12; Fowler V. Harper and Jerome H. Skolnick, Prob­lems of the ­Family (New York: Bobbs-­Merrill, 1962), 96–105. 37. California Statutes, 1880, Code Amendments, chap. 41, sec. 1, p. 3. 38. California Statutes, 1905, chap. 481, sec. 2, p. 554. 39. Mrs. C., interview with the author, 1992. 40. Testimonies of Lillie Moy and Moy Dong Chow, August  8, 1924, CCCF, file 2005-1628. 41. Lorraine Moy Tun, interview with Ruth Kung, September 1, 2007. 42. Lucie Cheng Hirata, “Chinese Immigrant W ­ omen in Nineteenth-­Century California,” in Tuschida et al., Asian and Pacific American Experience, 48. 43. Mrs. C., interview. 44. Mrs. S., interview with the author, 1992. 45. Lily Chan, “My Early Influences,” October  25, 1926, William Carlson Smith Documents, MK-2, Special Collection, Main Library, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR. 46. Ling, Surviving on the Gold Mountain. ­ amily in Chicago.” Lottery h ­ ouses w ­ ere found in poor or working-­ 47. Siu, “Chinese F class neighborhoods where forms of illegal gambling took place. 48. Siu, “Chinese ­Family in Chicago.” 49. Siu, “Chinese ­Family in Chicago.” 50. Siu, “Chinese ­Family in Chicago.” 51. Siu, “Chinese ­Family in Chicago.” 52. Siu, “Chinese F ­ amily in Chicago.” 53. Siu, “Chinese F ­ amily in Chicago.” 54. “Gleeful Celestials, Chicago Chinatown Celebrate Their New-­Year’s Festival,” Chicago Tribune, January 20, 1890. 55. Siu, “Chinese ­Family in Chicago.” 56. Siu, “Chinese ­Family in Chicago.” 57. Siu, “Chinese ­Family in Chicago.” 58. Siu, “Chinese ­Family in Chicago.” ­ amily in Chicago.” 59. Siu, “Chinese F 60. Siu, “Chinese ­Family in Chicago.” 61. Lucy  M. Cohen, Chinese in the Post–­Civil War South: A ­People without a History (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984), 147; James W. Loewen, The Mississippi Chinese: Between Black and White (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), 75; Sarah R. Mason, “­Family Structure and Acculturation in the Chinese Community in

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Minnesota,” in Tuschida et al., Asian and Pacific American Experience, 160–171; and John Kuo Wei Tchen, “New York Chinese: The Nineteenth-­Century Pre-­Chinatown Settlement,” Chinese Amer­i­ca: History and Perspectives 4 (1990): 157–192. 62. Tenth Census, 1880, New Orleans, Louisiana, population schedules, cited in Cohen, Chinese in the Post–­Civil War South, 147. 63. Mason, “­Family Structure and Acculturation,” 163. 64. Tchen, “New York Chinese,” 176–177. 65. See U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Census, 1860–1920. 66. Clara Gilbert, “Los Angeles Chinatown,” June 12, 1924, William Carlson Smith Documents, AX 311. 67. Mrs. S., interview. 68. Ling, Surviving on the Gold Mountain, 115. 69. Siu, “Chinese F ­ amily in Chicago.” 70. Siu, “Chinese ­Family in Chicago.” ­ entury 71. Huping Ling, “­Family and Marriage of Late-­Nineteenth and Early-­Twentieth C Chinese Immigrant W ­ omen,” Journal of American Ethnic History 19, no. 2 (Winter 2000): 43–63.

chapter 6 ​—­ ​living in “hop alley,” 1860s–1930s Portions of this chapter are drawn from Chinese St. Louis: From Enclave to Cultural Community by Huping Ling. Used by permission of ­Temple University Press. Copyright © 2004 by ­Temple University. All rights reserved. 1. Roger Daniels, Asian Amer­i­ca: Chinese and Japa­nese in the United States since 1850 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988), 17; Stanford M. Lyman, Chinese Americans (New York: Random House, 1974), 86–92. 2. Sucheng Chan, Asian Americans: An Interpretive History (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1991); Huping Ling, Surviving on the Gold Mountain: A History of Chinese American ­Women and Their Lives (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 25–39. 3. Chan, Asian Americans, 104. 4. Cases 19571/18-5 and 14282/4-4, RG 85, National Archives and Rec­ords Administration–­ Pacific Sierra Region (San Bruno, CA). 5. Vincent Tang, “Chinese W ­ omen Immigrants and the Two-­Edged Sword of Habeas Corpus,” in The Chinese American Experience: Papers from the Second National Conference on Chinese American Studies, ed. Genny Lim (San Francisco: Chinese Historical Society of Amer­i­ca and the Chinese Cultural Foundation of San Francisco, 1980), 48–56. 6. George Anthony Peffer, If They ­Don’t Bring Their W ­ omen ­Here: Chinese Female Immigration before Exclusion (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999). 7. Sucheng Chan, ed., Entry Denied: Exclusion and the Chinese in Amer­i­ca, 1882–1943 (Philadelphia: T ­ emple University Press, 1991). 8. William Hyde and Howard  L. Conard, Encyclopedia of the History of St.  Louis: A Compendium of History and Biography for Ready Reference, 3 vols. (St. Louis: The Southern History Com­pany, 1899), 357–358. 9. Missouri Republican, January 23, 1870. 10. Classified advertisement, St. Louis Republic, July 29, 1900, magazine section, 9. 11. “House­keeping in St. Louis Chinatown,” St. Louis Republic, August 14, 1910, magazine section, 4. 12. James Neal Primm, Lion of the Valley: St. Louis, Missouri (Boulder, CO: Pruett Publishing Co., 1990), 166. 13. “House­keeping in St. Louis Chinatown.”

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14. “House­keeping in St. Louis Chinatown.” 15. “Only Four Chinese ­Women in St.  Louis,” St.  Louis Republic, October  4, 1908, pt. 5, p. 4. 16. “Only Four Chinese W ­ omen in St. Louis,” pt. 5, p. 4. 17. “Only Four Chinese ­Women in St. Louis,” pt. 5, p. 4. 18. “Only Four Chinese W ­ omen in St. Louis,” pt. 5, p. 4. 19. “House­keeping in St. Louis Chinatown,” 4. 20. “House­keeping in St. Louis Chinatown,” 4. 21. Ling, Surviving on the Gold Mountain, 61–72. 22. John Kuo Wei Tchen, Genthe’s Photo­graphs of San Francisco’s Old Chinatown (New York: Dover Publications, 1984), 106. 23. Rose Hum Lee, The Growth and Decline of Chinese Communities in the Rocky Mountain Region (New York: Arno Press, 1978), 252. 24. “Life History,” by a Chinese girl at McKinley High School, Honolulu, November 20, 1926, William Carlson Smith Documents, MK-2, Special Collection, Main Library, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR. 25. Annie Leong, interview with the author, December 17, 1998. 26. Lillie Hong, interview with the author, February 2, 1999. 27. Primm, Lion of the Valley, 339. 28. Missouri Republican, December  31, 1869; Kennedy’s St.  Louis City Directory, 1859– 1863; Edward’s St. Louis City Directory, 1864–1871; Gould’s St. Louis City Directory, 1872– 1879; U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Census, 1860; and C. Fred Blake, “­There ­Ought to Be a Monument to Alla Lee,” Chinese American Forum 15, no. 3 (January 2000): 23–25. 29. U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Census, 1890; Claudia Rhodes, letter to the author, February 18, 2002. 30. “Hop Alley to Be Invaded,” St. Louis Republic, May 1, 1910 (II), 16. 31. “Hop Alley Census Adds 300,” St. Louis Republic, May 2, 1910, 14. 32. “2 S­ isters Arrested in Chop Suey Raid,” St. Louis Republic, August 22, 1910. 33. Huping Ling, “­Family and Marriage of Late-­Nineteenth and Early-­Twentieth ­Century Chinese Immigrant ­Women,” Journal of American Ethnic History 19, no.  2 (Winter 2000): 43–63. 34. Victor Jew, “Broken Win­dows: Anti-­Chinese Vio­lence and Interracial Sexuality in 19th ­Century Milwaukee,” in Asian Pacific American Genders and Sexualities, ed. Thomas K. Nakayama (Tempe: Arizona State University, 1999), 29–51. 35. K. Scott Wong, “ ‘The Ea­gle Seeks a Helpless Quarry’: Chinatown, the Police, and the Press, the 1903 Boston Chinatown Raid Revisited,” Amerasia Journal 22, no.  3 (1996): 81–103. 36. Mary Ting Yi Lui, “ ‘The Chinatown Trunk Mystery’: The Elsie Sigel Murder Case and the Policing of Interracial Sexual Relations in New York City’s Chinatown, 1880–1915” (PhD diss., Cornell University, 2000). 37. Hyde and Conard, Encyclopedia of the History of St. Louis, 357–358. 38. Hyde and Conard, Encyclopedia of the History of St. Louis, 357–358. 39. The St. Louis Organ­ization of Chinese Amer­i­ca, ed., Ironing Out the Fabric (St. Louis: The St. Louis Organ­ization of Chinese Amer­i­ca, 1990), 12. 40. Hong, interview. 41. “70th Anniversary, 1924–1994” (St. Louis: St. Louis Chinese Gospel Church, November 1994, 3). 42. Hong, interview. 43. “70th Anniversary, 1924–1994,” 3.

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44. Hong, interview. 45. Hyde and Conard, Encyclopedia of the History of St. Louis, 357–358. 46. Hyde and Conard, Encyclopedia of the History of St. Louis, 357–358. 47. “House­keeping in St. Louis Chinatown.” 48. Hong, interview. 49. The St. Louis Organ­ization of Chinese Amer­i­ca, Ironing Out the Fabric, 12. 50. Hong, interview; “House­keeping in St. Louis Chinatown,” 4. 51. Leong, interview; “House­keeping in St. Louis Chinatown.” 52. “House­keeping in St. Louis Chinatown.” 53. “Hop Alley to Be Invaded,” 16. 54. Leong, interview; “House­keeping in St. Louis Chinatown.” 55. Leong, interview. 56. “Hop Alley to Be Invaded.” 57. The St. Louis Organ­ization of Chinese Amer­i­ca, Ironing Out the Fabric, 3. 58. St. Louis Republic, February 10, 1880. 59. “Chinese ­Grand Lodge of ­Free Masons of the State of Missouri,” Corporation Book 18 (November 3, 1899), 499, Recorder of Deeds, City Hall of St. Louis. 60. “Chinese G ­ rand Lodge of F ­ ree Masons of the State of Missouri,” 499. 61. Immanuel Hsu, The Rise of Modern China (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 408–412. 62. “Chinese Empire Reform Society of Missouri,” Corporation Book 24 (January  5, 1903), 296, Recorder of Deeds, City Hall of St. Louis. 63. Gould’s St. Louis City Directory, 1910–1927. 64. Gould’s St. Louis City Directory, 1910–1927. 65. Gould’s St. Louis City Directory, 1910–1927. 66. Hsu, Rise of Modern China, 408. 67. Hsu, Rise of Modern China, 408–412. 68. “Chinese American Educational Association,” Corporation Book 30 (May 25, 1905), 59, Recorder of Deeds, City Hall of St. Louis. 69. “Chinese Nationalist League of Amer­i­c a,” Corporation Book 53 (July 18, 1916), 554, Recorder of Deeds, City Hall of St. Louis. 70. “Chinese Nationalist Party,” Corporation Book 97 (December 7, 1928), 467, Recorder of Deeds, City Hall of St. Louis. 71. Theodore Dreiser, “The Chinese in St. Louis,” in Journalism, vol. 1, Newspaper Writings, 1892–1895, ed. T. D. Nostwich (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988), 239–249. 72. “The Late Wong You,” St.  Louis Globe-­Democrat, October  25, 1879; “A Celestial Funeral,” St. Louis Globe-­Democrat, October 26, 1879. 73. Dreiser, “Chinese in St. Louis.” 74. Dreiser, “Chinese in St. Louis.” 75. Sue Fawn Chung, “Between Two Worlds: The Zhigongtang and Chinese American Funerary Rituals,” in The Chinese in Amer­i­ca: A History from Gold Mountain to the New Millennium, ed. Susie Lan Cassel (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2002), 217–238. 76. Dreiser, “Chinese in St. Louis.” 77. “Bones of Chinese to Be Sent Home,” St. Louis Post-­Dispatch, November 17, 1928. 78. C. Fred Blake, “The Chinese of Valhalla: Adaptation and Identity in a Midwestern American Cemetery,” Markers: Journal of the Association for Gravestone Studies 10 (1993): 53–89. 79. “Chinese-­American History Reflected in Cemetery,” Kirksville Daily Express and News, August 10, 1999.

