Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco (33 page)

Florence met her husband while studying at the University of Chicago. Upon their marriage in 1923, they decided to go live in China.
Five years later, when they returned to the United States, he, as a student, was permitted to land immediately, but she and her two children
were detained on the boat. "The immigration officer said, `It's because
you're married to an alien and lost your citizenship.' And that was the
first time that I knew that I had lost my citizenship when I married,"
she recalled. Only after a friend who worked for the Immigration Service vouched for her identity was she allowed to land. "[On her word]
I got off without paying the $z,ooo bond for me and $z,ooo for the
children. After that, I said, I'm not coming back here any more."155 But
her husband's work as a physician necessitated trips to the United States
every five years, so finally, in 193 6, she applied for naturalization and regained her U.S. citizenship.

Flora Belle also met her foreign-born husband while a student at the
University of Chicago. They married in 1926, and she decided to return to China with him in 1932. According to a letter she wrote her
friend Ludmelia before departing, she was aware of the impact the Cable Act had on her and zealously tried to adjust her status through naturalization before leaving for China.

Here's the problem. I must have my birth certificate. After that, I must
apply for citizenship since I lost it by marrying an alien according to a recent law. I am permitted to apply for it by paying a $ i o fee and passing
an examination, providing that I have my birth certificate. I must go
through this before I ever dare leave America because once I am out of
the country, as an alien, I'll have a devil of a time trying to get back. And
I know that I will always want to come back because it is my home. 156

Unfortunately, no doctor had presided at Flora's birth; therefore, no
birth certificate was on file in Fresno County, where she was born. But
a U.S. District Court judge in Chicago evidently believed her and allowed her to "repatriate" as a U.S. citizen before she left for China.157
Her foresight in this matter allowed her to escape war conditions in China
and return to the United States in 1949 as a U.S. citizen along with her
two daughters who had been born in China.

Aside from the Cable Act, anti-miscegenation attitudes and laws that prevented interracial marriage between Chinese and whites discriminated against Chinese women as well. Compounding the problem was
ostracism in the Chinese community with respect to intermarriages. Tye
Leung, who had run away to the Presbyterian Mission Home to avoid
an arranged marriage, found herself the target of such shunning. While
employed as an assistant to the matrons at Angel Island, she met and
fell in love with an immigration inspector, Charles Schulze. They had to
travel to Vancouver, Washington, to become legally married. "His
mother and my folks disapprove very much, but when two people are
in love, they don't think of the future or what [might] happen," she
wrote later in an autobiographical essay. 15s After their marriage both had
to resign from their civil service jobs because of social ostracism. Charles
went on to work for many years for the Southern Pacific Company as a
mechanic, and Tye found a job as a telephone operator at the Chinatown Exchange. Although they were "the talk of Chinatown," according to one of her contemporaries, the Schulzes chose to live close to
Chinatown, and Tye remained active in the Chinese Presbyterian church.
Their children, Fred and Louise, recalled that they were one of the few
interracial families in Chinatown, and although they as children were
sometimes called fangwai jai (literally, foreign devil child), they were
accepted in the community, most likely because their mother spent many
hours volunteering in the community.159 Her son Fred said, "She was
very kind and always willing to help other people go see the doctor, interpret, go to immigration, and things like that. Very often she would
take the streetcar and go out to Children's Hospital to interpret on a
volunteer basis." 160

Discriminatory laws such as the Cable Act and the Anti-Miscegenation Act went hand-in-hand with other anti-Chinese measures and practices that sought to stop Chinese immigration and the integration of Chinese into mainstream America. Such laws were often both racist and sexist
in character and created hardships for Chinese American women already
hampered by cultural conflict at home. They were painful reminders of
the vulnerable existence of the second generation, who, in spite of their
rights as U.S. citizens, could easily become disenfranchised on the basis
of race alone.

Other American laws, however, such as divorce laws, gave Chinese
American women leverage and latitude in changing their marital circumstances. Although few cases of divorce among Chinese Americans
were reported in the local newspapers, Caroline Chew wrote in 1926
that "divorce among Chinese in America has become comparatively com mon, and although it is still looked upon with a little distaste, if it is
quite justifiable, no one has anything disparaging to say." She added that,
unlike in China, wives in America had just as much right as husbands to
sue for divorce. 16I According to local newspapers, one major source of
information on divorce patterns in the Chinese American community,
important causes of divorce among second-generation women included
wife abuse and polygamy. In 1923, for example, Emma Soohoo sued
her American-born husband, Henry, for divorce on grounds that he
"cruelly beat her and then deserted her," and she requested sole custody of their twenty-month-old baby.162 As another example, in 1928
Amy Quan Tong, the owner of a manicuring parlor in Chinatown, filed
for divorce from her American-born husband, Quan Tong, because, as
she told the judge, he had put her to work at low wages in his Hong
Kong candy store and taken a second wife .161

Charles and Tye Leung
Schulze. (Courtesy of
Louise Schulze Lee)

Like second-generation European American women, Chinese American women who married men of their own choice often embarked on
a life quite different from that of their immigrant mothers. To start, they
were not as confined to the domestic sphere, as Caroline Chew points
out:

She is perfectly free to come and go as she pleases and has free access to
the streets. She goes out and does her own marketing; goes calling on
her friends when she so desires; dines at restaurants occasionally; and even
ventures to go beyond the precincts of "Chinatown" quite frequentlyall of which have hitherto never been done by a Chinese woman. Fifteen
or twenty years ago such conduct would have been considered most outrageous and would have caused a woman to be all but ostracized.164

There was also more equality, mutual affection, and companionship in
second-generation marriages. Not only did couples go out together, but
they were not afraid to express their affection in public. Because both
worked and contributed to the family income, they tended to discuss
matters and make joint decisions regarding the family's welfare. Secondgeneration husbands were also less resistant to helping with the housework and sharing their outside concerns with their wives. Daisy Wong
Chinn found her marriage of fifty-two years fulfilling as well as happy
because she and her husband, Thomas W. Chinn, communicated well
and worked together on many community projects. Thomas was always
forward-looking, she noted. He opened the first sporting goods store
in Chinatown in 1929 and founded the Chinese Digest in 193 5. "Whatever projects he has," she said, "he always says, `Well, what do you think
of this?' And I'm his best critic because I always tell him what I really
think; and then he can decide for himself whether my thoughts are better." In most cases, she said, he took her suggestions. 165

Jade Snow Wong shared a similarly close and equal relationship with
her husband, Woody Ong, about whom she wrote in No Chinese
Stranger, the sequel to Fifth Chinese Daughter. Old family friends, the
two became reacquainted after they had both established their businesses
in Chinatown and were thrown together by a family emergency. As Jade
Snow put it, "Each grew in awareness of the other, and devotion flowered." Their married life was wedded to their work life, as they lived and
worked together on the same premises.

In this first year of marriage, they often walked the three blocks to Chinatown for a restaurant lunch, after which they would purchase groceries
for that night's late Chinese dinner at home. The division of their studio work was natural. Financial records and bank deposits, mechanical problems, chemical formulas, checking kiln action, packing, pickup, and
deliveries naturally fell into Woody's hands while Jade Snow stayed close
to home, working on designs, supervising staff schedules, and keeping
house. True to tradition, once Woody had locked the studio door and
come upstairs, he was home as a Chinese husband, expecting their house
to be immaculate and to be waited upon and indulged. They could consult with each other on just about every subject without disagreement.
Kindness, devotion, protection with strength new to her, and extravagant gifts were privileges that gladdened Jade Snow's heart, while her
husband's physical comfort and mental relaxation were her responsibility. 166

Although their marriage revealed a traditional gender division of labor,
neither partner dominated the other. As their family grew to four children and they added an active travel business to their ceramics work,
Woody proved a supportive partner, helping with the children and household chores, encouraging Jade Snow's career in ceramics and writing,
nursing her back to health when she became ill, and sharing responsibilities with her on the many tours to Asia that they cosponsored.

Similarly, Tye Leung's marriage to Charles Schulze, despite being
handicapped by the taboo against interracial marriage, was successful because it was both egalitarian and interdependent. According to their son,
Fred, "We had good family relations. I never heard arguments, fights,
or anything." Both parents were kind and mild-tempered, and both
worked to provide for the family. Tye did most of the cooking and housework, but in the evenings, when she was working at the telephone exchange, Charles would take care of the children and of Tye's mother,
who lived with them. Fred fondly recalled: "Before we went to bed each
night, my father would always bring us a cup of cocoa. Then after he
gave us our cocoa, he would take the dishes out to the kitchen, wash
them, and put them away." 167

Both parents loved music and led an active social life. Tye played the
piano and Chinese butterfly harp and attended the Chinese Presbyterian church regularly; Charles played the French horn with a military
band and was active at Grace Cathedral. Tye would often go to the Chinese opera, weddings, and birthday parties in Chinatown accompanied
by her children, while Charles played with various musical bands in the
city and attended regular meetings of the Odd Fellows Lodge. Although
they led different social lives, they were a close family. They always ate
and played together at home on Sundays, Fred recalled. Not only was
the marriage a happy one, but the children benefited from the cultural
strengths of both parents and the warm family life they provided.

Jade Snow Wong and her
husband, Woodrow Ong,
packing her ceramics, which
accompanied them on her
speaking tour in Asia for the
U.S. State Department, 1953.
(Associated Press photo;
courtesy of Jade Snow Wong)

Further factors that distinguished between traditional and modern
marriages among Chinese Americans included the size of the family and
the quality of home life. Unlike their mothers, second-generation
women knew about and had access to birth control, which became more
available to American women in the 19 zos. "My friends were very good
to me and told me what to do," said Gladys Ng Gin. "When it was time
to have nmy first baby, a good friend of mine said, `Gladys, you have to
go to the hospital,' and she introduced a woman doctor to me." 1611 Most
of her contemporaries-both European and Chinese American-limited their families to two or three children and had them in the hospital. However, some "modern" husbands proved uncooperative. Flora
Belle Jan's health was ruined after five abortions because her husband
refused to practice birth control. She confided to Ludmelia: