*This episode discusses child abuse, human trafficking, and prostitution.
A Mui Tsai in San Francisco (image credit: Stanford Special Collections / California State Library)“I was nineteen when this man came to my mother and said that in America there was a great deal of gold. Even if I just peeled potatoes there, he told my mother, I would earn seven or eight dollars a day, and if I was willing to do any work at all I would earn lots of money. He was a laundryman, but said he earned plenty of money. He was very nice to me, and my mother liked him, so my mother was glad to have me go with him as his wife. I thought I was his wife, and was very grateful that he was taking me to such a grand, free country, where everyone was rich and happy.”
–Wong Ah SoWhile Chinese men flocked to “Gold Mountain,” many families in the “Celestial Empire” struggled for survival, and girls were the least valuable members. Sometimes they were sold away, and ended up in the United States as prostitutes. But they found refuge in organizations like the Women’s Occidental Board of Missions, led by Donaldina Cameron.
Eventually, Chinese men were able to bring their wives, and San Francisco’s Chinatown became a community of families. The demands of home life kept working-class wives very busy. But middle-class Chinese women formed societies that gave them the opportunity to not only socialize, but develop leadership skills, and advocate for issues that were important to them, including suffrage.
Emma Leung and Clara Lee were the first Chinese women to register to vote in the US. (Also pictured, Tom Leung, Dr. Charles Lee, and Deputy County Clerk W.B. Smith)Additional Reading:
Tye Leung and Charles Schulze, an Untold Angel Island Love Story
The White Devil’s Daughters: The Women Who Fought Slavery in San Francisco’s Daughters by Julia Siler
Unbound Voices: A Documentary History of Chinese Women in San Francisco, Judy Yung
Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco
“The worst of the explosion occurred in the No. 8 mine.” (Mine Wars, Part 1)
“We lived with constant fear.” (Encore: Freedom Summer, Part 2)
“We have to be shot down here like rabbits.” (Encore: The Great Migration, Part 1)
“His Intelligence from the Enemy’s Camp were Industriously Collected…” (James Armistead Lafayette, Mini Episode)
“The more I read, the more I fought against slavery.” (Slave Narratives and the Pursuit of Literacy, Part 3)
“It was only by trickery that I learned to read.” (Slave Narratives and the Pursuit of Literacy, Part 2)
“I would take my child and hide in the mountains.” (Slave Narratives and the Pursuit of Literacy, Part 1)
“We are afraid to speak for our rights.” (Freedom Summer ’64, Part 2)
“Mississippi is going to be hell this summer.” (Freedom Summer ’64, Part 1)
“I was awakened … by the low roar of guns.” (Hello Girls, Mini Episode)
“We fed them what we had.” (Women’s Welfare Work in WWI, Part 3)
“Don’t drop them pies!” (Women’s Welfare Work in WWI, Part 2)
“We washed the men and the floors.” (Women’s Welfare Work in WWI, Part 1)
“My wound is all healed.” (The 372nd Infantry, Mini Episode)
“I have the right not to vote.” (Women’s Suffrage, Mini Episode)
“Our child cries for you.” (Loved Ones of Black Civil War Soldiers, Mini Episode)
“Nothing here but money.” (The Great Migration, Part 3)
“We will do any kind of work.” (The Great Migration, Part 2)
“We have to be shot down here like rabbits.” (The Great Migration, Part 1)
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