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80. Blake, “Chinese of Valhalla.” 81. ­These numbers are based on the author’s field study of the Chinese burials in Valhalla Cemetery. 82. Blake, “Chinese of Valhalla.” 83. Blake, “Chinese of Valhalla.”

chapter 7 ​—­ ​governing “hop alley” Portions of this chapter are drawn from Huping Ling, “Governing ‘Hop Alley:’ On Leong Chinese Merchants and Laborers Association, 1906–1966,” Journal of American Ethnic History 23, no. 2 (Winter 2004): 50–84, with permission. 1. “Charles Quinn New Mayor of Chinatown,” St.  Louis Globe-­Democrat, February  1, 1948; “Chinatown Mayor Speaks at Dinner Marking New Year,” St. Louis Globe-­Democrat, February 11, 1948; “­Daughter of Mayor Weds,” St. Louis Globe-­Democrat, July 14, 1949. 2. Herbert Ashbury, The Gangs of New York (New York: Paragon House, 1928). 3. Eng Ying Gong and Bruce Grant, Tong War (New York: Nicholas L. Brown, 1930), 157; St. Louis Globe-­Democrat, April 1, 1949; Kuo-­lin Chen, Hua Ren Bang Pai (The Chinatown gangs) (Taipei: Juliu Publishing House, 1995), 42–43. Presently On Leong has more than twenty branches in the eastern and midwestern states. 4. Chung Kok Li, owner, Lee’s ­Family Buffet, copresident, On Leong, interview with the author, October 12, 1998. 5. “On Leong Tong Chinese Merchants Association,” Corporation Book 43 (April 6, 1912), 543, Recorder of Deeds, City Hall of St. Louis. 6. Yung-­Deh Richard Chu, “Chinese Secret Socie­ties in Amer­i­c a: A Historical Survey,” Asian Profile 1, no. 1 (1973): 21–38. 7. “House­keeping in St. Louis Chinatown,” St. Louis Republican, August 14, 1910, magazine section, 4. 8. C. N. Reynolds, “The Chinese Tongs,” American Journal of Sociology 40 (March 1935): 12–23. 9. Chu, “Chinese Secret Socie­ties in Amer­i­ca,” 23–24. 10. Chen, Hua Ren Bang Pai, 35–37. 11. Chu, “Chinese Secret Socie­ties in Amer­i­ca,” 27; for the development of Chih Kung in North Amer­i­ca, see Sue Fawn Chung, “Between Two Worlds: The Zhigongtang and Chinese American Funerary Rituals,” in The Chinese in Amer­i­ca: A History from Gold Mountain to the New Millennium, ed. Susie Lan Cassel (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2002), 217–238. 12. Chen, Hua Ren Bang Pai, 42–43. 13. “Hop Alley Makee Feast Like B. M. L.,” St. Louis Republican, October 11, 1914. 14. William Hoy, The Chinese Six Companies (San Francisco: California Chinese Historical Society, 1942); Him Mark Lai, “Historical Development of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association/Huiguan System,” Chinese Amer­i­ca: History and Perspectives 1 (1987): 13–51; Huping Ling, Surviving on the Gold Mountain: A History of Chinese American ­Women and Their Lives (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 47–50. 15. The reasons that the CCBA did not spread in the Midwest may be associated with its failure in challenging immigration authorities in the 1890s. 16. “On Leong Tong Chinese Merchants Association,” Corporation Book 43, 543. 17. “On Leong Tong Chinese Merchants Association,” Corporation Book 43, 543. 18. “On Leong Chinese Merchants and Laborers Association,” Corporation Book 60 (March 4, 1919), 537, Recorder of Deeds, City Hall of St. Louis. 19. Li, interview; Don Ko, proprietor, Chinese laundry, restaurants, and trading com­ pany and copresident, On Leong, interview with the author, October 19, 1998.

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20. “Chinese in St. Louis,” St. Louis Globe-­Democrat, November 19, 1956; “Chinese Cook Up Tasty Convention,” St. Louis Globe-­Democrat, April 19, 1962. 21. Li, interview. 22. Lai, “Historical Development of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association”; Chinese General Correspondence, 1898–1908, RG 85, National Archives and Rec­ords Administration, Washington, DC. 23. Lai, “Historical Development of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association,” 19–20. 24. Li, interview. 25. Annie Leong, interview with the author, December 17, 1998. 26. Lai, “Historical Development of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association”; Ling, Surviving on the Gold Mountain, 96. 27. Ko, interview. 28. “On Leong Chinese Merchants and Laborers Association,” Corporation Book 60, 537. 29. Leong, interview; St.  Louis Globe-­Democrat, February  8, 1959; April  19, 1962; January 25, 1963; February 14, 1965; and August 4, 1966. 30. Julia I. Hsuan Chen, The Chinese Community in New York (San Francisco: R & E Research Associates, 1974), 38. 31. Hoy, Chinese Six Companies, 21–22. 32. Lai, “Historical Development of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association.” 33. Peter Kwong, The New Chinatown (New York: Hill and Wang, 1987), 86–90. 34. Chung, “Between Two Worlds,” 222. 35. Lai, “Historical Development of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association.” 36. Kwong, New Chinatown, 81–106. 37. William Riordon, Honest Graft: The World of George Washington Plunkitt: Plunkitt of Tammany Hall (St. James, NY: Brandywine Press, 1993). 38. Rose Hum Lee, The Chinese in the United States of Amer­i­ca (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1960); Peter Kwong, Chinatown, New York: L ­ abor and Politics, 1930–1950 (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1979); Chalsa M. Loo, Chinatown: Most Time, Hard Time (New York: Praeger, 1991). 39. “Hop Alley Makee Feast Like B. M. L.” 40. “50 Years Ago—­Saturday, Dec. 15, 1917,” St. Louis Globe-­Democrat, December 15, 1967. 41. Gould’s St. Louis City Directory, 1897–1914. 42. Dick Wood, “The Chinese Colony of St.  Louis,” St.  Louis Republic, July  29, 1900, magazine section. 43. Wood, “Chinese Colony of St. Louis.” 44. Wood, “Chinese Colony of St. Louis.” 45. “Bones of Chinese to Be Sent Home,” St. Louis Post-­Dispatch, November 17, 1928. ­ ere Aiding Homeland,” St. 46. Gould’s St.  Louis City Directory, 1939–1952; “Chinese H Louis Globe-­Democrat, October 14, 1937. 47. “Chinese Nationalists ­Here Split on House Government,” St. Louis Stars and Times, March 12, 1930. 48. “Chinese H ­ ere Aiding Homeland”; “Chinese in St.  Louis Contribute to China’s War Effort,” St. Louis Globe-­Democrat, August 11, 1939. 49. “250 Attend St. Louis Tea for Benefit of Chinese,” St. Louis Post-­Dispatch, June 18, 1938. 50. “Chinese ­Here Aiding Homeland.” 51. “All Limousines in City Hired for Mourners,” St.  Louis Globe-­Democrat, December 23, 1947.

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52. “All Limousines in City Hired for Mourners.” 53. “Charles Quinn New Mayor of Chinatown”; Dickson Terry, “St.  Louis Chinese Denounce the Reds,” St. Louis Post-­Dispatch, December 14, 1950. 54. Terry, “St.  Louis Chinese Denounce the Reds”; “­Daughter of Mayor of Chinatown Weds,” St. Louis Globe-­Democrat, June 14, 1949. 55. Note that Charles Quinn’s term (1938–1948) as president of the National On Leong Association overlapped with Joe Lin’s (1937–1947), due perhaps to an error in newspaper reportage. 56. Terry, “St. Louis Chinese Denounce the Reds.” 57. Terry, “St. Louis Chinese Denounce the Reds.” 58. “C. H. Quin Chu Dies,” St. Louis Post-­Dispatch, February 1, 1976. 59. Adam McKeown, Chinese Mi­g rant Networks and Cultural Change: Peru, Chicago, Hawaii, 1900–1936 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 198–223. 60. Gould’s St. Louis City Directory, 1914–1952. 61. Gould’s St. Louis City Directory, 1914–1952. 62. “Chinese ­Here Search for ‘Kung His Fa Tsai,’ ” St. Louis Globe-­Democrat, January 27, 1957. 63. “Chinese Group Buys a $100,000 Building H ­ ere,” St. Louis Globe-­Democrat, September 12, 1948; “Chinese Pay $100,000 for Building H ­ ere,” St. Louis Post-­Dispatch, September 12, 1948. 64. “National Convention of On Leong Opens ­Here Monday,” St. Louis Globe-­Democrat, April 1, 1949; “14-­Course Chinese Banquet Served Tong Parley Delegates,” St. Louis Globe-­ Democrat, April 3, 1949. 65. Leong, interview. ­ ere Welcome 4650th  New Year,” St.  Louis Globe-­Democrat, January 28, 66. “Chinese H 1952. 67. “St. Louis Chinese Wishing You ‘Kung Hsi Fa Tsai,’ ” St. Louis Globe-­Democrat, February 8, 1959. 68. “Chinese Cook Up Tasty Convention,” St. Louis Globe-­Democrat, April 19, 1962. 69. “Chinatown ­Going Down—­Maybe Chop Chop,” St.  Louis Globe-­Democrat, January 25, 1963. 70. “Chinatown ­Going Down.” 71. “Chinese to Vacate Old Quarters as New Year Begins,” St.  Louis Globe-­Democrat, January 21, 1966. 72. Beulah Schacht, “Chinatown Changes Quarters,” St.  Louis Globe-­Democrat, August 4, 1966. 73. “Demise of Old Chinatown,” St. Louis Globe-­Democrat, August 20–21, 1966. 74. Ling, Surviving on the Gold Mountain, 107. 75. “Chinese H ­ ere Aiding Homeland.” 76. “250 Attend St. Louis Tea for Benefit of Chinese,” St. Louis Post-­Dispatch, June 18, 1938. 77. “Chinese in St. Louis Contribute to China’s War Effort,” St. Louis Globe-­Democrat, August 11, 1939. 78. Li, interview.

chapter 8 ​—­ ​the 1965 immigration and nationality act and the formation of cultural community in st. louis Portions of this chapter are drawn from Huping Ling, Chinese St. Louis: From Enclave to Cultural Community. Used by permission of ­Temple University Press. Copyright © 2004 by ­Temple University. All rights reserved. The research for this chapter was sponsored by

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the Center of Missouri Studies Fellowship from the State Historical Society of Missouri in 2020. 1. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon  B. Johnson, 1965, vol. 2, entry 546 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1966), 1037–1040. 2. Ling, Chinese St. Louis. 3. Vari­ous immigration rec­ords in the National Archives and Rec­ords Administration in Washington, DC, and Chinese Exclusion Act cases in the Pacific Sierra Regional Archives (San Bruno, CA) provide abundant information on the practice of Chinese exclusion at the national level. At the regional level, the Chinese Exclusion Cases Habeas Corpus Petitions (1857–1965) and Rec­ords of U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri from the National Archives and Rec­ords Administration–­Central Plains Region (Kansas City, MO), offer invaluable data on early Chinese immigrants in the state of Missouri. At the local level, I searched manuscripts and data from the St.  Louis City Hall, Police Department, and vari­ous public and private libraries and archives. The U.S. Census and the annual report of the Immigration and Naturalization Ser­v ice also provide a tremendous wealth of data on Chinese at national, regional, and local levels. 4. In the 1990s and early 2010s I interviewed about 200 individuals from Greater St. Louis, from teen­agers to individuals in their 80s and from many walks of life. The interviews focused on issues of immigration, settlement, employment, community activities, and po­l iti­c al participation. 5. Statutes at Large, vol. 79 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1965), 912–913. 6. Migration Policy Institute, “­L egal Immigration to the United States, 1820–­Pre­sent,” accessed March  1, 2022, https://­w ww​.­migrationpolicy​.­org​/­programs​/­data​-­hub​/­charts​/­An​ nual​-­Number​-­of​-­US​-­Legal​-­Permanent​-­Residents. 7. Missouri Republican, December  31, 1869; Louisville Courier-­Journal, December  30, 1896; Lucy M. Cohen, Chinese in the Post–­Civil War South: A ­People without a History (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984), 86–87; Kennedy’s St.  Louis Directory, 1859–1863; Edward’s St. Louis Directory, 1864–1871; Gould’s St. Louis Directory, 1872–1879; U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Census, 1860; and C. Fred Blake, “­There ­Ought to Be a Monument to Alla Lee,” Chinese American Forum 15, no. 3 (January 2000): 23–25. 8. This claim is based on my tallies of Chinese laundries and non-­Chinese laundries in St. Louis during the last de­cades of the nineteenth ­century and the first de­cades of the twentieth ­century, census data, and information from news reports. 9. In the de­cades since passage of the 1965 Immigration Act, the development of the Chinese American communities in the United States has generally followed a c­ ouple of patterns. In the major Chinese American population centers on the coasts or in entry ports such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago, the traditional downtown Chinese communities or Chinatowns w ­ ere able to survive or expand due to the continued influx of new and often laboring immigrants, but the Chinatowns in smaller or hinterland communities have tended to decline (such as ­those in Philadelphia and Washington, DC), or dis­appear (such as in Denver). Meanwhile, the more skilled and better-­financed new immigrants have integrated into larger American society and resided in suburbs, thus forming “suburban Chinatowns” or “ethnoburbs,” meaning ethnic suburbs. Chinese Americans in St. Louis, however, could not follow ­either pattern. The urban Chinese quarter of Hop Alley and ­later a Chinese community around Delmar Ave­nue ­were both forced to move during the urban development movement. At the same time, the Chinese Americans residing in suburbs have less incentive and ability to form a physical Chinese business concentration. See detailed discussion on this issue in Ling, Chinese St. Louis, 135–188.

