Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco (21 page)

Led by educated, middle-class women like Clara Lee, the Jeleab Association chose to follow the example of other American clubs and file
incorporation papers in Sacramento, stating its purpose as "social intercourse, benevolent work, educational advantages, and mutual assistance
and benefit, and not for pecuniary profit." 14' But a more elaborate purpose was given in a statement by member Liu Yilan published in the Sai Gal Yat Po or Chinese World on September zz, 1913. Liu Yilan pressed
the point that Chinese women's subordination was due to their lack of
education and self-reliance. That could change for Chinese women in
America, "where education flourishes and women's rights are allowed
to develop," she said. "Women who are born and raised here have the
chance to enter school when young and receive the same education as
men. Even the older women who came from China have been inspired,
after being continuously exposed to talk of freedom and equality, and
after seeing for themselves the elevated status enjoyed by women here
as opposed to the inferior position of women back home." The key, she
concluded, was for women to band together and learn from each other:

Clara Lee, founder and president of the Chinese Women's Jeleab [Self-Reliance]
Association, 19113. (Courtesy of Dr. Lester Lee)

It is important that we broaden our contacts by making new friends and
not keep to ourselves and become limited to our own little world. If we
women are to become independent, we must form a big group so we can
cull and share ideas and benefit from each other. Therefore, those of us
who are of like mind have decided to form this group and to call it Lumei
Zhongguo Nujie Zili Hui [Chinese Women's Jeleab Association]. Our
goal is to cultivate self-reliance in each of us and, further, to promote
and propagate this concept in China, so as to strip away the black curtain that has blocked our [women's] view of the sky for thousands of
years. This, then, is the purpose of our group.lso

Herein was a new ideology concerning Chinese women's emancipation,
one that combined Chinese nationalist thoughts on women's right to
education with American ideals of freedom and equality. Equally important, it advocated self-improvement through social interaction in line
with the progressive views of women's clubs in America. Indeed, the
self-initiated Jeleab Association represented a new awakening in the social consciousness of Chinese immigrant women, a recognition of a
higher status of womanhood to which they could aspire in America.

According to the newspaper article, in 1913 the Jeleab Association
boasted a membership of two hundred Chinese women from San Francisco and Oakland, all immigrant mothers and American-born daughters, who met regularly in the parlor of the Chinese Native Sons of the
Golden State in Oakland. As the immediate need was to educate the illiterate, an evening class was established for the study of Chinese under
the direction of Mrs. T. L. Lee, a Baptist minister's wife, with plans to
tackle English next. Seventy-five years later, Clara Lee noted in an interview that the Jeleab Association, despite its auspicious beginnings,
disbanded a few years later. "It didn't last very long," she said. "Some
lived [too far away] in San Francisco, and some moved away later.""' The other successful program, she recalled, was a class that met every
Monday afternoon for instruction in using American sewing patterns.
But even without the organization, progressive women like Clara Lee
continued to practice self-reliance while influencing others to become
"new women." Aside from being the first Chinese woman to register to
vote in 19 11 and the founder of the Jeleab Association, Clara was also
an active member of the YWCA, the International Institute, and Fidelis
Coterie, and she devoted much of her life to volunteer work on behalf
of immigrant women and the Chinese community.152

Immigration to the United States proved to be a double-edged sword
for Chinese women in the early twentieth century. Saddled by cultural
restrictions, racial and sex discrimination, and labor exploitation, many
suffered undue hardships and led strenuous lives. Yet socioeconomic conditions and historical forces at the time afforded women like Wong Ah
So, Law Shee Low, and Jane Kwong Lee opportunities to unbind their
lives and reshape gender roles-in essence, to change their circumstances
for the better. Their daughters, second-generation women born and
raised in the United States, would benefit by their experiences. Without
bound feet and bound lives but still fettered by race, gender, and class
oppression, their challenge would be to break the double binds of cultural conflict at home and discrimination in the larger society, and take
the first steps toward realizing their full potential as Chinese American
women.

The second generation Chinese girl ... is a thing apart from her
sister of the older generation who was bound by the traditions of
many centuries. Freed from old restraints, yet hampered by many
new problems which she meets in her daily living, she is still an
uncertain quantity. Consciously and unconsciously she reflects the
conflict within her caused by her Chinese heritage and American
environment. She has broken her link with the East. She has not
as yet found one with the West.

Janie Chu
"The Oriental Girl in the Occident," r9z6

Although Chinese immigration to America largely began
in the mid-nineteenth century, the second generation of Chinese Americans did not come to maturity until the 19zos. By keeping Chinese laborers, and by extension their wives and families, out of the country,
the Chinese Exclusion Act of 188z had effectively delayed the natural
growth of the second generation. However, as increasing numbers of
wives immigrated by way of the exempt classes, women and children began to make their presence felt in San Francisco Chinatown. Between
1900 and 1940, the foreign-born Chinese population was reduced by
half, while native-born Chinese population quadrupled. A large part of
the increase in the native-born can be attributed to the one major exempt class of the Exclusion Act-"paper sons," boys who were born in
China but who claimed derivative citizenship in order to immigrate to
the United States. The increase in the female population was even more
pronounced: the number of foreign-born Chinese females more than
doubled, while native-born Chinese females increased sixfold owing to
the arrival of "paper daughters" and a high childbirth rate among Chi nese immigrant women. Nationwide, native-born Chinese females outnumbered foreign-born as early as 1900. In contrast, native-born Chinese males still represented a minority (45 percent) of the Chinese male
population in 1940. That same year, the native-born made up a high 7z
percent of the Chinese female population (see appendix tables 8 and 9).

Coming of age in the 192os, second-generation women, unlike their
mothers, were not fettered by bound feet; nor were they as constrained
by Chinese traditions. Born and raised in the United States, they had
political rights as native Americans; they could speak English and were
educated and acculturated through the public schools, church, and popular culture. While the first generation had been almost totally concerned
with economic survival, this generation yearned for the realization of a
different American dream. As U.S. citizens, they wanted and expected
to fulfill their potential in all aspects of their lives-in education and work,
in social and political activities; but they were prevented from doing so
by sexism at home and racism in the larger society. Many young Chinese women found themselves caught in a cultural dilemma. In exercising their desires and rights as individuals, they often had to go against
the traditional gender role expectations of their parents. Although there
was a marked difference in their educational and social background visa-vis the first generation, they still found themselves limited to living in
Chinatown, working at low-paying jobs, and excluded from participation in mainstream society.

The sociologist Robert E. Park of the University of Chicago was the
first to study the assimilation patterns of "Orientals" on the Pacific Coast.
Under his directorship, the Survey of Race Relations project interviewed
over two hundred Chinese Americans in the 192os about their life histories and encounters with racism. Park was convinced that all groups,
regardless of race or ethnicity, would eventually become integrated into
mainstream American life, according to his postulated race relations cycle of contact, competition, accommodation, and assimilation.' Although Park's research materials remain important, the weight of scholarly opinion has long since turned against him. Beginning with Milton
E. Gordon in 1964 and continuing through Michael Omi and Howard
Winant today, sociologists have shown that assimilation is a two-way
process. A group can acculturate (change values, customs, and cultural
forms) but not assimilate (change primary and institutional relationships)
unless it is accepted and allowed to do so by the majority group.2 The
experiences of second-generation Chinese Americans during this period
support this point of view. Although they found that they could accul turate into American life in terms of values, customs, and cultural forms,
because of racial barriers they could not totally assimilate or become integrated into American society. Ching Chao Wu, who studied Chinatown life under Park, came to this conclusion in 1928: