On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family

by Lisa See

  The men who worked in Fong See’s garment factory were not alone in their fears. In 1881,11,890 Chinese entered the country. The following year, 39,579 Chinese—only 136 of them women—slipped in before the Exclusion Act went into effect. Although it took a while for immigration officials to gear up, the law would prove to be extremely effective. Just six years later, only twenty-six Chinese came to the Gold Mountain. In 1892 the Geary Act went into effect, extending and toughening the original law, and putting the burden on immigrants to prove they had a right to be in the United States. If a Chinese was found to be in the country unlawfully, he could expect imprisonment of up to one year, followed by deportation with the denial of bail in habeas corpus proceedings. As a result, not one single Chinese came to American shores that year.

  In his worst imaginings, Fong See couldn’t have envisioned what would happen to the Chinese in the years to come. The Exclusion Law permitted—even encouraged—the basest elements of men to boil over and explode into violence and cruelty. The Driving Out began. In the Cherry Creek district of Denver, white ruffians ravaged Chinatown, looting homes and businesses, and beating unfortunate residents. One Chinese was saved when his white friends nailed him inside a packing case and carried him through the mob. The only white man to take a public stand was a gambler and gunslinger, who held back the rioters with a gun in each hand, demanding, “If you kill Wong, who in the hell will do my laundry?”

  In Tacoma, Washington, seven hundred laborers were herded into railroad cars and driven from town. Eventually all Chinese would be forced to leave that city, and for decades not a single Chinese would live within its environs. In fear, Chinese in Seattle boarded steamships for San Francisco. In Tombstone, Arizona, cowpokes cut cards to determine to which points of the compass the Chinese would be sent. In Tucson, a Chinese was tied to the back of a steer and sent out across the desert. In Rock Springs, Wyoming, twenty-eight Chinese were killed, eleven of them burned alive in their homes; others were shot in the back as they tried to escape. On the Snake River in eastern Washington, thirty-one Chinese were massacred. In Alaska, Chinese miners were crowded onto small boats and set adrift. In Redlands, California—after years of planting, pruning, harvesting, sorting, and packing citrus—Chinese were barricaded in sheds as white roughnecks raided orange groves. Despite assistance from the National Guard, houses were burned and buildings looted. By the end of the century, the Chinese were completely driven out of California’s citrus industry.

  Caucasians—even if they supported Exclusion—would acknowledge the injustice of what happened to the Chinese in a popular expression of the day: “He doesn’t stand a Chinaman’s chance.” But Fong See would not be bowed. There had to be ways to get around the laws, and he would find them.

  CHAPTER 3

  LOVE

  1894–97

  SINCE Exclusion, the government had begun tracking all Chinese-owned businesses throughout the country as a way of keeping tabs on merchants, the one permitted class of Chinese immigrant that could easily be faked. Every Chinese business had to report twice yearly on the status of the company and the number of partners or “merchants” involved. Immigration officials cross-checked dates and names for possible shenanigans, using the files as the basis for interrogations of Chinese residents wishing to travel in or out of the country. In 1894, twelve years after the Exclusion Law went into effect, Fong See once again filed a business application. But he was involved in manufacturing, a category not covered by the new immigration laws.

  In a practical move, Fong See decided to change the name of the Curiosity Bazaar back to Kwong Tsui Chang, the original name of his father’s herb store. He hoped this would help establish the fact that the Fong family had been merchants for more than two decades. Fong See was Americanized enough to know that Kwong Tsui Chang sounded foreign. He changed Kwong to Fong, Tsui to Suie, and Chang to On. Legitimately or not, Fong Suie On represented a significant change to Fong See’s ears. For his immediate purposes, he listed the store as the Suie On Company. The original meaning of Kwong Tsui Chang—Success Peacefully—was abandoned.