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10. The definition of St. Louis has changed historically. Prior to 1876, St. Louis City was within St.  Louis County, and it became an in­de­pen­dent city in 1876. The terms names “St. Louis area” and “St. Louis region” have been generally referred to as St. Louis City and St. Louis County. According to the 1990 U.S. Census, however, the St. Louis Metropolitan Statistical Area constitutes St. Louis City and eleven other counties, of which seven are on the Missouri side and five on the Illinois side (St. Louis City is counted as both city and county). Since an overwhelming majority of Chinese Americans reside in St. Louis City and St. Louis County of Missouri, the name “St. Louis region” in this study refers to St. Louis City and St. Louis County, Missouri, and all statistics are drawn accordingly. 11. Profile of General Demographic Characteristics: 2000 Data Set: Census 2000 Summary File 2 (SF 2) 100-­Percent Data Geographic Area: St.  Louis, MO-­IL MSA Race or Ethnic Group: Chinese alone, accessed May 15, 2019, https://­w ww​.­census​.­gov​/­quickfacts​ /­stlouiscitymissouri. 12. The Chinese in metropolitan St.  Louis include American-­born Chinese as well as ­ orea, Vietnam, and Southeast Asian Chinese from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, K countries. Except for the census, ­t here are no official statistics on the Chinese population in St. Louis, which has increased rapidly since 1990. I have discussed this issue with leaders of vari­ous Chinese community organ­izations, who estimate that the Chinese population in St. Louis ranges from 20,000 to 50,000. See Kelly Moffitt, “St. Louisans of Chinese ­ oday,” St.  Louis Public Descent Reflect on Their Heritage and Experience in Amer­i­ca T Radio, April  25, 2017, https://­news​.­stlpublicradio​.­org ​/­post​/­st​-­louisans​-­chinese​-­descent​ -­reflect​-­t heir​-­heritage​-­a nd​-­experience​-­a merica​-­today#stream​/­0. 13. “Chinese in Saint Louis, MO,” accessed March 2, 2022, https://­w ww​.­yellowpages​.­com​ /­saint​-­louis​-­mo​/­chinese​?­page​= ­5. 14. Hsiang-­shui Chen, Chinatown No More: Taiwanese Immigrants in Con­temporary New York (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992), 31; Yen-­Fen Tseng, “Chinese Ethnic Economy: San Gabriel Valley, Los Angeles County,” Journal of Urban Affairs 16, no.  2 (1994): 170; Jan Lin, Reconstructing Chinatown: Ethnic Enclave, Global Change (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998), 39; Peter S. Li and Yahong Li, “The Consumer Market of the Enclave Economy: A Study of Advertisements in a Chinese Daily Newspaper in Toronto,” Canadian Ethnic Studies 31, no. 2 (1999): 43–60; Peter S. Li, “Self-­Employment among Vis­i­ble Minority Immigrants, White Immigrants, and Native-­Born Persons in Secondary and Tertiary Industries of Canada,” Canadian Journal of Regional Science 20, no.  1–2 (Spring–­Summer 1997): 103–118; Li, “Unneighborly Houses or Unwelcome Chinese: The Social Construction of Race in the B ­ attle over ‘Monster Homes’ in Vancouver, Canada,” International Journal of Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies 1, no.  1 (1994): 14–33; and Li, “Chinese Investment and Business in Canada: Ethnic Entrepreneurship Reconsidered,” Pacific Affairs 66, no. 2 (Summer 1993): 219–243. ­ abor and Poli15. For studies of urban ghettos, see Peter Kwong, Chinatown, New York: L tics, 1930–1950 (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1979), and Kwong, The New Chinatown (New York: Hill and Wang, 1987). For studies of ethnic enclaves, see Min Zhou, Chinatown: The Socioeconomic Potential of an Urban Enclave (Philadelphia: T ­ emple University Press, 1992). For studies of suburban Chinatowns, see Timothy P. Fong, The First Suburban Chinatown: The Making of Monterey Park, California (Philadelphia: ­Temple University Press, 1994); Yen-­Fen Tseng, “Suburban Ethnic Economy: Chinese Business Communities in Los Angeles” (PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1994), and Tseng, “Chinese Ethnic Economy.” For studies of ethnoburbs, see Wei Li, “Building Ethnoburbia: The Emergence and Manifestation of the Chinese Ethnoburb in Los Angeles’ San Gabriel Valley,” Journal of Asian American Studies 2, no. 1 (February 1999): 1–28.

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16. Bernard P. Wong, Patronage, Brokerage, Entrepreneurship and the Chinese Community of New York (New York: AMS Press, 1988); Li, “Chinese Investment and Business in Canada”; Linda Y. C. Lim, “Chinese Economic Activity in Southeast Asia: An Introductory Review,” in The Chinese in Southeast Asia, vol. 1, Ethnicity and Economic Activity, ed. Linda Y. C. Lim and L. A. Peter Goaling (Singapore: Maruzen Asia, 1983). For more discussions on Chinese ethnic networks, see Chan Kwok Bun, ed., Chinese Business Networks: State, Economy, and Culture (Singapore: Prentice Hall, 2000). 17. See the St. Louis Chinese American News, as well as author interviews with Chinese community leaders. 18. Author interviews with Chinese community leaders. 19. St. Louis is not the only city that has formed a cultural community; a similar community also appeared in the suburban areas of Greater Los Angeles. For example, Fo Guang Shan Hsi Lai T ­ emple, a mountain monastery in the northern Puente Hills, Hacienda Heights, in Los Angeles County, has served as a cultural center of the Chinese Americans in the area in the post-1965 era. It could suggest a rendition of a cultural community. 20. Anning Zhu, Principal, Modern Chinese Language School, interview with the author, May 12, 1999. 21. Jin Yi, “For Our ­Children, for Our ­Future,” St. Louis Chinese American News, January 25, 2001, S11. 22. William Tao, interview with the author, February 4, 1999; Walter Ko, interview with the author, June 2, 2001. 23. St. Louis Chinese American News, St. Louis Chinese American Yellow Pages, 2002 (St. Louis: St. Louis Chinese American News, 2003). 24. Examples supporting such a pattern can be found in numerous works. See, for example, Oscar Handlin, Adventure in Freedom: Three Hundred Years of Jewish Life in Amer­i­ca (New York: McGraw-­Hill, 1954); Rowland  T. Berthoff, British Immigrants in Industrial Amer­i­ca 1790–1950 (Cambridge, MA: Russell and Russell, 1953); R.  A. Birchall, The San Francisco Irish, 1848–1880 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980); Lawrence Cardoso, Mexican Immigrants to the United States (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1980); Dino Cinel, From Italy to San Francisco: The Immigrant Experience (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1982); Denis Clark, The Irish in Philadelphia (Philadelphia: ­Temple University Press, 1974); Roger Daniels, A History of Indian Immigration to the United States (New York: The Asia Society, 1989); and Hasia R. Diner, Erin’s ­Daughters in Amer­i­ca: Irish ­ entury (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, Immigrant ­Women in the Nineteenth C 1983). 25. See, for example, H. Arnold Barton, A Folk Divided: Homeland Swede and Swedish Americans, 1840–1940 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1994); Chen, Chinatown No More; Irving Cutler, The Jews of Chicago: From Shtetl to Suburb (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996); and Eileen Tamura, Americanization, Acculturation, and Ethnic Identity: The Nisei Generation in Hawaii (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994). 26. See Handlin, Adventure in Freedom. 27. See Kyeyoung Park, The Korean American Dream: Immigrants and Small Business in New York City (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997). ­ ill Be Speakers and Resources,” New York Times, 28. See “100 Chinese Americans W June 10, 1991, A1. 29. Handlin, Adventure in Freedom, 160. 30. Audrey L. Olson, St. Louis Germans, 1850–1920: The Nature of an Immigrant Community and Its Relation to the Assimilation Pro­cess (New York: Arno Press, 1980), 134. 31. Olson, St. Louis Germans, 134.

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32. Olson, St. Louis Germans, 281. Some observers disagree with Olson’s conviction, contending that t­here w ­ ere German enclaves in St. Louis and elsewhere in Missouri, along with ­t hose who dispersed. 33. Miyako ­Inoue, “Japanese-­Americans in St. Louis: From Internees to Professionals,” City and Society 3, no. 2 (1984): 142–152. 34. Guogan Wu, “An Overview of the Chinese Community in Kansas City,” Kansas City Chinese Journal, March 1 and 8, 2001. 35. Wu, “An Overview of the Chinese Community in Kansas City.” 36. Kansas City Chinese Journal, December 7, 2000. 37. St. Louis Chinese American News, 14 December 2000; Kansas City Chinese Journal, December 7 and 28, 2000; March 1 and 8, 2001. 38. Kansas City Chinese Journal, August 9, 2001. 39. Kansas City Chinese Journal, December 28, 2000. 40. Kansas City Chinese Journal, December 14 and 28, 2000; January 4 and 18, February 1, May 10, and August 9, 2001; St. Louis Chinese American News, December 14, 2000. 41. Benedict Anderson, ­Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991). 42. Anderson, ­Imagined Communities, 7. 43. Tu Wei-­ming, “Cultural China: The Periphery as the Center,” in Tu Wei-­ming, The Living Tree: The Changing Meaning of Being Chinese ­Today (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994), 13–15. 44. Linda Trinh Võ and Rick Bonus, eds., Con­temporary Asian American Communities: Intersections and Divergences (Philadelphia: T ­ emple University Press, 2002), 6.

chapter 9 ​—­ ​the tripartite community in chicago Portions of this chapter are drawn from Huping Ling, “The New Trends in American Chinatowns: The Case of Chinese in Chicago,” in Chinatowns around the World: Gilded Ghettos, Ethnopolis, and Cultural Diaspora, ed. Bernard Wong and Tan Chee-­Beng (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 55–94, and are reproduced ­here with permission. 1. Huping Ling, Surviving on the Gold Mountain: A History of Chinese American W ­ omen and Their Lives (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 2, 113–114. 2. Fred W. Riggs, Pressures on Congress: A Study of the Repeal of Chinese Exclusion (New York: King’s Crown Press, 1950), 43–183. 3. William  L. Tung, The Chinese in Amer­i­ca, 1820–1973: A Chronology and Fact Book (Dobbs Ferry, NY: Oceana Publications, 1974), 79–80. 4. Tung, Chinese in Amer­i­ca, 32. 5. Immigration and Naturalization Ser­vice, annual reports, 1945–1949, https://­searchworks​ .­stanford​.­edu​/­view​/­488273. Contains useful empirical, pictorial, textual materials on immigration and naturalization compiled by the INS. 6. Immigration and Naturalization Ser­v ice, annual report, 1948. 7. Immigration and Naturalization Ser­v ice, annual reports, 1945–1954. 8. Tung, Chinese in Amer­i­ca, 39. 9. U.S. Department of Commerce, The U.S. Census of Population, 1960. Contains useful empirical, statistical, and textual materials on the U.S. population compiled by the U.S. Department of Commerce at the end of each de­cade. 10. Rose Hum Lee, “The Recent Immigrant Chinese Families of the San Francisco–­ Oakland Area,” Marriage and F ­ amily Living 18 (1956): 14–24. For more detailed and dramatized information on Chinese war brides, see Louis Chu’s novel Eat a Bowl of Tea (1979) and the feature film with the same title adapted from the novel.

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11. U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Census of Population, 1860–2020. Contains useful empirical, statistical, and textual materials on the U.S. population compiled by the U.S. Department of Commerce. 12. Yolanda Lee, interview with Grace Chun and Soo Lon Moy, 2007. 13. Celia Moy Cheung, interview with Grace Chun, Thomas O’Connell, and Antrea Stamm, 2007. 14. Henry Yee, information provided to the Chinese American Museum of Chicago (hereafter CAMOC) in 2007 by Lily Ng, a relative of Henry Yee. 15. Harry Wu, interview with Delilah Lee Chan, 2007. 16. Grace Chun, interview with the author, April 19, 2008. 17. Corwin Eng, interview with Ruth Kung, 2007. 18. Benjamin C. Moy, interview with Grace Chun, 2007. 19. Susan Lee Moy, “The Chinese in Chicago: The First One Hundred Years, 1870–1970” (master’s thesis, University of Wisconsin–­Milwaukee, 1978), 131. 20. Moy, “Chinese in Chicago,” 167–168. 21. Howard Chun, interview with the author, April 19, 2008. 22. Moy, “Chinese in Chicago,” 101. 23. “Mr. G. P. Moy Leaves for China a­ fter Graduation,” Chinese Daily Times, September 22, 1936. 24. Moy, “Chinese in Chicago,” 97. 25. Moy, “Chinese in Chicago,” 101. 26. Moy, “Chinese in Chicago,” 132. 27. Cho Tuk Lo, interview with Grace Chun and Soo Lon Moy, 2007. 28. Catherine Wong Chin, interview with Sheila Chin, 2007. 29. Ian Roo­se­velt Chin, interview with Antrea Stamm, 2007. 30. Susanna Fong, interview with Delilah Lee Chan, 2007. 31. Dato’ Seri Stanley Thai, interview with Grace Chun and Soo Lon Moy, 2007. 32. Herman Chiu, interview with Delilah Lee Chan, 2007. 33. Chicago Fact Book Consortium, eds., Local Community Fact Book: Chicago Metropolitan Area 1990 (Chicago: University of Illinois at Chicago, 1995); Margaret Gibbons Wilson, “Concentration and Dispersal of the Chinese Population of Chicago: 1870 to the Pre­sent” (master’s thesis, University of Chicago, 1969), 101. 34. Minglan Cheung Keener, “Chicago’s Chinatown—­A Case Study of an Ethnic Neighborhood” (master’s thesis, University of Illinois at Urbana-­Champaign, 1994), 20. 35. Cited in Keener, “Chicago’s Chinatown,” 25. 36. Rachel Wang, interview with the author, September  26, 2007; Keener, “Chicago’s Chinatown,” 26. 37. Keener, “Chicago’s Chinatown,” 26. 38. Keener, “Chicago’s Chinatown,” 28. 39. See the Chinatown brochure created by the Chicago Chinatown Chamber of Commerce [n.d.]. 40. Cited in Yvonne M. Lau, “Chicago’s Chinese American Communities in Transition,” submitted to the 99th Annual Meeting of the American So­cio­log­i­cal Association, Section on Asia and Asian Amer­i­c a, August 9, 2004, http://­w ww​.­a llacademic​.­com​/­meta​/­p​_ ­m la​ _­apa​_­research​_­citation​/­1​/­1​/­0​/­5​/­9​/­p110590​_­index​.­html. 41. For living conditions in major Chinatowns in San Francisco and New York, see, for example, Chalsa M. Loo, Chinatown: Most Time, Hard Time (New York: Praeger, 1991), 3; Peter Kwong, Chinatown, New York: L ­ abor and Politics, 1930–1950 (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1979), and Kwong, The New Chinatown (New York: Hill and Wang, 1987).

