by Judy Yung
Although it is difficult to measure the real impact of Sieh King King's speech about women's emancipation on her audience without hearing from the audience itself, newspaper reporters did note that women listened "like zealots" and men "with every sign of approval."7 And later that evening, at a banquet held in Sieh King King's honor, women would be allowed for the first time to sit in the main banquet hall and enjoy the same food as the men.' A year later, Sieh King King gave another "eloquent and inspiring speech" in which she again "expounded her views on the role of Chinese women and the need to abolish outdated Chinese customs and emulate the West," this time to an exclusively female audience of two hundred.9 After that, she was not mentioned again in the local English- or Chinese-language newspapers.1° But what she advocated on behalf of Chinese women-unbound feet, education, equal rights, and public participation-remained at the heart of social change for Chinese women for the next three decades. The cause of women's rights would be raised during each epoch of China's continuing fight against feudalism and imperialism-through the 1911 Revolution, the 19 19 May Fourth cultural revolution, and the War of Resistance Against Japan (1937-1945)-when the country was in need of the services of all its citizens. With each national crisis, the hold of patriarchy over the lives of Chinese women would loosen."
What happened to women in China had a direct impact on Chinese women in the United States. Beginning in the early twentieth century, not only were new immigrants bringing a different set of cultural baggage with them in regard to women's roles, but political developments in China remained in general more meaningful to Chinese immigrants who had been barred from participation in mainstream American society. Aware that the racial oppression and humiliation they suffered in America was due in part to China's weak international status and inability to protect its citizens abroad, Chinese immigrants kept nationalist sentiment alive, focusing their attention and energies on helping China become a stronger and more modern country, even as they worked to change their unfavorable image and treatment in America. As reported in the local press, Chinese women were becoming "new women" in the homeland, and Chinese women in America were encouraged to do like- wise.12 But aside from Chinese nationalism, the reform work of Protestant missionary women and the Chinese women's entry into the urban economy also helped to advance women's cause in San Francisco Chinatown.
Journey to Gold Mountain
At the time of Sieh King King's speech, China was still suffering under the stranglehold of Western imperialism and the inept rule of the Manchus. China's defeat in the Sino-Japanese War (1894-9 5) and the Boxer Rebellion (1900) resulted in further concessions of extraterritorial rights and war indemnities to the imperialist powers, including Japan, Germany, Russia, France, England, and the United States. China's subjugation, by adding to the humiliation and economic burden of an overtaxed Chinese population, only strengthened the re solve of nationalists to modernize their country and rid China of both foreign domination and Manchu rule. But even after Sun Yat-sen's Tongmenghui (United Covenant League) succeeded in overthrowing the Qing dynasty in 1911, the problems of foreign control, internal dissension, and economic deterioration persisted. Political and social upheavals continued unabated as warlords, and then Nationalists, Communists, and Japanese, fought for control of China.13 Life for the ordinary Chinese remained disrupted; survival was precarious. Oppressed by the competition of imported foreign commodities, inflation, heavy taxes, increased rents, and rampant banditry, peasants could not hope to make enough money to meet their expenses. A common saying at the time was "The poor man who faces two swords-heavy farm rent and high interest-has three roads before him: to run away at night, hang himself, or go to jail." 14 Consequently, many able-bodied peasants in Southeast China continued to emigrate overseas where kinfolk had already settled. Despite the Chinese Exclusion Acts and anti-Chinese hostilities, a good number went to America, the Gold Mountain, by posing as members of the exempt classes or by smuggling themselves across the borders.
Chinese immigration declined drastically during the Exclusion period (1883-1943; see appendix table z). Since many Chinese in the United States were also returning to China (90,299 between 1908 and 1943), the Chinese population in the United States dropped significantly, from 105,465 in 188o to 61,639 in 192o.15 By 1900 the industrial revolution was over, the American West had been conquered, and Chinese labor was no longer being recruited. Many Chinese continued to disperse eastward to cities, where they could find work and where their presence was better tolerated. By 1910, 40.5 percent of the Chinese in the United States were concentrated in cities with populations above z5,ooo; by 1920, the percentage had increased to 66 percent. Most worked in ethnic enterprises in Chinatowns, as domestic servants for European American families, or opened small laundries, grocery stores, and restaurants in out-of-the-way places. Others found seasonal employment in agriculture or in canneries.16 Those who had the economic means got married and started families or sent for their wives and children from China. l7
Although there was a precipitous drop in the immigration of Chinese women to the United States following the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act, their numbers began increasing steadily after 1 goo. A number of reasons explain this increase despite the effort to keep Chinese and their families out of the country. Conditions at home were wors ening and becoming unsafe for family members left behind by overseas Chinese. These deteriorating conditions, combined with the lowering of cultural restrictions against women traveling abroad, encouraged increasing numbers of Chinese women to emigrate overseas to join their husbands or to pursue educational and employment opportunities on their own. Unlike in the nineteenth century, when there were no gainful jobs for them in America, they now had an economic role to play in the urban economy or in their husbands' small businesses. Only immigration legislation continued to limit the numbers of women (as well as dictate who could come at all).is
Most Chinese women entered the country as merchant wives, the class most favored by immigration legislation throughout the Exclusion period. Until 1924, wives of U.S. citizens were also admissible. But the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, which was aimed primarily at curbing immigration from eastern, southern, and central Europe, dealt Asian immigration a deadly blow when it included a clause that barred any "alien ineligible to citizenship" admittance. By law, this group included the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, and Asian Indians. On May z5, 1925, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Chinese merchant wives were still admissible because of treaty obligations; the Chinese wives of U.S. citizens, however, being themselves ineligible for citizenship, were not. Alarmed by what this interpretation would mean for their future in America, American-born Chinese fought back through the organized efforts of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance. Arguing persuasively that every male American citizen had the right to have his wife with him, that it was inhumane to keep husbands and wives separated, and that aliens (merchants) should not be entitled to more rights under the immigration laws than U.S. citizens, they moved Congress to amend the 192.4 act in 1930 to permit the entry of Chinese alien wives of U.S. citizens-but only those who were married prior to May z6, 192-4.19 Another way for Chinese women to come to the United States was as daughters of U.S. citizens. In this case, however, they were allowed entry only if they claimed derivative citizenship through the father (not the mother), and they had to be unmarried.20 A few women also came as students, one of the classes exempted from exclusion. But Chinese female students amounted to only about thirty annually in the 191 os and several dozens annually in the 19 zos.21
Even those with the legal right to immigrate sometimes failed to pass the difficult interrogations and physical examinations required only of Chinese immigrants.22 Aware of the intimidating entry procedures, many were discouraged from even trying to immigrate. Many Chinese Americans shared the sentiments of Pany Lowe, an American-born Chinese man who was interviewed in 1924:
Sure I go back to China two times. Stay ten or fifteen months each time. I do n
ot want to bring my wife to this country. Very hard get her in. I know how immigration inspector treat me first time when I come back eighteen years old.... My father have to go to court. They keep me on boat for two or three days. Finally he got witness and affidavit prove me to be citizen. They let me go, so I think if they make trouble for me they make trouble for my wife.... I think most Chinese in this country like have their son go China get married. Under this new law [Immigration Act of 1924], can't do this. No allowed marry white girl. Not enough American-born Chinese to go around. China only place to get wife. Not allowed to bring them back. For Chinaman, very unjust. Not human. Very uncivilized.23
American immigration laws and the process of chain migration also determined that most Chinese women would continue to come from the rural villages of Guangdong Province, where traditional gender roles still prevailed. Wong Ah So and Law Shee Low, both of whom immigrated in 1922, serve as examples of Guangdong village women who came as obedient daughters or wives to escape poverty and for the sake of their families. Jane Kwong Lee, who also came to the United States in 1922, was among the small number of urbanized "new women" who emigrated on their own for improved opportunities and adventure. Together, these three women's stories provide insights into the gender roles and immigration experiences of Chinese women in the early twentieth century.
"I was born in Canton [Guangdong] Province," begins Wong Ah So's story, "my father was sometimes a sailor and sometimes he worked on the docks, for we were very poor."24 Patriarchal cultural values often put the daughter at risk when poverty strikes: from among the five children (two boys and three girls) in the family, her mother chose to betroth her, the eldest daughter, to a Gold Mountain man in exchange for a bride price of 450 Mexican dollars.
I was 19 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.25
Out of filial duty and economic necessity, Ah So agreed to sail to the United States with this laundryman, Huey Yow, in 1922: "I was told by my mother that I was to come to the United States to earn money with which to support my parents and my family in Hongkong."26 Sharing the same happy thoughts about going to America as many other immigrants before her, she said, "I thought that 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."27
Huey Yow had a marriage certificate prepared and told her to claim him as her husband to the immigration officials in San Francisco, although there had been no marriage ceremony. "In accordance to my mother's demands I became a party to this arrangement," Ah So admitted later. "On my arrival at the port of San Francisco, I claimed to be the wife of Huey Yow, but in truth had not at any time lived with him as his wife."28
Law Shee Low (Law Yuk Tao was her given name before marriage), who was a year younger than Wong Ah So, was born in the village of Kai Gok in Chungshan District, Guangdong Province.29 Economic and political turmoil in the country hit her family hard. Once well-to-do, they were reduced to poverty in repeated raids by roving bandits. As Law recalled, conditions became so bad that the family had to sell their land and give up their three servants; all four daughters had to quit school and help at home.
My grandmother, mother, and an aunt all had bound feet, and it was so painful for them to get around. When they got up in the morning, I had to go fetch the water for them to wash up and carry the night soil buckets out. Every morning, we had to draw water from the well for cooking, for tea, and for washing. I would help grandmother with the cooking, and until I became older, I was the one who went to the village marketplace every day to shop.
Along with one other sister, Law was also responsible for sweeping the floor, washing dishes, chopping wood, tending the garden, and scrubbing the brick floor after each rainfall. In accordance with traditional gender roles, none of her brothers had to help. "They went to school. It was work for girls to do," she said matter-of-factly.