  Like many Chinese of this time, Fong See formed a hui, a partnership of up to ten men designed to let them claim status as “merchants.” The first partnership pact for the Suie On Company stated that the members of the firm were “dealers and manufacturers of Ladies’ Underwear, and General Japanese Bazaar, doing business at No. 609 K Street in Sacramento City.” The eight members who made up the firm were Fong See, Fong Jung, Fong Lai, Fong Dong (Fong Dun Shung), Jun Sik, Fong Yun, Kang Sun and Fong Ken. Fong Dun Shung and his fifth son, Fong Yun, Fong See’s nine-year-old brother, had partnerships though they were in China. Fong Lai was listed as a partner, while Fong Quong’s name was left off, even though he was in Sacramento at the time. As for the others, they are lost to history, although the business file notes that Fong Ken was on board a steamer in port on April 18, 1894, the day the agreement was drawn up.

  Each member had an interest of five hundred dollars in the firm, bringing the total capital to four thousand dollars, but these amounts were fictitious. Certainly Fong Ken, who languished on the steamer awaiting entry based on the establishment of his merchant status, could not have had such a magnificent sum in his possession. One thing is certain: although the company was listed as a partnership, Fong See was clearly the owner and mastermind behind this official document. His photograph is the only one that appears on this agreement, as well as on all subsequent business documents until the government decided to stop keeping track of Chinese-owned businesses. Fong See was the sole proprietor; the others were merely partners on paper as a means of establishing their merchant status.

  In other huis, partners drew lots to see who would get to use the money, but Fong See had convinced his brothers and the others in the firm that he was the boss. He had “bamboo in his chest”; that is, he was a man confident in his work and skill. Fong See’s older brothers, cousins, father, and friends saw that he was the only one among them who had the confidence and courage to go forward. He had a vision of how things should be and he pursued it.

  On May 3, 1894, with his merchant status now affirmed, Fong See applied to the Collector of Internal Revenue for the Fourth District of California, and was granted a certificate of legal residency, number 130020, issued to a “person other than a laborer.” Soon after, the Suie On Company—or the Curiosity Bazaar, as it was still known by its customers—moved to 723 K Street, in the Oshner Building. Fong See owned four sewing machines and had as many as ten men working for him. Business was thriving.

  “Letticie, take Donna and Georgia outside for a while. They’re bored and I need to rest a spell. Come back in an hour to start dinner.”

  “But I have homework,” Ticie Pruett said to her sister-in-law, Jennie, who was already slipping off her high-button boots and lying back on the bed. Ticie shrugged. She wanted so badly to have an education. She was good at arithmetic. Her teacher at the school in Central Point—perhaps realizing that Ticie would one day have to support herself—had taught her simple bookkeeping. The problem was that, with all her housework, Ticie couldn’t get her homework done and was always late for school. The boys teased her about it—“Ooooh! Look who’s late again!” She hated it when they made fun of her.

  Ticie took the children outside as she was told. They sat down in the cool shade of the cottonwoods that lined the drive. It was early June and already hot as a blister. At five and three years of age, Donna and Georgia didn’t mind playing with each other and soon occupied themselves looking for rocks and building little piles with them. Toying with a strand of her auburn hair, Ticie glanced back at the house, where a tobacco plant climbed over the cook shed. She sighed. There was no point in making a fuss. It had been this way since Jennie had married Ticie’s older brother, Irvin, after their father died.

  Ten years ago, when she was eight, the family had gone to the county races. There wasn’t much to do out here except work, so the family had always enjoyed these div
ersions. Their religion did not forbid racing so long as no wagering was involved, so John Pruett, an avid horseman, entered a one-horse buggy race. It had been raining, and when they got home her father complained of cold. Within the week, he contracted pneumonia and died. Everyone said it was just like what happened to her mother, but Letticie couldn’t remember anything about it. All she knew was that she’d loved her father. He’d nicknamed her Ticie. She was still called that at school, but never at home. Her father was the only one who had truly loved her.

  Ticie hadn’t been old enough to take care of a house full of men, so Irvin had married Jennie Garrett, who’d been born in Montana. The Garrett family had thought they’d find luck out west, but it hadn’t worked out that way. The Garretts had been poor, and Jennie had brought nothing to the marriage except her ability to run a household, which she did until Ticie was old enough.

  A year later, Ticie’s third brother, Charles, got married. Melinda Cox’s family had come out early from Tennessee and homesteaded good land. Upon their marriage, Charles was given 286 choice acres abutting the foothills where they raised grain, alfalfa, and fruit. The couple had two children, Mabel, now aged six, and Guy, aged three. Melinda wasn’t nearly as awful as Jennie. Letticie figured that Melinda knew how to be gracious because she’d had to be kind to the farmhands when she was growing up. Jennie, on the other hand, was as poor as a church mouse and as mean as a rattlesnake.

  After Ticie’s nieces and nephews had been born, she’d been shuttled from one farm to the other. With each baby they expected her to do more work. “Change baby.” “Feed baby.” “Wash out these diapers. Scrub them good.” She didn’t mind doing chores. She was used to it, in fact; the problem was how they asked her. No, they didn’t ask her, they ordered her. Churn the butter! Make the beds! Do the wash! Feed the chickens! Mend the clothes!

  Her closest brother, John William, had just married Effie Caster. Ticie had been the witness. She’d always loved John best, but now he had someone to love him, and he no longer paid Ticie any attention. She couldn’t blame him for it. The point was none of them loved her or cared for her. She was alone in this family. An outcast.

  She wasn’t a bit like any of them. She remembered how enraged her brothers and the neighbors had been when the railroad was being built. “I hate those chinks they’ve got coming around here,” Irvin used to say after Sunday dinner, even though everyone at the table knew that the Chinese had panned for gold along the Rogue River long before any of them came to Oregon.

  “You coming with us tomorrow night?” Charles might ask, when a gang of farmers got together at night to pull up the rails that were laid during the day.

  In her dim memory—or maybe it was just that she’d heard her brothers talk about it—she remembered when the miners on Jackass Creek had stoned the Chinese, burned their cabins, and jumped their claims. John Miller had shot one of the Chinese in the back, but he’d gotten clean away with it because “it served that Chinaman right. He got what was coming to him.” She thought of the Chinese men she’d seen working on the railroad or on neighboring farms. She wasn’t afraid to look right into their faces, many of them scarred either from birth or from the hardships they’d found here. In their eyes she saw a mirror of the same loneliness she’d felt for so many years.

  At school, the teacher let her look through The Democratic Times—just one large sheet of paper folded in the middle which gave the news of the valley and the world. Ticie always skipped the “Central Point Pointers” section, because what news could be there that she cared about? She turned instead to “Foreign News” and “News Nuggets Picked up West of the Sierras,” and read the reports of the rail extensions connecting county to county, state to state.

  There was a world out there, and Ticie Pruett longed to be a part of it. She’d been saving whatever she could from her allowance and from the occasional odd job she did for neighbors. She knew it wasn’t much, but it would get her as far as Sacramento. (She’d dreamed of San Francisco, but she’d read it was too expensive.) Her one bag of clothes was packed. Tonight, while the others slept, she’d leave the farm and all the people who’d been callous toward her, walk into Central Point, and board the morning train. It was 1894, and Ticie was eighteen years old.

  A few weeks later, as the bell announced the arrival of a customer, Fong See looked up to see not a Chinese or American whore, but a young woman with her hair pulled up into a knot on the top of her head. Her hair had frizzed in the damp air, and small tendrils hung down, framing her face in wisps of rosewood-colored strands. The girl paused momentarily, then asked, “Do you have any openings for employment?”

  “You want job?” Fong See asked.

  “Yes,” she said, stepping farther into the shop.

  “You no work here. This not a place for you.”