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42. Keener, “Chicago’s Chinatown,” 1; Harry Ying Cheng Kiang, Chicago’s Chinatown (Lincolnwood, IL: Institute of China Studies, 1992), 9. 43. Xiaoyu Wong, interview with the author, April 19, 2008. 44. Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission, “Summary of Census 2000 Profiles of General Demographic Characteristics: For Counties, Townships, and Municipalities in Northeastern Illinois,” 2001, https://­catalog​.­lib​.­uchicago​.­edu​/­v ufind​/­Record​/­4492841​ /­Details. 45. See K. Kennedy, “Chinatown Returns to Center Stage,” Chicago Tribune, February 20, 2003, 16; Kiang, Chicago’s Chinatown, 6; John S. Rohsenow, “Chinese Language Use in Chicagoland,” in Ethnolinguistic Chicago: Language and Literacy in the City’s Neighborhoods, ed. Marcia Farr (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2004), 321–355; and Shanshan Lan, “Learning Race and Class: Chinese Americans in Multicultural Bridgeport” (PhD diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-­Champaign, 2007). 46. Lan, “Learning Race and Class,” 83; Arnold  R. Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940–1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 13. 47. Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission, “Summary of General Demographic Characteristics for the City of Chicago and Its 77 Community Areas.” 48. Lan, “Learning Race and Class,” 92. 49. Chicago Commission on ­Human Relations, 1999 Hate Crime Report, 9, https://­w ww​ .­chicago​.­gov​/­content​/­dam​/­city​/­depts​/­cchr​/­AnnualReports​/­1999HateCrimeReport​.­pdf. 50. Chicago Tribune, July 18, 2004. 51. Report, Chicago Police Department, July  15, 2004, quoted in Lan, “Learning Race and Class,” 94. 52. Report, Chicago Police Department, quoted in Lan, “Learning Race and Class,” 94. 53. Lan, “Learning Race and Class,” 94. 54. Lan, “Learning Race and Class,” 210–211. 55. Rubén G. Rumbaut, “The Structure of Refuge: Southeast Asian Refugees in the United States, 1975–1985,” International Review of Comparative Public Policy 1 (1989): 97–129. 56. Chicago Daily News, February 14, 1974; Don DeBat, “Chinatown: Quiet Island,” Chicago Daily News, July 5, 1974; Chicago Tribune, December 5, 1976. 57. See Hai Yen Restaurant, http://­haiyenrestaurant​.­com​/­home​.­html. 58. Du Huang, interview with Grace Chun and Soo Lon Moy, 2007. 59. Jenny Ling, interview with Grace Chun and Soo Lon Moy, 2007. 60. Toung Ling, interview with Grace Chun and Soo Lon Moy, 2007. 61. Ling Z. Arenson, “Beyond a Common Ethnicity and Culture: Chicagoland’s Chinese American Communities since 1945,” in Asian Amer­ i­ ca: Forming New Communities, Expanding Bound­aries, ed. Huping Ling (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2009), 65–86. 62. U.S. Department of Commerce, The U.S. Census of Population, 1990. 63. U.S. Department of Commerce, The U.S. Census of Population, 2000. 64. Ana-­Maria Udrica, “Asian Population Booms in Illinois and Chicago, Census Data Show,” Medill Reports Chicago, March 9, 2011. 65. Ling, Chinese St. Louis. 66. Arenson, “Beyond a Common Ethnicity and Culture,” 77. 67. Arenson, “Beyond a Common Ethnicity and Culture,” 82. 68. Rohsenow, “Chinese Language Use in Chicagoland,” 339. 69. Rohsenow, “Chinese Language Use in Chicagoland,” 321. 70. “Homeland Run by Reds: A Saddened Chinatown Marks Its ‘4th  of July,’ ” Chicago Daily News, October 11, 1950.

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71. Arenson, “Beyond a Common Ethnicity and Culture,” 81. 72. Rohsenow, “Chinese Language Use in Chicagoland,” 325. 73. Rohsenow, “Chinese Language Use in Chicagoland,” 332. 74. Rohsenow, “Chinese Language Use in Chicagoland,” 333. 75. Rohsenow, “Chinese Language Use in Chicagoland,” 333. 76. Lau, “Chicago’s Chinese American Communities in Transition.” 77. Chinese American Ser­vice League Annual Reports, years 1990–1997 and 2007, Chicago History Museum; Chinese American Ser­v ice League, history, http://­w ww​.­caslservice​ .­org. 78. Lan, “Learning Race and Class,” 153. 79. Arenson, “Beyond a Common Ethnicity and Culture,” 80. 80. Chinese Mutual Aid Association, http://­w ww​.­chinesemutualaid​.­org​/­. 81. Arenson, “Beyond a Common Ethnicity and Culture,” 79. 82. Nancy Abelmann and John Lee, Blue Dreams: Korean Americans and the Los Angeles Riots (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995); Mira Jang, “Koreans and Bangladeshis Vie in Los Angeles District,” New York Times, April 7, 2009, A16. 83. Chicago Chinatown Chamber of Commerce, https://­w ww​.­chicagochinatown​.­org​ /­events. 84. CCCC website, http://­w ww​.­chicagochinatown​.­org​/­cccorg​/­home​.­jsp. 85. CAMOC website, http://­w ww​.­ccamuseum​.­org​/­About​_­Us​.­html; Soo Lon Moy, pre­ sen­ta­tion at a roundtable session on the Chinese American Museum of Chicago, annual meeting of the Association for Asian American Studies, April 18, 2008, Chicago; Chuimei Ho and Soo Lon Moy, Chinese in Chicago, 1870–1945 (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2005), 53; and Chinese American Museum of Chicago (CAMOC) exhibition. 86. “Fire Cleanup Begins at Chinese-­American Museum of Chicago,” Chicago Tribune, September 22, 2008. 87. Howard Chun and Grace Chun, interviews by the author, April 19, 2008.

chapter 10 ​—­ ​conclusion 1. On suburban Chinatown, see Tim Feng, The First Suburban Chinatown: The Remaking of Monterey Park, California (Philadelphia: ­Temple University Press, 1994); on global city, see Jan Lin, Reconstructing Chinatown: Ethnic Enclave, Global Change (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998); on ethnoburb, see Wei Li, Ethnoburb: the New Ethnic Community in Urban Amer­i­ca (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2009); on cultural community and tripartite communities, see Huping Ling, Chinese St. Louis: From Enclave to Cultural Community (Philadelphia: ­Temple University Press, 2004) and Chinese Chicago: Race, Transnational Migration, and Community since 1870 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012).

Selected Bibliography

primary sources Archival Manuscripts in the Regional Branches of the National Archives and Rec­ords Administration

­There are two branches of the National Archives and Rec­ords Administration in the Midwest region, located in Kansas City, Missouri, and in Chicago, respectively; both are extremely useful. The National Archives and Rec­ords Administration–­ Central Plains Region (Kansas City) contains at least two rec­ords relating to Chinese: Chinese Exclusion Cases Habeas Corpus Petitions: 1857–1965, and Criminal Rec­ords, 1871–1918, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. The former involves Chinese in Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota; the latter contains cases related to Chinese in Missouri involved in the manufacturing, selling, and smoking of opium. The National Archives and Rec­ords Administration–­Great Lakes Region (Chicago) holds the Chicago Chinese Case Files (CCCF, 1898–1940). Th ­ ese files contain plentiful and im­mensely useful data on Chinese immigrants during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. My personal tally counts more than 6,000 cases. Early files often document alleged violations of laws denying admission to Chinese laborers. ­Later files, especially ­those from ­after 1920, refer mainly to applications for return certificates or for student status. One can find a significant amount of material on a wide array of Chinese immigrants who lived both in China and in the United States during the period covered by this book. My studies on the Moy ­brothers in Chicago depend largely on ­t hose files, along with the Moy ­family genealogies in Chinese, and on news media reports from con­temporary local newspapers in both En­glish and Chinese. Although not part of the holdings of the regional archives of the National Archives and Rec­ords Administration in Chicago, the Ernest Watson Burgess Papers, 1886–1966, held in the Special Collections Research Center at the Regenstein Library at the University of Chicago, are also very useful. This collection consists of 105 linear feet of materials spanning the length of Burgess’s ­career at the 227

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University of Chicago, primarily from 1916 to 1952. It contains correspondence, research notes, manuscripts, reports, administrative files, subject files, biblio­ graphies, essays, memorandums, research proposals, questionnaires, charts, graphs, maps, typescripts, reprints, and books. The collection also contains the work of many students and colleagues, including extensive documentation of Burgess’s major research proj­ects and some material from research conducted by his advanced gradu­ate students. The collection reflects the wide-­ranging, intensive involvement of a scholar concerned with both social prob­lems and theoretical issues. This involvement, which stretched over a c­ areer that spanned more than fifty years, extended beyond the university community to both national and international associations. Among the files, Paul C. P. Siu’s works are the most useful and relevant materials for the studies of Chinese in Chicago. U.S. Census Data, 1840s–2020s

Census statistics are the pivotal evidence widely employed by scholars from the disciplines of economics, history, po­liti­cal science, sociology, and many other fields. The census data from the 1840s to the 2020 covers the century-­and-­a-­half history of Chinese immigration to the United States, providing official information on myriad socioeconomic conditions of American population. Used together with other primary sources, census data are essential for any original studies. I was able to locate data on some of the early Chinese residents of the midwestern region. News Media Coverage

­ ere was ample local news media coverage on Chinese immigrants as early as the Th 1860s. ­These news reports, although often containing biased and racist slurs and terms, offer vivid accounts of immigrant lives. One of the most in­ter­est­ing stories, entitled “The Chinese in St. Louis,” was written by the famed American novelist Theodore Dreiser in 1894 when he was still an unknown, 23-­year-­old reporter for the St. Louis Republic. Before writing the story on the St. Louis Chinese, Dreiser visited a Chinese restaurant at 19 South Eighth Street one midday in January 1894. The lengthy story and the accompanied cartoons depict a colorful Victorian portrayal of the immigrant life. Another article, “Gleeful Celestials, Chicago Chinatown Celebrate Their New-­ Year’s Festival,” published in the Chicago Tribune on January 20, 1890, provides a colorful picture of the New Year’s cele­bration on South Clark Street, in Chicago’s Chinatown: The Chinese New-­Year cele­bration began last night about dusk. At 3 A.M. it had reached the stage of joyous riot, when a Chinaman begins to have fun. Clark Street south of Van Buren was crowded with happy Chinamen, and more happy Chinamen ­were bobbling in front of the picture of the Joss in the Hip Lung store, Bow Wow Fung’s, Sam Moy’s, and other pleasant resorts, where Chicago Chinamen gather to smoke and have a good time. All the shops ­were lit, red paper signs hung in the win­dows, friendly parties of Chinamen w ­ ere tossing off cups

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229

of rice gin, while up-­stairs, over the Hip Lung store, a Chinese orchestra was playing for the plea­sure of twenty or thirty privileged Chinamen, and a policeman from the Harrison Street station.

On the news media in Chicago, a valuable source is the collection titled United States. Works Pro­g ress Administration (Ill.); Chicago Public Library Omnibus Proj­ ect; Chinese American newspapers—­ I llinois Chicago; Chicago (Ill.)—­ Newspapers. This collection, published by the Chicago Public Library and digitized by the University of Illinois at Urbana-­Champaign, is one of many proj­ects in arts and history conducted by the Works Pro­gress Administration (WPA). The WPA, which was established in 1935 and existed for eight years, was one of the New Deal mea­sures during the Franklin D. Roo­se­velt administration that gave the unemployed work in building construction and arts programs. ­Because President Roo­se­ velt believed that arts ­were not luxuries that ­people should have to give up in hard times, he created the WPA to make funds available to support unemployed artists, historians, musicians, and writers. The collection, which has 395 pages and is one of the most valuable sources on Chinese in Chicago, includes articles on Chinese in Chicago from major local newspapers, such as the Chicago Tribune (1878–1938?), the Chinese Daily Times, the San Min Morning Paper, and the Chinese Centralist Daily News (1935–1938). The entries are or­ga­nized by the following subjects: 1. A  ttitudes: education, ­family organ­ization, marriage, religious customs and practices, government and other national or language groups, politics, social prob­lems and social legislation, interpretation of American history, and the position of w ­ omen and feminism. 2. C  ontributions and activities: professional, industrial and commercial, aesthetic, intellectual, athletics and sports, benevolent and protective institutions, and crime and delinquency. 3. Assimilation: Nationalistic socie­ties and influence, national churches and sects, youth organ­izations, immigration and emigration, and relations with the homeland. Newspapers in Chicago Chicago Daily News, 1922– Chicago Daily Tribune, 1926–1934 Chicago Journal, 1906– Chicago Record-­Herald, 1908– Chicago Sun-­Times, 1973– Chicago Tribune, 1878–2010 Chicago Visitor, 1932– Chinese-­Language Newspapers in Chicago Chinese Centralist Daily News, 1935–1938 Chinese Daily Times, 1935–1936 Kung Shong Yat Po [Workingmen’s and merchants’ daily news], 1931–1938 Mei Zhong Xin Wen [Chinese American news], 1993–2003

230

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San Min Chen Bao or San Min Morning Paper [The three p ­ eople’s princi­ples morning daily news], 1931–1938 Newspapers and Periodicals in St. Louis Missouri Republican. St. Louis: G. Knapp & Co., 1876–1888. Continued as the St. Louis Republic. St. Louisan. St. Louis: Blest Com­pany. A monthly popu­lar magazine of the greater St. Louis area. Its name was l­ ater changed to St. Louis. St.  Louis Chinese American News. St.  Louis: St.  Louis Chinese News, 1990–. A weekly Chinese-­language newspaper. St. Louis Chinese Journal. St. Louis: St. Louis Chinese Journal, 1996–. A weekly Chinese-­ language newspaper. St. Louis Daily Times. St. Louis: St. Louis Times Co., 1873–1877. It continued the St. Louis Times, a daily newspaper. St. Louis Globe-­Democrat. St. Louis: St. Louis Globe Demo­crat Publishing Co., 1875–1986. St. Louis Post-­Dispatch. St. Louis: St. Louis Post-­Dispatch, 1879–. St. Louis Republic. St. Louis: G. Knapp & Co., 1888–1919. St. Louis Republican. St. Louis: G. Knapp & Co., 1873–1876. A daily newspaper, also published in a weekly edition. It was continued by the Missouri Republican (1876–). St.  Louis Stars and Times. St.  Louis: Star-­Chronicle Publishing Co., 1932–1951. A daily newspaper, absorbed by the St. Louis Post-­Dispatch in 1951. St. Louis Times. St. Louis: St. Louis Times Co., 1869–1873. Continued by the St. Louis Daily Times in 1873. Published Directories

Vari­ous published business or professional directories also are useful primary sources. When searching for sources on the activities of early Chinese immigrants, I was delighted to find the listings of Chinese laundries and other businesses in Gould’s St. Louis Directory, 1872–1952, Kennedy’s St. Louis Directory, 1859–1863, and Edward’s St. Louis Directory, 1864–1871, held at the Missouri Historical Society Research Center in St. Louis, as well as in the John M. Olin Library at Washington University. ­After a careful year-­by-­year combing of the directories, I was able to compile a chart demonstrating a pattern of the Chinese laundry business in St. Louis from 1873 to 1944. Published Directories in Chicago Chicago Association of Commerce and Industry. A Guide to the City of Chicago. Chicago: Chicago Association of Commerce and Industry, 1909. Chicago Chinese Directory. New York: Chinese Directory Ser­v ice Bureau, 1951. Chicago’s Chinatown Chamber of Commerce. Chicago Chinese Commercial Guide Book. Chicago: Chicago’s Chinatown Chamber of Commerce, 1985. Chicago telephone directory, 1900–1960. Directory of Chinese Professionals and Students of Chicago Area. s.n., 1964. Published Directories in St. Louis Gould’s St. Louis Directory, for 1905–1910: Being a Complete Index of the Entire City, and a Classified Business Directory. St. Louis: Gould Directory Co. Gould’s St. Louis Red-­Blue Book, 1918–29. St. Louis: Polk-­Gould Directory Co.

