Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco (36 page)

But not everybody who needed a job qualified for relief work. Because
U.S. citizenship was required, many Mexicans, Chinese, Japanese, and
Filipinos could not apply, which explains their low percentages on the
WPA employment rolls as compared to blacks. In 1940, for instance,
only 7 percent of unemployed Japanese in California, 12. percent of Chinese, and 114 percent of Filipinos were employed by WPA, as compared
to 6o percent of all unemployed blacks in the state.22 The monthly wage
of $6o for a minimum of izo hours of work was four times the sum
granted in direct relief for single men, but there was no supplementary
assistance in cash, medical services, surplus clothing, or food. Since each
family could have only one WPA worker, for large families of six to eleven
persons WPA employment resulted in less money per month than direct
relief; thus wives were forced to look for work in order to make ends
meet.23 Over 70 percent of racial minorities on relief projects did hard
work as semiskilled and unskilled labor.24 Whether one was considered
"lucky" in landing a WPA job was therefore debatable, according to
Fong:

They're always trying to push you down to these jobs, no matter how
much or how good you are. Like that NRA was like all the other things,
at first you don't realize, but nevertheless, in due time and in the long
run, you find out it will never have any advantage toward the Chinese.
The thing is that they do it in such a close way, undercover way, that
you barely notice it. So, as I said, that NRA, "Never Rebuffed American," pretty soon the thing went sour all around and people began to
sneer at it.2'

However, over zo percent of racial minorities employed by WPA were
in the white-collar sector.26 Chinese American men like Lim P. Lee and
women like Ethel Lum were hired as social workers, recreation aides,
teachers, and clerks at prevailing professional rates to dispense financial
aid to the needy, extend services to individuals and families, and help
improve living conditions in the community. Aside from earning this
group of white-collar workers a salary, their services assisted individuals
through the depression and were instrumental in procuring a public
health clinic, nursery schools, improved housing and street lighting, and
English and job training classes for the Chinatown community. Overseeing a staff of twenty-five, Lim P. Lee headed the Real Property Sur vey in 1939, which resulted in the construction of low-cost public housing in Chinatown after World War II.

Chinese Americans also had the option of returning to China to escape the depression. As Jade Snow Wong wrote in her second autobiography, many Chinese did just that, which explains the uncongested
streets and vacancy signs on Chinatown apartment buildings she recalled
seeing as an eleven-year-old.27 China was at the time also in the thick of
fighting the Japanese on its soil and in need of any help that overseas
Chinese could give. One editorial in CSYP recommended that Chinese
with technical skills consider returning to China to work and that those
with capital use it to develop industries in China.28 Another article provided instructions on how Chinese Americans could reclaim their assets
in their ancestral villages.29 This was also the time when the Chinese Digest published the winning essays on "Does My Future Lie in China or
America?" From 1930 to 1934, 7,000 Chinese departed from the port
of San Francisco, while only z,5oo entered.30 Most had sufficient personal resources to return with their families, but at least twenty-five older
men took advantage of the U.S. government's offer of a one-way ticket
to go home alone in 1936.31 According to the Chinese Digest, most of
these men were hard-working laborers in their senior years and now on
relief. The periodical interviewed four of the repatriates, "all [of whom]
had wives, children, and grandchildren in China and were glad to be
sent back to their families to spend their remaining years."32

In contrast, large numbers of unemployed Mexicans and Filipinos
were pressured to return home. Between 1929 and 1939, approximately
half a million Mexicans, or close to one-third of the Mexican population in the country, were either deported or repatriated, even though
many had been horn in the United States.33 In 193 5, in response to the
demands of exclusionists on the West Coast, Congress passed the Repatriation Act, which offered Filipinos on the mainland free transportation back to the Philippines on the condition that they not return to the
United States. Only 2,190, or approximately 7 percent of the Filipino
population, took up the offer and repatriated.34

Chinese workers actually came out ahead after Congress passed the
National Labor Relations Act (a.k.a. the Wagner Act) in 1935, which
granted organized labor the right to collective bargaining. Between 19 3 6
and 1941, as a result, the strength of the labor movement doubled in
numbers. Communist Party organizers and the Congress of Industrial
Organizations were particularly instrumental in promoting industrial
unionism and recruiting minority and women workers into unions. Strikes became commonplace across the country as workers successfully
fought for improved hours and wages in the needle trades, coalfields,
steel and rubber industries, and agriculture. Chinese and black workers
in San Francisco, who had historically been excluded from the labor
movement, joined white workers in picket lines during the maritime strike
of 1934 and the hotel strike of 1937, after which they became welcomed
members in major labor unions such as the International Longshoremen and Warehousemen's Union, Culinary and Miscellaneous Workers'
Union, and Apartment and Hotel Union.35 Chinese and black workers
were also involved in picketing the Alaskan Packers' Association, which
resulted in the abolition of the contract system and the establishment
of the Chinese Workers Mutual Aid Association.36 Given the overall liberal temper and China's alliance with the United States at the time, local unions openly solicited Chinese members and worked with them to
protest fascism abroad.37

Because of the foresight of the younger generation of Chinese
American businessmen, who were quick to take advantage of the repeal
of prohibition laws and promote tourism, recovery for San Francisco Chinatown came earlier than for the rest of the country. Chinese import
trade, which had declined precipitously since 1931, recovered to about
a fourth of the i 9 z9 level by 193 5.38 To encourage tourism, entrepreneurs renovated stores, invested in modern bars, restaurants, and coffee
shops, and created an atmosphere of "Old Chinatown" to attract outof-towners attending conventions and the 1939 International Exposition at Treasure Island. As Fong observed:

Then around the middle of the Depression the change come along and
everything goes zoom! The whole place begins to look different because
they start building it up.... Before that, not that there wasn't any bars
in Chinatown, but they weren't noticeable nowhere. They were just down,
beatup places, the bars for low-down people and drunks and all that. But
during the Depression a bar changed names to some kind of a club, and
then all those fancy names comes. Then the same thing happens with the
restaurants.... In fact, maybe Chinatown is the place that start everything rumbling during the Depression. Such as like these dance halls, the
bars, and all that.39

Taking note of the brisk business these newly established enterprises were
enjoying, the Chinese Digest concluded in 1936 that Chinatown had
"passed its winter" and was "now greeting the loveliest of all seasons,
the season of gentle awakening and of growth. 1140 As the New Deal continued to provide jobs for the unemployed and as business improved in Chinatown, the number of unemployed Chinese dropped from 2,300
in 193 5 to 700 in 193 7.41 For the rest of the country, however, recovery was delayed by a recession in 1937-38 and was not frilly achieved
until the United States entered World War II in 1941.

Ironies of the Depression: Immigrant Women

Compared to their men and the rest of the country, Chinese women in San Francisco were relatively unaffected by unemployment. Following the national pattern-in which the unemployment rate
for men, who were concentrated in hard-hit production jobs, was almost
twice as high as for women, who tended to work in protected clerical
and service occupations-Chinese immigrant men who had been chiefly
employed as seasonal workers, laundrymen, and cooks were the first to
lose their jobs. Immigrant women, however, who worked primarily in
the garment industry, continued to find employment. This situation made
some immigrant wives the breadwinners, albeit marginal ones, during a
time when their husbands were unemployed and relief funds were either unavailable or inadequate to support their families. While a significant number of urban black and white working-class families experienced discord and disintegration during this time, Chinese women were
able to keep their families together by providing them with emotional
support, stretching family means, and tapping resources in the community. And while the reversal of gender roles proved controversial in many
parts of the nation,42 the social status of Chinese women in San Francisco was elevated as a result of their indispensable contributions.

Statistics from the 1930 U.S. census indicate that many more men
than women became unemployed at the beginning of the depression.
Nationally, the unemployment rate was 7.1 percent for men and 4.7 percent for women; in San Francisco, 8.3 percent for men and 4.3 percent
for women.4" As a number of studies have pointed out, women experienced a lower unemployment rate owing to the rigid sex segregation in
the labor force. Clerical, trade, and service occupations, in which women
dominated, contracted less than the male manufacturing occupations.44
The same held true in San Francisco, where men employed in the manufacturing and mechanical industries suffered the highest rate of un-
employment.45 Because the Chinese were concentrated in ethnic enterprises instead of in large-scale industrial occupations, they were less affected by these citywide contractions than other groups. The majority of the unemployed Chinese, in fact, had worked outside the Chinatown economy, as reported in a 19 3 5 study of the occupational history
of Chinese men on relief. Single men who became unemployed came
from the ranks of farm and seasonal workers (25.5 percent), laundrymen (zi.3 percent), family and hotel cooks (i5.z percent), and restaurant workers (14.1 percent). Among the family men, the hardest hit were
family and hotel cooks (20.4 percent), clerks and salesmen (17-1 percent), and semiskilled workers (16.8 percent).46

An industrial survey of women workers, by contrast, reveals that in
1935 approximately 564 Chinese women (a 54 percent increase over
1930) were employed in sixty-five factories (forty-nine of which were
garment factories), though 19 percent of their husbands were unemployed at the time.47 The majority of these women were foreign-born
and married with young children. A second survey of living conditions
in Chinatown in 193 5 shows that among families on relief, unemployed
men outnumbered unemployed women. Of 163 families, z9 percent (48
families) were found to be on some form of relief; 37 of these families
had an unemployed male head of the household. Of the zz families without fathers, only half of the mothers were on relief; the remaining half
were reportedly supporting their families with their earnings as garment
workers.4s It should be noted that the larger number of unemployed
males relative to females among families on relief was due in part to the
preferential treatment accorded male-headed households by relief programs. As Linda Gordon points out in her study on the welfare state,
most welfare programs have been designed to shore up male-breadwinner families and keep women subordinate in the male-dominated family wage system.49

The stories of Law Shee Low and Wong Shee Chan (my maternal
grandaunt) illustrate how the depression affected Chinese immigrant
women with large families, as well as the strategies some women employed to cope with the hard economic times. Law recalled, "Those were
very poor and tough years for us. When my uncle who became penniless died and we were all asked to help with the funeral expenses, we
could only afford to give a few dimes. We were so poor, we wanted to
die." Her husband, who had been working twelve hours a day at a Chinatown restaurant for $6o a month, lost his job. For a brief period, he
lived and worked in the city of Vallejo. "Just made $4o at a restaurant.
He gave me $zo and kept $zo for himself. I sewed and made another
$30 or $40. So we struggled on."50 When he was laid off again, she be came the chief wage earner. There was still sewing to keep them going,
and her husband helped her sew at home and did the shopping. But when
even sewing became scarce for a spell, they had to dip into their small
savings and seek outside help. "Joe Shoong [the owner of a large garment factory and Law's clansman] was giving out rice, so my husband
went and carried back a fifty-pound sack. Food was cheap then. A dime
or two would buy you some sung [vegetable or meat dishes to go with
the rice ]."-'l With an unemployed man and four dependents in the house,
the family qualified for free milk and food rations from the federal government. And when FERA established a much-needed nursery school
in Chinatown, two of their children were among the first to enroll.