  “Well, I don’t know what this place is,” she said, “but I’ve been all over the city and nobody wants to hire me.” She seemed on the verge of tears.

  “This not a place for you.”

  “Why?”

  “This business for whores,” Fong See answered.

  “Oh,” the girl said, her voice quieting in disappointment.

  “Make underwear for prostitute.”

  The girl’s face brightened. “This isn’t a house of ill repute?” “Aiya! You stupid girl! This a factory. I own.” “I can sew.”

  “I no need that. I got plenty man help me. You go now. This no place for you.”

  The girl stared at him for a moment, then lowered her eyes. She sighed, shook her head, mumbled her thanks, and went back outside. From his place at the counter, Fong See watched the girl—her hair burning deep auburn in the sunlight—as she paused, looked first to her right, then to her left, shook her head again, then walked left down K Street. Fong See shrugged and went back to his work.

  Several times over the next few days, Fong See’s thoughts were drawn back to the girl. He had come in contact with more Caucasian women on the Gold Mountain than had most Chinese men, so he shouldn’t have given the girl a thought. But he did. He remembered her fresh skin, her pretty hands, her small waist, her slight overbite. He recalled her manner—straightforward, with an underlying somberness. A few times he thought he saw her pass by the plate-glass windows of his shop—her rich, thick hair always catching his eye. Keep your mind on business, he told himself.

  Then, one morning, while he was in the back of the shop, giving the day’s orders to the men, he heard the chime of the Chinese bells hanging from the front door, and went out to see her standing at the counter again.

  “Hello,” she said. “Do you remember me? I’m Letticie Pruett.” He nodded.

  “I could still use a job,” she said. He watched as she tried to smile.

  “No job here for girl like you. No job for girl.”

  Letticie was about to leave when the bell once again sounded. Madame Matilde, one of Fong See’s oldest customers, stepped inside. “I need some more of that underwear,” she said. “I don’t know what my girls do with it.”

  “Madame Matilde, good see you today. You want to buy?”

  “That’s what I said,” the glittering woman replied. “I’m needing some new merchandise. Now, chop-chop.”

  “One pair? Two pair?” Fong See asked, the words rolling together as he struggled with there sounds.

  “Jesus!” Madame Matilde spat out. “Now listen, Fong. I come in here every month. And every month I order the same thing. A dozen pairs in silk, a dozen pairs in muslin, and a couple of those camisoles. Now, like I said, chop-chop.”

  Fong See stared at Madame Matilde. She had spoken so fast that he hadn’t understood her words. As he opened a cabinet, he overheard Madame Matilde say to Letticie, “You have as much trouble with him as I do? I can’t understand a word he says.”

  “He asked how many pairs you need.”

  “Jesus, I already said that!” The older woman snorted in frustration. She tapped her fan impatiently. “Ah, hell. I just don’t have tim
e for this today.” With that, Madame Matilde walked to the door, calling over her shoulder, “I’ll be back another day, Fong.”

  After Madame Matilde left, the girl watched as he put away the merchandise.

  “You could use someone like me, you know,” Letticie said. “No job!” Fong See said firmly.

  The girl smiled shyly at him again and left. Aiya! So much activity in the store, Fong See thought, and no money changing hands. This was not the way it was supposed to be.

  The next day, Fong See opened the shop and set the men to work. Business was slow, slow enough that he had time to stand at the window, gaze out into the street, and see the girl sitting on the wood-plank sidewalk across the street. She was staring at the Suie On Company. After lunch, he had the opportunity to pass by the window again, and he saw her still sitting there. All afternoon, Fong See was aware that the girl—what did she call herself? Letticie?—was watching him, watching who came in and who went out. He smiled to himself when someone left the shop with a large order, and cursed himself when someone walked out empty-handed. But what was he thinking? he asked himself. Keep your mind on business, he lectured himself time and time again. When the men went home and he locked up the shop, he made it a point not to look across the street in Letticie’s direction.