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231

Haines St. Louis City and County Criss-­Cross Directory, 1973–97. St. Louis: Haines & Com­ pany of St. Louis Inc. Publishers. Polk’s St. Louis City Directory, 1955–1980. St. Louis: R. L. Polk & Co. Polk’s St. Louis County Directory, 1926–76. St. Louis: R. L. Polk & Co. St.  Louis Chinese American Yellow Pages, 2002. St.  Louis: Published and printed by the St. Louis Chinese American News. St. Louis Chinese Yellow Pages, 2000. St. Louis: Published and printed by the St. Louis Chinese Journal. St. Louis Chinese Yellow Pages, 2002. St. Louis: Published and printed by the St. Louis Chinese Journal. St. Louis County Directory, 1893–1922. Clayton, MO: Chas F. Spahn & Co. Municipal Rec­ords, Court Rec­ords, and Other Public Rec­ords

Municipal rec­ords, court rec­ords, and other public rec­ords are open to the general public and are some of the best primary sources. However, the chief deterrent to searching public rec­ords is determining how to find a useful source among the voluminous materials, somewhat like trying to find a needle in a haystack. The key is to get assistance from the staff of the record-­holding fa­cil­i­t y and to learn how to use the docket book or an index of court rec­ords. ­After learning how to use ­t hese indexes, I found a few extremely rare and useful documents from the municipal rec­ords in the St. Louis City Hall, such as the rec­ord of the marriage of Alla Lee, the first recorded Chinese immigrant in St. Louis. From the same rec­ords, I also discovered the original rec­ord on the St. Louis On Leong Tong Chinese Merchant Association’s corporation deed. Municipal Rec­ords, Court Rec­ords, and Other Public Rec­ords in Chicago Chicago Atlas. Chicago: Department of Public Works, Bureau of Maps and Plats, 1973. Chicago Fact Book Consortium, eds. Local Community Fact Book: Chicago Metropolitan Area, Based on the 1970 and 1980 Censuses. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 1984. —­—­—. Local Community Fact Book: Chicago Metropolitan Area 1990. Chicago: University of Illinois at Chicago, 1995. —­—­—. Working the Bound­aries: Race, Space and “Illegality” in Mexican Chicago. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005. Immigration and Naturalization Ser­v ice (INS). Annual Reports, 1945–1954. Contains useful empirical, pictorial, textual materials on immigration and naturalization compiled by the INS. https://­searchworks​.­stanford​.­edu​/­v iew​/­488273. Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission. “Summary of General Demographic Characteristics for the City of Chicago and Its 77 Community Areas. Chicago History Museum.” Wang, G. H. “Some Basic Facts about Chicago’s Chinatown.” In Chinese American Pro­g­ ress, 7. Chicago: Chinese American Civic Council, 1966. Wirth, Louis, and Eleanor H. Bernert. Local Community Fact Book of Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1949. Wittman, Timothy N. “On Leong Merchants Association Building.” Report submitted to the Commission on Chicago Landmarks, 1988. U.S. Department of Commerce. The U.S. Census of Population, 1840–2020. Contains useful empirical, statistical, and textual materials on the U.S. population compiled by the U.S. Department of Commerce.

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Municipal Rec­ords, Court Rec­ords, and Other Public Rec­ords in St. Louis Annual Report of St. Louis Board of Police Commissioners, 1873–1950s. Contains information on police districts of the city and statistics on arrests. Immigration and Naturalization Ser­v ice (INS). Annual Reports, 1945–1954. Contains useful empirical, pictorial, textual materials on immigration and naturalization compiled by the INS. https://­searchworks​.­stanford​.­edu​/­v iew​/­488273. Recorder of Deeds of City of St. Louis. Archives Department of the Recorder of Deeds, City Hall, St. Louis, MO, 63103. Contains African and Native American rec­ords, c­ hildren’s rec­ords, corporation rec­ords, land rec­ords, and marriage rec­ords. Covers nearly 250 years of St. Louis history through public rec­ords. U.S. Department of Commerce. The U.S. Census of Population, 1840–2020. Contains useful empirical, statistical, and textual materials on the U.S. population compiled by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Rec­ords of Chinese Community Organ­izations

Vari­ous rec­ords of community organ­izations, such as their minutes, rosters, bulletins, and newsletters, are valuable sources. The Chicago History Museum, for example, has a rich collection of such rec­ords, which are most useful for researching the origins, developments, and activities of the Asian American communities in the Chicago metropolitan area. Rec­ords of Chinese Community Organ­izations in Chicago CASL News. 1991–. Newsletter by the Chinese American Ser­v ice League. Chicago History Museum. “Chicago, Central Baptist Chinese Mission.” Reports, 1894–1896. Chicago History Museum. Chinese American Pro­gress. 1962–1979. Newsletters by the Chinese American Civic Council. Chicago History Museum. Chinese American Ser­vice League Annual Report. 1990–1997, 2007. Chicago History Museum. Chinese American Ser­vice League Newsletter, 1982–1985. Chicago History Museum. Chinese American Ser­v ice League 2005 Annual Report. http://­w ww​.­c aslservice​.­org​/­pdf​ /­AnnualReport2005​.­pdf. Chinese American Ser­v ice League 2006 Annual Report. http://­w ww​.­c aslservice​.­org​/­pdf​ /­AnnualReport2006​.­pdf. Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association of Chicago, comp. A ­Century of Chicago Chinatown. Chicago: CCBAC, 2000. Chinese Mutual Aid Association Annual Report. 1994. Chicago History Museum. Rec­ords of Chinese Community Organ­izations in St. Louis Newsletter. League of Chinese Americans, St. Louis, October 1975. St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society. St. Louis Chinese Acad­emy. Year Book, 1998. St. Louis: St. Louis Chinese Acad­emy. St. Louis Chinese Gospel Church. 70th Anniversary, 1924–1994. November 1994. This is a printed booklet by the church; I obtained a copy during a visit in 1998. Historical Sites and Artifacts

Historical sites, such as old buildings, cemeteries, and exhibits of artifacts of private or institutional collections, including furniture, utensils, personal items, photos, and other items, are in­ter­est­ing and colorful evidence, more frequently

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233

employed by anthropologists and archaeologists than by other scholars. When writing books on Chinese Americans in St. Louis and Chicago, I conducted numerous field studies in cemeteries, at On Leong headquarters, and at old buildings and sites in t­ hese cities. Local museums often hold exhibits on artifacts of the local history. The History Museum in St. Louis, for instance, has displayed artifacts from the Sam Wah Laundry, rescued by a loyal client of the laundry when it was torn down by the city in 1986 ­after the last proprietor had died. Similarly, the Chinese American Museum of Chicago (CAMOC), established in 2002 by a group of local individuals dedicated to preserving the heritage of the city’s Chinese Americans, has curated vari­ous exhibits from collections donated by local residents since 2005. In addition, I have acquired a habit of searching local Asian museums, historical socie­ties, or community sites whenever I travel in the United States or in other countries for business or plea­sure. No m ­ atter where I go, I always make efforts to check out the local Asian communities, talking to locals and taking photos of scenes that reflect local history and pre­sent trends. Historical Sites and Artifacts in Chicago Chicago History Museum, 1601 N. Clark St., Chicago, IL 60614. Rosehill Cemetery, 5800 N. Ravenswood Ave., Chicago, IL 60660. South Chinatown is on the South Side (located in the Armour Square community area), centered on Cermak and Went­worth Ave­nues, and is an example of an American Chinatown, or ethnic-­Chinese neighborhood. West Argyle Street Historic District (also known as “Argyle Square,” “Asia on Argyle,” “Argyleville,” “Saigonville,” “Nouvelle Indochine,” “­Little Hanoi,” “Argyle Park,” or “North Beach”), a historic district in northern Uptown, a commercial district of Chicago, Illinois. Historical Sites and Artifacts in St. Louis Don Ko’s Laundry (current name, Mom’s Soul Food Kitchen), 1507–1511 Goodfellow Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63112. Missouri History Museum, Forest Park, 5700 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63112. On Leong Headquarters, 3608 S. G ­ rand Ave., St. Louis, MO. Research Center–­St. Louis, located on the University of Missouri–­St. Louis campus, One University Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63121. St. Louis Art Museum, Forest Park, One Fine Arts Dr., St. Louis, MO 63110. St. Louis Mercantile Library, Thomas Jefferson Library Building, One University Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63121-4400. Valhalla Cemeteries, 7600 St. Charles Rock Rd., St. Louis, MO 63133. Oral History Interviews of Local Residents

A researcher can easily find rec­ords on politicians, national leaders, and celebrities, but locating sources on an average citizen is a dif­fer­ent story, and few rec­ords are available to the general public. Therefore, oral history interviews have emerged as a prime source for constructing a nuanced history of the common ­people. The best-­k nown modern example is the Federal Writers Proj­ect from the New Deal era of the Franklin D. Roo­se­velt administration. It mobilized historians to survey the

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nation’s local government rec­ords, to write state guidebooks, and to collect life stories from about 2,000 former slaves. Numerous scholarly publications have come into existence thanks to the proj­ect. Similarly, the oral history interviews and autobiographies collected from the massive surveys led by Robert Park and his team at the University of Chicago concerning race relations on the West Coast in the 1920s have served generations of scholars in Asian American Studies, racial and ethnic studies, and other pertinent areas. They are held at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, the University of Hawai‘i–­Manoa, and the University of Oregon respectively. Community activists, leaders of organ­izations, business ­owners, and members of the local community can provide highly useful information on a given community. A scholar can and should interview as many individuals as resources permit. In addition, high school and university or college teachers can design and construct oral history interview proj­ects as components of their relevant courses. In my teaching ­career at Truman State University, I have incorporated oral history proj­ects into my courses on Asian Americans, and some of my students’ work has been included in my book Voices of the Heart: Asian American ­Women on Immigration, Work, and ­Family (Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2007). Many community organ­izations have done tremendous work preserving ethnic community history and heritage. For example, the Organ­ization of Chinese Americans chapter in St. Louis has compiled a collection of interviews of the old-­ timers in St. Louis’s Chinatown, which was one of the most useful primary sources for my research on the community. Similarly, the Chinese American Museum of Chicago launched a large oral history interview proj­ect during the 1990s and 2010s to preserve the local Chinese American heritage. Among the interviews conducted by the museum volunteers, an interview of the ­daughter of Moy Dong Yee, the younger ­brother of Moy Dong Zhou—an early Chinese community leader from the 1870s to 1920s—is a valuable piece. Oral History Interviews of Local Residents “Asian American w ­ omen in a Small Town.” Exhibit by Huping Ling at the Adair County Historical Museum. It contains sources gathered from oral history interviews by Huping Ling. Chicago Historical Museum’s Chinatown exhibit and special collections on Chinese in Chicago. Chinese American Museum of Chicago exhibitions. They contain sources from the oral history interviews conducted by the volunteers of CAMOC (see details in the previous paragraph). Museum of Art History in St. Louis. A display of artifacts from the Sam Wah Laundry. Organ­ization of Chinese Americans in St. Louis. Oral history proj­ect. Online Sources

­ ecause digital technological developments have occurred so rapidly since the B 2010s, more digital sources on Asian Americans in the Midwest have become available to researchers and history enthusiasts. Numerous online sources have been

Selected Bibliogr aph y

235

compiled by research institutions, local historical socie­ties, and history lovers. For example, the CAMOC website and other local Asian American museum websites, as well as Facebook posts shared by history professionals and enthusiasts, are all easily accessible sources for historical research. Selected Online Sources: Chicago Chicago Chapter, Organ­ization of Chinese Americans. http://­w ww​.­ocachicago​.­org​/­. Chicago Chinatown Chamber of Commerce. http://­www​.­chicagochinatown​.­org​/­cccorg​/­about​.­jsp. Chicago Chinese American Historical Society. http://­w ww​.­chinesechicago​.­org​/­. Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning. http://­w ww​.­cmap​.­illinois​.­gov​/­regional​_­census​ .­aspx​?­ekmensel​= ­c580fa7b​_­8​_­16​_­7740​_­1. Chicago North Chinese School. http://­w ww​.­cncschool​.­org​/­english​/­main​.­html. Chinese American Museum of Chicago. http://­camoc​.­homestead​.­com​/­Exhibition​.­html. Chinese American Ser­v ice League. www​.­caslservice​.­org. Chinese Christian Union Church. http://­w ww​.­ccuc​.­net​/­ccuc​/­. Chinese Mutual Aid Association. http://­w ww​.­chinesemutualaid​.­org​/­. Chinese School Association in the United States. http://­csaus​.­org. Lawrence, David. Excerpts from Yee Jock Leong’s address books. http://­fuzzo​.­com​/­genealogy​ /­YeeJockLeong​/­YeeJockLeongbooks​.­htm. St. Therese Chinese Catholic Mission. http://­w ww​.­sttheresechinatown​.­org ​/­history​_­part3​ .­html. Selected Online Sources: St. Louis Asian American Chamber of Commerce (AACC) of St. Louis. http://­aaccstl​.­org​/­about​/­. Buddhist Council of Greater St. Louis. http://­w ww​.­buddhistcouncilstl​.­org​/­. Chinese Culture Education and Ser­v ices. https://­w ww​.­stlcces​.­org​/­. Chinese Education and Culture Center in St. Louis. https://­slmcs​.­org​/­default​.­asp. Chinese Liberty Assembly of Greater St. Louis. https://­opencorporates​.­com​/­companies​/­us​ _­mo​/­N00022131. St. Louis Chinese Association. https://­w ww​.­c auseiq​.­com​/­organizations​/­st​-­louis​-­chinese​ -­association,431767250​/­. St. Louis Chinese Culture Center. https://­w ww​.­facebook​.­com​/­stlouisccc. St. Louis Chinese Gospel Church. https://­w ww​.­stlcgc​.­org​/­. St. Louis Chinese Language Immersion School. https://­w ww​.­sllis​.­org​/­. St. Louis Chinese Language School. https://­w ww​.­stlcls​.­org​/­. St. Louis Chinese Society. https://­opencorporates​.­com​/­companies​/­us​_ ­mo​/­N00009026. St. Louis Christian Chinese Community Ser­v ice Center. https://­w ww​.­guidestar​.­org​/­profile​ /­81​-­0607391. St. Louis Modern Chinese School. https://­slmcs​.­org​/­. St. Louis OCA (Organ­ization of Chinese Americans). http://­w ww​.­oca​-­stl​.­org​/­. Taiwanese Association of Amer­i­ca in St. Louis. http://­w ww​.­taa​-­stl​.­org​/­. Taiwanese Presbyterian Church in St. Louis. http://­w ww​.­taa​-­stl​.­org​/­introduction​.­html. Selected Online Sources: United States U.S. Census Bureau. Selected Population Profile in the United States: Population Group: Chinese Alone, 2021. https://­w ww​.­census​.­gov​/­topics​/­population​.­html. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. https://­w ww​.­ice​.­gov​/­. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement/Homeland Security. https://­w ww​.­dhs​.­gov​ /­topics​/­immigration​-­a nd​-­customs​-­enforcement.

236

Selected Bibliogr aph y Chinese-­Language Sources in China

Vari­ous national, regional, provincial, and local Chinese governmental and private agencies involved in overseas Chinese affairs hold numerous statistics, surveys, genealogies, magazines, and other rec­ords concerning Chinese overseas. ­These materials should be a primary destination for researchers in Asian American Studies, but unfortunately they are not readily accessible to researchers who have no Chinese language proficiency. Vari­ous research institutions in China have made efforts in the recent de­cades to translate publications and sources in En­glish into Chinese. However, translation efforts in the opposite direction, by individual scholars or institutions, are still scarce, for a number reasons (e.g., lack of resources, connectivity, and academic priority). The late community historian Him Mark Lai was one of the few individuals who compiled sources in Chinese, thus making them available to English-­speaking scholars. However, Lai’s compilation did not include Chinese-­language sources available in China, where the abundance of primary sources on Chinese overseas exists. Chinese Gazetteers, Local Magazines, and Surveys

Duanfen zhenzhi 端芬鎮志 [Duanfen township history]. Huaqiao huaren yu qiaowu 華僑華人與僑務 [Overseas Chinese and overseas Chinese affairs]. Fujian sheng renming zhengfu qiaowu bangongshi 福建省人民政府僑務辦公室 [Overseas Chinese Affairs Bureau, Fujian Provincial Government], 1994–2009. Huaqiao yu huaren 華僑與華人 [Overseas Chinese]. Guangdong huaqiao huaren yanjiuhui 廣東華僑華人研究會 [Guangdong Overseas Chinese Research Institute], 1990–2009. Runan zhihua 汝南之花 [Nei Nam’s flower, or the Moy ­family magazine], 1976–2009. Shijie Meishi Zongqin Zonghui 世界梅氏宗親總會 [The World Moy ­Family Association]. Meishi Zongqin Zupu 梅氏宗親族譜 [The Moy ­family genealogy]. Taipei: Shijie Meishi Zongqin Zonghui 世界梅氏宗親總會 [The World Moy ­Family Association], 1991. Taishan shi qiaolian 台山市僑聯 [Taishan City Federation of Overseas Chinese]. Taishan shi qiaolian pucha: Huaqiao huaren fenbu shijie gedi qinkuang tongbiao 台山市僑聯普查﹕ 華僑華人分布世界各地情況統表 [Taishan City Federation of Overseas Chinese Sur­ able of the distribution of overseas Chinese]. Taishan: Taishan shi qiaolian 台山 vey: T 市僑聯 [Taishan City Federation of Overseas Chinese], 1998. Taishanxian huaqiaozhi 台山县华侨志 [Taishan County gazetteer on overseas Chinese from Taishan]. Taishan: Taishan County Gazetteer Compilation Committee, 1992. Wu Tai, ed. 吳泰主編. Jinjiang huaqiaozhi 晉江華僑志 [Jinjiang County gazetteer on overseas Chinese from Jinjiang]. Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe 上海人民出 版社 [Shanghai ­People’s Publisher], 1994. Xiamen huaqiaozhi bianweihui. 廈門華僑志編委會. Xiamen huaqiaozhi 廈門華僑志 [Xiamen gazetteer on overseas Chinese from Xiamen]. Xiamen: Lujiang chubanshe 鷺江出版社 [Lujiang Publisher], 1991. Xinning Magazine 新寧雜誌. Guangdong sheng Taishan shi Xinning zazhi she 廣東省台 山市新寧雜志社 [Xinning Magazine, Taishan City, Guangdong Province], 1990–2009.

secondary sources En­glish

Alamar, Estrella Ravelo, and Willi Red Buhay. Filipinos in Chicago. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2001.

Selected Bibliogr aph y

237

Duffy, John  M. Writing from Th ­ ese Roots: Literacy in a Hmong-­American Community. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2011. Dutka, Alan F. AsiaTown Cleveland: From Tong Wars to Dim Sum. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2014. Fuller, Sherri Gebert. Chinese in Minnesota. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2004. Harden, Jacalyn D. Double Cross: Japa­nese Americans in Black and White Chicago. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003. Hassoun, Rosina J. Arab Americans in Michigan. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2005. Ho, Chuimei, and Soo Lon Moy, eds. Chinese in Chicago, 1870–1945. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2005. Hosokawa, Bill. Colorado’s Japa­nese Americans: From 1886 to the Pre­sent. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2005. Lan, Shanshan, Diaspora and Class Consciousness: Chinese Immigrant Workers in Multiracial Chicago. New York: Routledge, 2012. Lauck, Jon. The Lost Region: T ­ oward a Revival of Midwestern History. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2013. Ling, Huping. Asian Amer­i­ca: Forming New Communities, Expanding Bound­aries. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2009. —­—­—. “The Changing Patterns of Taiwanese Students in Amer­i­ca and the Modernization in Taiwan.” In Modernity and Cultural Identity in Taiwan, edited by Hanchao Lu, 179–207. River Edge, NJ: Global Publishing, 2001. —­—­—. “The Changing Public Image of Chinese Americans and the Rise of China.” Urban China no. 23 (2007): 75–79. —­—­—. “The Changing Public Image of Chinese Americans and the Rise of China.” Journal of Ethnic Studies (June 2008): 20–26. —­—­—. “The Changing Public Image of Chinese Americans and the Rise of China.” 21st ­Century International Review (March 2011): 10–15. —­—­—. “Chinese American Professional and Business ­Women.” In History and Prospective: Ethnic Chinese at the Turn of the C ­ entury, edited by Guotu Zhuang, 398–421. Fujian: Fujian P ­ eople’s Publishing House, 1998. —­—­—. “The Chinese American Studies: Theories, Approaches, Challenges and Potentials.” International Journal of Diasporic Chinese Studies 10, no. 1 (June 2018): 81–110. —­—­—. Chinese Chicago: Race, Transnational Migration, and Community since 1870. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012. —­—­—. “Chinese Chicago: Transnational Migration and Businesses, 1870s–1930s.” Journal of Chinese Overseas 6 (2010): 250–285. —­—­—. “Chinese Chicago: Transnational Migration and Entrepreneurship, 1870s–1930s.” Overseas Chinese History Studies no. 3 (2013): 1–18. —­—­—. “Chinese Female Students and Sino-­US Relations.” In New Studies on Chinese Overseas and China, edited by Zhuang Guotu, 103–137. Leiden: International Institute for Asian Studies, 2000. —­—­—. “Chinese Female Students in the United States, 1880s–1990s.” In ­Women’s Higher Education in the United States: New Historical Perspectives, edited by Margaret  A. Nash, 93–116. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. —­—­—. Chinese in St. Louis: 1857–2007. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2007. —­—­—. “Chinese Merchant Wives in the United States, 1840–1945.” In Origins and ­Destinations: 41 Essays on Chinese Amer­i­ca, edited by the Chinese Historical Society of

238

Selected Bibliogr aph y

Southern California and the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, 79–92. Los Angeles: Chinese Historical Society of Southern California and UCLA Asian American Studies Center, 1994. —­—­—­. Chinese St. Louis: From Enclave to Cultural Community. Philadelphia: T ­ emple University Press, 2004. —­—­—. “Cultural Community: A New Model for Asian American Community.” In Asian Amer­i­ca: Forming New Communities, Expanding Bound­aries, edited by Huping Ling, 129–153. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2009. —­—­—­, ed. Emerging Voices: Experiences of the Underrepresented Asian Americans. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008. —­—­—. “­Family and Marriage of Late-­Nineteenth and Early-­Twentieth ­C entury Chinese Immigrant ­Women.” Journal of American Ethnic History 19, no. 2 (Winter 2000): 43–63. —­—­—. “Governing ‘Hop Alley’: On Leong Chinese Merchants and Laborers Association, 1906–1966.” Journal of American Ethnic History 23, no. 2 (Winter 2004): 50–84. —­—­—. “Growing Up in ‘Hop Alley’: The Chinese American Youth in St. Louis during the Early-­Twentieth ­Century.” In Asian American C ­ hildren, edited by Benson Tong, 65–81. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004. —­—­—. “Historiography and Research Methodologies of Chinese American W ­ omen.” Research on ­Women in Modern Chinese History no. 9 (August 2001): 235–253. —­—­—. “A History of Chinese Female Students in the United States, 1880s–1990s.” Journal of American Ethnic History 16, no. 3 (Spring 1997): 81–109. —­—­—. “ ‘Hop Alley’: Myth and Real­ity of the St. Louis Chinatown, 1860s–1930s.” Journal of Urban History 28, no. 2 (January 2002): 184–219. —­—­—. “Introduction: Emerging Voices of Underrepresented Asian Americans.” In Emerging Voices: Experiences of Underrepresented Asian Americans, edited by Huping Ling, 1–14. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008. —­—­—. “Introduction: Reconceptualizing Asian American Communities.” In Asian Amer­ i­ca: Forming New Communities, Expanding Bound­aries, edited by Huping Ling, 1–21. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2009. —­—­—. “Mme. Chiang Kai-­shek.” In The Asian American Encyclopedia, edited by Franklin Ng. New York: Marshall Cavendish, 1995. —­—­—. “Negotiating Transnational Migration: Marriage and Changing Gender Roles among the Chinese Diaspora.” In Routledge Handbook of the Chinese Diaspora, edited by Chee-­Beng Tan, 227–246. London: Routledge, 2013. —­—­—. “New Perspectives on Chinese American Studies—­Cultural Community Theory.” Overseas Chinese History Studies no. 1 (2007): 25–31. —­—­—. “The New Trends in American Chinatowns: The Case of Chinese in Chicago.” In Chinatowns around the World: Gilded Ghettos, Ethnopolis, and Cultural Diaspora, edited by Bernard Wong and Chee-­Beng Tan, 55–94. Leiden: Brill, 2013. —­—­—. “Reconceptualizing Chinese American Community in St. Louis: From Chinatown to Cultural Community.” Journal of American Ethnic History 24, no. 2 (Winter 2005): 65–101. —­—­—. “The Rise and Fall of the Study in Amer­i­ca Movement in Taiwan.” Overseas Chinese History Studies no. 4 (2003): 21–28. —­—­—. “The Rise of China and Its Meaning to Asian Americans.” American Review of China Studies 14, no. 1 (Spring 2013): 1–23. —­—­—. Surviving on the Gold Mountain: A History of Chinese American ­Women and Their Lives. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998.