As in the case of Wong Ah So, cultural values and economic necessity led her parents to arrange a marriage for Law with a Gold Moun tain man. Although aware of the sad plight of other women in her village who were married to Gold Mountain men-her own sister-in-law had gone insane when her husband in America did not return or send money home to support her-Law still felt fortunate: she would be going to America with her husband.
I had no choice; we were so poor. If we had the money, I'm sure my mother would have kept me at home.... We had no food to go with rice, not even soy sauce or black bean paste. Some of our neighbors even had to go begging or sell their daughters, times were so bad.... So my parents thought I would have a better future in Gold Mountain.
Her fiance said he was a clothing salesman in San Francisco and a Christian. He had a minister from Canton preside over the first "modern" wedding in his village. Law was eighteen and her husband, thirty-four. Nine months after the wedding, they sailed for America.
Jane Kwong Lee was born in the same region of China (Op Lee Jeu village, Toishan District, Guangdong Province) at about the same time (19o2). But in contrast to Law Shee Low and Wong Ah So, she came from a higher-class background and emigrated under different circumstances. Her life story, as told in her unpublished autobiography, shows how social and political conditions in China made "new women" out of some like herself. Like Law and Ali So, Jane grew up subjected to the sexist practices of a patriarchal society. Although her family was not poor, her birth was not welcomed.
I was the second daughter, and two girls in a row were one too many, according to my grandparents. Girls were not equal to boys, they maintained. Girls, after they married, belonged to other families; they could not inherit the family name; they could not help the family financially no matter how good they were at housework. In this atmosphere of emotional depression I was an unwanted child, and to add to the family sadness the weather seemed to be against me too. There was a drought, the worst drought in many years, and all the wells dried up except one. Water had to be rationed. My long (youngest) uncle went out to get the family's share daily. The day after I was horn, the man at the well gave him the usual allotment, but my uncle insisted on obtaining one more scoop. The man asked why and the answer was, "We have one more mouth." Then, and only then, the villagers became aware that there had been a baby born in their midst. My grandparents were ashamed of having two granddaughters consecutively and were reluctant to have their neighbors know they had one more person in their family. They wanted grandsons and hoped for grandsons in the future. That is why they named me "Lin Hi," meaning "Link Young Brother." They believed in good omens and I did not disappoint them. My brother was born a year and a half later.30
Wedding portrait of Law Shee Low and husband Low Gun (a.k.a. Low Gar Chong), Heungshan (now Zhongshan) District, Guangdong Province, China, 19zi. (Courtesy of Law Shee Low)
Compared to Law's hard-working childhood, Jane lived a carefree life, playing hide-and-seek in the bamboo groves, catching sparrows and crabs, listening to ghost stories, and helping the family's mui tsai tend the vegetable garden. It was a life punctuated by holiday observances and celebrations of new births and marriages as well as the turmoil of family illnesses and deaths, droughts and floods, political uprisings and banditry.
Like Law, Jane came from a farming background. Her grandfather was successful in accumulating land, which he leased out to provide for the family. Her uncle and father were businessmen in Australia; their remittances made the difference in helping the family weather natural disasters and banditry and provided the means by which Jane was able to acquire an education at True Light Seminary in Canton. Social reforms and progressive views on women's equality at the time also helped to make her education possible:
Revoluti
on was imminent. Progress was coming. Education for girls was widely advocated. Liberal parents began sending their daughters to school. My long [youngest] aunt, sixth aunt-in-law, godsister Jade and cousin Silver went to attend the True Light Seminary in Canton. Women's liberation had begun. It was the year 191 i-the year the Ching [Qing] Dynasty was overthrown and the Republic of China was born.31
Her parents were among the liberal ones who believed that daughters should be educated if family means allowed it. Her father had become a Christian during his long sojourn in Australia, and her mother was the first in their village to unbind her own feet. From the age of nine, Jane attended True Light, a boarding school for girls and women sponsored by the Presbyterian Missionary Board in the United States. She completed her last year of middle school at the coeducational Canton Christian College. It was during this time that she adopted the Western name Jane. By then, "the Western wind was slowly penetrating the East and old customs were changing," she wrote.32
The curriculum stressed English and the three R's-reading, writing, and arithmetic-but also included classical Chinese literature. In addition, students had the opportunity to work on the school journal, learn Western music appreciation, and participate in sports-volleyball, baseball, and horseback riding. The faculty, all trained in the United States, exposed students to Western ideas of democracy and women's emancipation. During her last year in school, Jane, along with her classmates, was swept up by the May Fourth Movement, in which students agitated for political and cultural reforms in response to continuing foreign domination at the end of World War I:
The zi demands from Japan stirred up strong resentment from the students as well as the whole Chinese population. We boycotted Japanese goods and bought only native-manufactured fabrics. We participated in demonstration parades in the streets of Canton. Student delegates were elected to attend student association discussion meetings in Canton; once I was appointed as one of two delegates from our school. Our two-fold duty was to take part in the discussions and decisions and then to convince our schoolmates to take active parts in whatever action was decided. It was a year of turmoil for all the students and of exhaustion for me.33