Selected Bibliogr aph y

239

—­—­—. “Surviving on the Gold Mountain: A Review of Sources about Chinese American ­Women.” The History Teacher 26, no. 4 (August 1993): 459–470. —­—­—. “Sze-­Kew Dun: A Chinese American ­Woman in Kirksville.” Missouri Historical Review 91, no. 1 (October 1996): 35–51. —­—­—. “ ‘Taishan ­Widow’ and ‘American Concubine’: Marriage Patterns of the Early Chinese Immigrants in the U.S., 1880s–1940s.” Guangdong, China: Guangdong Qiangxiang Culture Research Center, Wuyi University, December 8, 2018. —­—­—. “The Transnational World of Chinese Entrepreneurs in Chicago, 1870s to 1940s: New Sources and Perspectives on Southern Chinese Emigration.” Frontier History in China 6, no. 3 (2011): 370–406. —­—­—. Voices of the Heart: Asian American ­Women on Immigration, Work, and F ­ amily. Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2007. Ling, Huping, with Allan W. Austin. Asian American History and Culture: An Encyclopedia. 2 vols. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2010. Park, Kyu Young. Korean Americans in Chicago. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2003. Streed, Sarah. Leaving the House of Ghosts: Cambodian Refugees in the American Midwest. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2002. Vang, Chia Youyee. Hmong in Minnesota. Saint Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2008. Wilkinson, Sook, and Victor Jew. Asian Americans in Michigan: Voices from the Midwest. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2015. Wong, Wayne Hung. American Paper Son: A Chinese Immigrant in the Midwest. Edited with an introduction by Benson Tong. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2006. Yu, Henry. Thinking Orientals: Migration, Contact, and Exoticism in Modern Amer­i­ca. Ox­ ford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Works in Chinese by Huping Ling (令狐萍中文专著与论文)

Ling, Huping. 令狐萍. Asian American History and Culture: An Encyclopedia. 2 vols. Chinese edition.《亚裔美国人: 历史与文化百科全书》上下两册. Guangzhou: World Books Publishing House, 2016 廣州：世界图书出版公司. —­—­—. “The Changing Patterns of Taiwanese Students in Amer­i­ca and the Modernization in Taiwan.” “从台湾留美学生模式的变化看台湾社会的现代化.” In Modernity and Cultural Identity in Taiwan, edited by Hanchao Lu, 179–207. 卢汉超主编《台湾的现代化和 文化认同》. River Edge, NJ: Global Publishing Co., 2001 八方文化企业公司. —­—­—. “The Changing Public Image of Chinese Americans and the Rise of China.” “从美 国华人形象的演变看中国的崛起.” Urban China《城市中国》no. 23 (2007): 75–79. —­—­—. “The Changing Public Image of Chinese Americans and the Rise of China.” “从美 国华人形象的演变看中国的崛起.” 21st  ­Century International Review 世纪国际评论 21, no. 1 (March 2011): 10–15. —­—­—. “Chinese Americans in Politics.” “美国华人参政难.” Outlook China《瞭望中国》no. 9 (March 2012): 68–73. —­—­—. Chinese Chicago: Race, Transnational Migration, and Community since 1870.《芝加 哥的华人:1870年以来的种族、跨国移民和社区》. Guangzhou: World Books Publishing House, 2015 广州：世界图书出版广东有限公司. —­—­—. “Chinese Chicago: Transnational Migration and Entrepreneurship, 1870s–1930s.” “芝加哥华人：19世纪70年代至20世纪30年代的跨国移民与商业活动.” Overseas Chinese History Studies no. 3 (2013): 1–18. 中国华侨华人历史研究所：《华侨华人历史研究》. —­—­—. A Complete History of Chinese in Amer­i­ca.《美国華僑華人史》. Beijing: Chinese Overseas Press, 2017 北京：中國華僑出版社.

240

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—­—­—. “Historiography and Research Methodologies of Chinese American ­Women.” “美国华裔妇女的研究及其方法论.” Taipei: Institute of Modern History at Academica Sinica, 台北：中央研究院近代史研究所, Research on ­Women in Modern Chinese History《近代中 国妇女史研究》no. 9 (August 2001): 235–253. —­—­—. Jinshan Yao: A History of Chinese American ­Women. (Revised and expanded edition in traditional Chinese.) 金山謠—­ 美國華裔婦女史（繁體增訂版）. Taipei: Showwe Information Co., 2015 臺北：國家圖書館出版，台灣秀威資訊. —­—­—. “New Millennial Study Abroad Wave: An Analy­sis and Evaluation.” “新世纪中国 留美学潮：影响，特点及趋势.” Shenzheng University Journal of Social Sciences 36, no. 1 (January 2019): 1–9.《深圳大学学报》 （社科版）第1期，1–9. —­—­—. “New Perspectives on Chinese American Studies—­Cultural Community Theory.” “美国华人研究的新视角：文化社区理论.” Overseas Chinese History Studies 中国华侨华 人历史研究所： 《华侨华人历史研究》no. 1 (2007): 25–31. —­—­—. Pin Piao Mei Guo: New Immigrants in Amer­i­ca.《萍飘美国—­ 新移民实录》. Shanxi: Beiyue Lit­er­a­ture and Art Publishing House, 2003 山西北岳文艺出版社. —­—­—. Pin Piao Mei Guo: New Immigrants in Amer­i­ca. (Revised and expanded edition in traditional Chinese.)《萍飘美国—­ 新移民实录》(繁體增訂版). Taipei: Showwe Information Co., 2021. 臺北：國家圖書館出版，台灣秀威資訊. —­—­—. “The Rise and Fall of the Study in Amer­i­ca Movement in Taiwan.” “从台湾社会的 发展看台湾留美运动的兴衰.” Overseas Chinese History Studies no. 4 (2003): 21–28 中国 华侨华人历史研究所： 《华侨华人历史研究》. —­—­—. “A Study of the Motives for Immigration of Chinese ­Women in the Late-­Nineteenth and Early-­Twentieth ­Century.” “十九世纪中国妇女移民美国动机初探.” American Studies 13, no. 1 (1999): 95–121 中国社会科学院美国研究所:《美国研究》. —­—­—. Surviving on the Gold Mountain: A History of Chinese American ­Women and Their Lives《金山谣—­ 美国华裔妇女史》. Beijing: Chinese Social Science Publishing House, American Studies in China Book Series, 1999 中国社会科学出版社 [中华美国学丛书.] —­—­—. “Surviving on the Gold Mountain: A Review of History and Sources about Chinese American W ­ omen.” “金山谣：美国华裔妇女简史及主要有关史料述评.” American Studies no. 1 (1997): 127–146 中国社会科学院美国研究所： 《美国研究》.

Index

Note: Page numbers in italics indicate figures. advantages of Chicago, 15, 21, 28, 45 advantages of the heartland: differences and similarities between Chinese Americans in the heartland and on the coasts, 192–194; economic opportunities, 45; more local ac­cep­tance, 193–194 Anderson, Nels, The Hobo, 67 anti-­Chinese movement, 15–16, 42, 44; in Chicago, 15–16; in St. Louis, 63, 65, 107–109; on the West Coast, 44. See also discrimination Arenson, Ling Z., 181–182 Argyle Street (Chicago), 177–180, 178, 179. See also Tripartite Community (Chicago) Asian American heartland, 1–2, 199n1; definition of, 1; intellectual tradition of, 66–80; new demographic trend, 2–4; significance of, 2–7 Asian American Studies (AAS) programs in the Midwest, 4–7; Indiana University at Bloomington, 6; Northwestern University at Chicago, 6; Truman State University, 5; University of Illinois at Chicago, 6; University of Illinois at Urbana-­Champaign, 4–5; University of Minnesota, 5; University of Wisconsin at Madison, 6–7 Association of Asian American Studies (AAAS) conferences in the Midwest, 5–7, 199 Bamboo Inn (Chicago), 32 barber shops in St. Louis, 62 Basch, Linda, 7 Blanc-­Szanton, Cristina, 7

Burgess, Ernest Watson, 35–36, 67; papers of, 16, 35 burials, 116–122; burial sites in St. Louis, 116–121; ceremonies, 116–119; significance of, 118–119, 122 Canton Café (Chicago), 32 cele­bration: of Chinese New Year, 19, 112–113, 137; of Chinese tradition, 112–113, 137 ­Century of Pro­gress exposition (1933–1934), 34–35 Chan, Sucheng, 100 Chen, Kuo-­lin, 125 Chestnut Valley, Missouri, 62 Cheung, Celia Moy, 165 Chicago: advantages of, 15, 21, 28, 45; anti-­ Chinese movement in, 15–16, 42, 44; Chinatowns in, 15–41 (see also Chicago, Chinese communities in); Chin clans in, 82; Chinese American population in (1870–2020), 18–19; Chinese-­language schools in, 182, 184; Chinese Nationalist Party in, 182; community organ­izations in, 173, 182; cultural community in, 10, 180–182; discrimination in, 15–16; economic opportunities in, 45; ethnic diversity in, 15–16, 176; intellectual con­ tributions of, 66–80 (see also Chicago School of sociology); second-­generation Chinese Americans in, 165–169; South Side, 15, 171–176; tong fighting in, 10; as transportation hub, 15, 21, 28; Viet­nam­ese refugees in, 176–180 (see also Southeast Asian refugees); Viet­nam­ese restaurants in, 176–180, 178

241

242 I n d e x Chicago, Chinese communities in: North Chinatown, 10, 16, 163, 176–180, 178, 179, 181, 182, 183, 184–185, 187; South Chinatown, 10, 16, 28, 30, 75, 76, 163, 171–176, 174, 175, 177, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 188, 189, 194; suburban cultural communities, 10, 180–182 Chicago, Chinese hand laundries in, 17–18, 35–38; earnings, 36–40; as means for return certificate, 36–37; non-­Chinese employees, 37; operation of, 36–38; significance of, 37–38. See also Siu, Paul C. P. Chicago, Chinese restaurants in, 28–35, 179; mixed menu, 32; promotion of, 33–35; seating capacity, 31–32; significance of, 32; upscale, 28–31. See also individual restaurants Chicago, ­family and marriage in, 8–9, 81–98; characteristics of marriage, 97–98; ­family structures, 8–9, 81–98; interracial marriage, 83, 91–94; large f­ amily, 88–89; ­ nion, 83, living conditions, 82; love u 89–91; marriage patterns, 83; polygynous practice, 86; traditional marriage, 89; transnational split marriage, Taishanese “­w idow” and American concubine, 9, 83–89; wide age gap between marital partners due to immigration laws, 86–88; ­w idow remarriage, 95–97 Chicago, grocery stores in, 21–28; as banks or investment brokerages, 22–24; as boarding facilities or h ­ otels, 27–28; operational structure, 22–26; procurement of merchandise, 24–25; recruitment, 23–24; significance of, 28; transnational ethnic networks, 21–24; traveling stores, ­ holesale, 25–26 25–27; w Chicago, transnational migration and businesses in, 15–41; earnings, 38–40; grocery stores, 21–28; laundries, 35–38; restaurants, 28–35 Chicago Chinese Case Files (CCFC), 16, 36 Chicago Chinese Chamber of Commerce (CCCC), 173, 188–189 Chicago School of sociology, 8, 66–77; blooming period (2000–­pre­sent), 76–77; expansion period (1960s–1990s), 74–75; pioneering period (1920s–1950s), 66–74 Chih Kung (Gee Kung, Zhigong), 125. See also Zhigongtang Chiles, Lee, 109–110 Chin, Catherine Wong, 169 Chin, Ian Roo­se­velt, 169–170 China, w ­ omen in, 100; concubinage, 83–89; foot-­binding, 100; socioeconomic status, 100

Chinatown(s): in Chicago, 15–41 (see also Chicago, Chinese communities in); in St. Louis, 42–65, 160 Chinatown Redevelopment Assistance Inc., 172 Chinatown Square (Chicago), 173 Chinatown Trunk Mystery (New York), 108–109 Chin clans in Chicago, 82 Chinese American Educational Association (St. Louis), 115–116 Chinese American Museum in Chicago (CAMOC), 16, 189, 190 Chinese American population characteristics in the heartland, 155; higher percentage of professionals and small business ­owners, 155; suburban residence, 155 Chinese American population in Chicago (1870–2020), 18–19 Chinese American population in St. Louis, 45, 149, 220n12; 1870–1930, 45; 1960–2010, 149, 220n12 Chinese American population in the United States, 164 Chinese American Ser­v ice League (CASL), 173, 185–187 Chinese at the St. Louis World’s Fair (1904), 63–64; Chinese Pavilion, 63; Prince Pu Lun, 63; Wong Kai Ka, 63 Chinese churches in St. Louis, 109–111, 150, 153–155 Chinese communities in the United States, 219n9 Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Associa­ tion (CCBA), 34, 126–129, 182, 185 Chinese Cultural Days in St. Louis, 149 Chinese Empire Reform Society of Missouri, 114–115 Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), 44, 47, 63, 81, 87, 106, 121, 125, 170, 205n30 Chinese exclusion acts and enforcement, 89, 100–101, 163, 164, 219n3. See also anti-­Chinese movement; discrimination Chinese Freemasons Association, 113 Chinese gazetteers, 16 Chinese genealogies, 16 Chinese government statistics, 16 Chinese hand laundries in Chicago, 17–18, 35–38; earnings, 36–40; as means for return certificate, 36–37; non-­Chinese employees, 37; operation of, 36–38; significance of, 37–38. See also Siu, Paul C. P. Chinese hand laundries in St. Louis, 1, 49–56; clan domination in, 49; as ­family ventures, 52–56; geo­graph­i­cal dispersion

Index of, 52–54; as reflection of general settle­ ment pattern, 52; working conditions of, 52–56. See also Gould’s St. Louis Directory; Sam Wah Laundry Chinese laborers, smuggling of, 44–45 Chinese-­language media, 156 Chinese-­language schools, 149–154, 182; in Chicago, 182, 184; significance of, 154; in St. Louis, 149–154 Chinese Mutual Aid Association (CMAA), 187–188 Chinese Mutual Ser­v ice Agency, 177 Chinese Nationalist League (St. Louis), 115–116 Chinese Nationalist Party: in Chicago, 182; in St. Louis, 116 Chinese restaurants in Chicago, 28–35, 179; mixed menu, 32; promotion of, 33–35; seating capacity, 31–32; significance of, 32; upscale, 28–31. See also individual restaurants Chinese Six Companies, 125–129, 140. See also Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA) Chinese YMCA, 38 Chiu, Herman, 171 Chiu, James, 171 Chow, Miller, 57 Chu, Charles Quinn, 134–135, 135 Chu, Yung-­Deh Richard, 125 Chun, Grace, 166, 189–191 Chun, Howard, 168, 189–191 clan divisions, 10. See also tong fighting community convergences and divergences, 192–194 community organ­izations, 9, 123–191; in Chicago, 173, 182; in St. Louis, 123–142, 150, 153–154. See also Chinese American Ser­v ice League (CASL); Chicago Chinese Chamber of Commerce (CCCC); On Leong Chinese Merchants and Laborers Association (Chicago); On Leong Merchants and Laborers Association (St. Louis) community structures, ix, 9–10, 123–191; cultural community, 9–10; Tripartite division, 9–10, 182–185 Cronon, William, Nature’s Metropolis, 2 cultural community, 9–10, 148–162, 180–182; characteristics of, 149–151, 154–155; in Chicago, 10, 180–182; definition of, 149–151; formation of in St. Louis, 145–162; in Kansas City, 159–160; in St. Louis, 9–10, 145–162 cultural community model, 149–162, 180–182; applicability of, 162–163; ­factors for emergence of, 151–153; professionals,

243 151–153, 155, 180–182; in prospect, 162; self-­employed entrepreneurs, 151–153; significance of, 156–158, 160–162 Dai, Bingham, 69, 71 diaolou (fortresslike buildings), 39–40 DiHo Supermarket complex (Westmont), 181 discrimination, 45–47; in Chicago, 15–16; institutionalized in St. Louis, 45–47, 63, 65 Displaced Persons Act (1948), 164 Dreiser, Theodore, 47–49, 56, 58–60 DuPage County (Illinois), 181 Eng, Corwin, 166 Eng, George, 167–168 ethnic coexistence/collaboration, 45, 62; in St. Louis, 45, 106–109 ethnic diversity in Chicago, 15–16, 176 ethnicity, 15–16, 45, 62 ­family and marriage in Chicago, 8–9, 81–98; characteristics of marriage, 97–98; ­family structures, 8–9, 81–98; interracial marriage, 83, 91–94; large f­ amily, 88–89; living conditions, 82; love u ­ nion, 83, 89–91; marriage patterns, 83; polygynous practice, 86; traditional marriage, 89; transnational split marriage, Taishanese “­w idow” and American concubine, 9, 83–89; wide age gap between marital partners due to immigration laws, 86–88; ­w idow remarriage, 95–97 ­family and marriage in St. Louis, 99–122; interracial marriage and sexuality, 106–109, 121; pioneer ­women and ­family lives, 99–106; recreation and social awakening, 111–116; Sunday schools and early Americanization, 109–111 Fan, Tin-­Chiu, 16, 20, 38, 68–71 “flyover states,” 1. See also heartland; Midwest Foin, Chin F., 28–31, 29, 82 Fong, Susanna, 170 Gee, Hong, 53–54, 53 Gee, Kee One (Gee, Sam Wah), 53–54, 53 GI Fiancées Act (1946), 164 Gold Pheasant Inn (Chicago), 31–32 Gould’s St. Louis Directory, 49–51 Graham, Sarah, 43 grocery stores in Chicago, 21–28; as banks or investment brokerages, 22–24; as ­ otels, 27–28; opera­ boarding facilities or h tional structure, 22–26; procurement of merchandise, 24–25; recruitment, 23–24; significance of, 28; transnational ethnic networks, 21–24; traveling stores, 25–27; ­wholesale, 25–26

244 I n d e x grocery stores in St. Louis, 56–57; as ­family business, 56–57; operation of, 56–57 Guey Sam Restaurant (Chicago), 30 heartland, 1–2, 199n1 heartland, advantages of: differences and similarities between Chinese Americans in the heartland and on the coasts, 192–194; economic opportunities, 45; more local ac­cep­tance, 193–194 heartland, Chinese American population characteristics in, 155; higher percentage of professionals and small business ­owners, 155; suburban residence, 155 Highbinders, 46 Hip Lung Yee Kee and Com­pany, 21. See also Chicago, grocery stores in; Moy, Dong Chow; Moy, Dong Hoy; Moy, Dong ­ rothers Yee; Moy b Hip, Sing, 125, 177, 182, 185 historizing Chicago Chinatown, 16–19 Ho, Richard, 60–61 Hoe Sai Gai Restaurant (Chicago), 30, 32 Hoganson, Kristin, 2 Hong, Lillie, 55–56, 104–106, 105 Hop Alley (St. Louis), 9, 42–65, 99–142, 148, 160; and boarding ­houses, 101; Chinese ­children in, 48; and Chinese social organ­izations, 113–116; ­family lives in, 48, 101–106; governing, 123–142; living conditions for working class in, 104–106; myth of, 45–49; real­ity in, 47–62, 99–142; and recreation, 48, 111–113. See also Chinatown(s): in St. Louis; Dreiser, Theodore Huang, Du, 180 Immigration Act (1924), 147 Immigration and Naturalization Ser­v ice (INS), 16, 36, 38 immigration laws, 103. See also Chinese Exclusion Act (1882); Displaced Persons Act (1848); GI Fiancées Act (1946); Immigration Act (1924); Page Law (1875); Refugee Relief Act (1953); War Bride Act (1945) intellectual contributions of Chinese in Chicago, 66–80. See also Chicago School of sociology interracial marriages and sexual relations, 9, 83, 91–94, 106–109, 121 “In the Chinese Restaurant” (cartoon), 59 Johnson, Lyndon B., 145 Johnson, Walter, The Broken Heart of Amer­i­ca, 2

Kansas City, cultural community in, 159–160 Keener, Minglan Cheung, 75 Kiang, Harry Ying Cheng, 75 King Joy Lo Mandarin Restaurant (Chicago), 30, 31 King Yen Lo Restaurant (Chicago), 30, 31, 37, 82 Lan, Shanshan, 76 Lee, Alla, 1, 43–44, 61, 148 Lee, Mow Lin, 118, 131–133 Lee, Rose Hum, 72–73, 164 Lee, Yolanda, 165–166 Leong, Annie, 123, 138–139 Li, Peter S., 74–75 Liang, Yuan, 73 Lin, Joe, 133–134 Ling, Huping, 76, 181, 241 Ling, Jenny, 180 Ling, Toung, 180 Lo, Cho Tuk, 169 Lok, Tom, 31 Loop area (Chicago), ix, 15, 17, 18, 19, 30, 177 Luk, Shee, 82, 82 Marriage, 8–9, 81–98. See also ­family and marriage in Chicago; f­ amily and marriage in St. Louis McKeown, Adam, 16, 20, 76 Meijia dayuan (Moy f­ amily compound), 39–40. See also diaolou Mon Sang Association (Chicago), 38 Mound City (St. Louis), 44 Moy, Benjamin C., 167 Moy, Dong Chow (Mei Zongzhou), 16–17, 17, 81–82 Moy, Dong Hoy (Mei Zongkai, aka Sam Moy), 17, 81–82 Moy, Dong Yee (Mei Zongyu), 17, 81–82, 82 Moy, Soon Lon, 196 Moy, Susan Lee, 76 Moy b ­ rothers, 16–19, 81–82; conflict with the Chins, 139–142; conflict with the Wongs, 37–42; connection with local authorities, 141; dominance of, 33–37, 41–42. See also Foin, Chin F.; Moy, Dong Chow; Moy, Dong Hoy; Moy, Dong Yee Moy clan, ix, 9, 17, 81–82 Nankin Restaurant (Chicago), 32 Ngai, Mae M., 33 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, 145–148 Obama, Barack, 15 Olson, Audrey L., 158–159

Index On Leong Chinese Merchants and Laborers Association (Chicago), 9, 182, 185; head­ quarters, 139 On Leong Merchants and Laborers Association (St. Louis), 123–142; adaptability of, 130–131; assessment of, 141–142; Chinese burial ceremonies, 116–119; comparison with Chinese Six Companies, 125–128; economic power of, 127; first headquarters of, 136; formation of, 123–125; as a fraternal organ­ization, 128; functions of, 126–131; headquarters of, 135–139; influence of, 97, 99; ­legal and administrative authority of, 126–127; mayors of Chinatowns, 131–135; meaning of On Leong, 124; National Convention of in 1949, 136–137; National Convention of in 1962, 137–138; nature of, 128–129; orga­nizational structure of, 125–126; presidents of, 131–135; second headquarters of, 136–139; self-­confinement of, 129–130; Sino-­Japanese War efforts, 140–141; social ser­v ices, 127–128; spiritual duties, 128; urban renewal, 138–139 Ono, Kent, 5 opium shop in St. Louis, 61–62 “Oriental prob­lem,” 67–74. See also Chicago School of sociology overseas Chinese magazines, 16 Page Law (1875), 87, 100 Pagoda Inn Restaurant (Chicago), 28, 30, 92 Park, Robert Ezra, 66–67 Peffer, George Anthony, 100 Ping, Tom Park, 173 race, 19; early racial contacts between Chinese and ­others, 62; interracial marriage, 83, 91–94, 106–109, 121; racial discrimination against Chinese, 19, 107–109, 176; racial relations, 62, 106–109, 175–176. See also anti-­Chinese movement; ethnicity Refugee Relief Act (1953), 164 remittances to China, 38–40; for building diaolou (Western-­style buildings), 39–40; for psychological satisfaction, 40; for schools, 40. See also diaolou Reynolds, C. N., 124 Rohsenow, John S., 184–185, 196 Sam Wah. See Sam Wah Laundry Sam Wah Laundry, 53–55, 53 “Santa Fe Proj­ect,” 171–174 Schiller, Nina Glick, 7 Schmieder, William, 116–117

245 second-­generation Chinese Americans in Chicago, 165–169 Shaw, Clifford, The Jack Roller, 67 Sick, Jeu, 131 significance of this book, 10–11 Siu, Paul C. P., 16, 20–21, 35–36, 73–74, 82, 95; “sojourner” theory, 20, 36, 74 smuggling of Chinese laborers, 44–45 Song Ying Lo Restaurant (Chicago), 31 Soong, Ruth Joan, 68–69, 71 South Clark Street (Chicago), 19, 81 Southeast Asian refugees, 176–180 South Side (Chicago), 15, 171–176 St. Louis: anti-­Chinese movement in, 63, 65, 107–109; barber shops in, 62; burial sites in, 116–121; Chinatowns in, 42–65, 160; Chinese churches in, 109–111, 150, 153–155; Chinese communities in, 99–122; Chinese Cultural Days in, 149; Chinese-­ language schools in, 149–154; Chinese Nationalist Party in, 116; community organ­izations in, 123–142, 150, 153–154; cultural community in, 9–10, 145–162; discrimination institutionalized in, 45–47, 63, 65; ethnic coexistence/collaboration in, 45, 106–109; first Chinese church in, 110; formation of cultural community in, 145–162; opium shop in, 61–62; tong fight­ ing in, 46–47; transnational migration and businesses in, 42–65 St. Louis, Chinese American population in, 45, 149, 220n12; 1870–1930, 45; 1960–2010, 149, 220n12 St. Louis, Chinese hand laundries in, 1, 49–56; clan domination in, 49; as ­family ventures, 52–56; geo­graph­i­cal dispersion of, 52–54; as reflection of general settle­ ment pattern, 52; working conditions of, 52–56. See also Gould’s St. Louis Directory; Sam Wah Laundry St. Louis, ­family and marriage in, 99–122; interracial marriage and sexuality, 106–109, 121; pioneer ­women and ­family lives, 99–106; recreation and social awakening, 111–116; Sunday schools and early Americanization, 109–111 St. Louis, grocery stores in, 56–57; as f­ amily business, 56–57; operation, 56–57 St. Louis Gospel Church, 110, 110 St. Louis World’s Fair (1904), Chinese at, 63–64; Chinese Pavilion, 63; Prince Pu Lun, 63; Wong Kai Ka, 63 structure of this book, 7–10 Tang, Vincent, 100 Tchen, John Kuo Wei, 16, 26

246 I n d e x Thai, Stanley, Dato’ Seri, 170–171 tong fighting, 10, 46–47; in Chicago, 10; in St. Louis, 46–47 transcontinental railroad, 44 transnationalism, 7–8 transnational migration: and businesses, 15–41, 42–65; and regional development, 20–21, 41; and work, 7–8, 15–41, 42–65 transnational migration and businesses in Chicago, 15–41; earnings, 38–40; grocery stores, 21–28; laundries, 35–38; restaurants, 28–35 transnational migration and businesses in St. Louis, 42–65 transnational migration network, 8, 21 Tripartite Community (Chicago), 163–191; Bridgeport, 174–176; class distinctions, 185; convergence, 185–191; division of, 182–185; formation of, 163–185; linguistic differences, 184–185; multiethnic North Chinatown, 176–180, 178, 179, 183; po­liti­cal, 182–184; Santa Fe Proj­ect, 171–174; South Chinatown, 171–176, 174, 175, 183; suburban cultural communities, 180–182 United States: Chinese American population in, 164; Chinese communities in, 219n9 Valhalla Cemetery (St. Louis), 9, 99, 116, 119–122, 120, 135 Viet­nam­ese refugees in Chicago, 176–180. See also Southeast Asian refugees Viet­nam­ese restaurants in Chicago, 176–180, 178

Wah Mee Corporation, 33 Wang, Gung-­Hsing, 172 War Bride Act (1945), 164 Wee Ying Lo Restaurant (Chicago), 31 Wengjialou (Weng ­family compound), 39–40. See also diaolou Wesleyan Cemetery (St. Louis), 9, 99, 116–119 West Coast, anti-­Chinese movement on, 44 Whyte, William F., Street Corner Society, 67 Wilson, Margaret Gibbons, 74 Wirth, Louis, The Ghetto, 67 ­women in China, 100; concubinage, 83–89; foot-­binding, 100; socioeconomic status, 100 Wong, Wayne Hung, 77 Wong, Xiaoyu, 174 Wood, Dick, 56, 112 World’s Columbian Exposition (1893), 33–34 Wu, Ching-­Chao, 68, 71 Wu, Harry, 166 Xilin Association of Chinese Schools, 182 Yang, Philip, 200n13 Yee, Henry, 165 Yee, Jeu Hon, 101–104 Yu, George, 5 Yu, Henry, 76 Zhigongtang (Chi Kung Tang), 129 Zhonghua Huiguan, 34, 126–129. See also Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA); Chinese Six Companies

About the Author

Huping Ling, professor of history at Truman State University, is the founding and inaugural book series editor of Asian American Studies ­Today for Rutgers University Press and served as the executive editor in chief for the Journal of Asian American Studies from 2008 to 2012. A prize-­w inning author, she has authored or edited more than thirty books, including Chinese Chicago: Race, Transnational Migration, and Community since 1870 (2012), Asian American History and Culture: An Encyclopedia (with Allan  M. Austin, 2 vols., 2010), Asian Amer­i­ca: Forming New Communities, Expanding Bound­aries (Rutgers University Press, 2009), Emerging Voices: The Experiences of the Underrepresented Asian Americans (Rutgers University Press, 2008), Voices of the Heart: Asian American ­Women on Immigration, Work, and ­Family (2007), and Chinese St. Louis: From Enclave to Cultural Community (2004), as well as more than 200 articles on Asian American Studies.