Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco (48 page)

Soon after Madame Chiang's visit, Senator Warren Magnuson introduced a bill in Congress calling for the repeal of the Exclusion acts.
Widely supported by religious, civic, and even labor organizations, its
passage on December 17, 1943 , was based largely on wartime enthusiasm for China, commercial interests in China, and the need to challenge
Japanese propaganda in Asia. As President Roosevelt put it to Congress,
"I regard this legislation as important in the cause of winning the war
and of establishing a secure peace. China is our ally. For many long years
she stood alone in the fight against aggression. Today we fight at her
side.... By the repeal of the Chinese exclusion laws, we can correct a
historic mistake and silence the distorted Japanese propaganda."93

In 1944, open Chinese immigration was resumed after sixty-one years
of Exclusion (though at a token allocation of 105 per year) and Chinese aliens were finally granted the right to naturalization. Because of
the war emergency, other discriminatory barriers were lowered as well;
Chinese Americans were now allowed to join the armed services on an
equal basis, to work in white-collar jobs, skilled trades, and for the civil
service, to live outside of Chinatowns, and to be included in the allAmerican war effort. The sociologist Rose Hum Lee went so far as to
proclaim:

For them [Chinese Americans] the present crisis is another stepping stone
toward complete assimilation. No longer do Americans think of the Chinese as mysterious Orientals from a little known land. Most of these Chi nese living among them are fellow citizens. The rest of them, as well as
their cousins in the old country, are Allies. The crisis of December 7 has
emancipated the Chinese in the United States.95

Certainly, the impact of World War II on Chinese American women
was far-reaching. As they volunteered for the armed services, took jobs
in defense factories and the private sector, and redoubled their efforts
in war relief work on the home front, their horizons broadened, their
socioeconomic status improved, and they found themselves falling in step
with the rest of America. Lonnie Quan recalled,

All of a sudden, San Francisco started being a boom town. Everybody
was getting jobs. The shipyards were open and it was very exciting [because] you didn't know when you were going to war.... And that's when
it's romantic in a way, and sometimes, it's very sad. You see all your friends
going away to war and maybe not coming back.96

In contrast, Japanese American men and women were pushed out of
step: they lost their freedom, suffered heavy economic losses, and received permanent psychological scars from being incarcerated in concentration camps without just cause or due process of the law.97

IN THE ARMED FORCES

Approximately eleven million men and women were inducted into the U.S. armed forces between 1941 and 1945. With the
growing demand for manpower and the steady application of political
pressure by black and women's groups, racial and gender barriers were
lowered. Resident aliens were permitted to enlist, with promises of U.S.
citizenship down the line. Of the 59,803 Chinese adult males in the
United States at the time, over zo percent joined the U.S. Army. A
smaller percentage also served in the navy, Marine Corps, and Coast
Guard. Because Chinese men at the time were predominantly single, they
were susceptible to the draft, but almost all went willingly out of a strong
sense of both Chinese nationalism and American patriotism. Chinese
Americans in New York cheered themselves hoarse when the first draft
numbers included Chinese names. In Butte, Montana, all eleven Chinese men of draft age enlisted before they were drafted.98 As Private
Charles Leong wrote from Buckley Field in Denver, Colorado:

The average Chinese GI Joe likes and swears by the army. The most obvious reason, of course, is the fact that every Chinese would like to par ticipate in defeating our common enemy-the Jap. Reason Number Two
is perhaps more complex, but equally important.... To GI Joe Wong,
in the army a "Chinaman's chance" means a fair chance, one based not
on race or creed, but on the stuff of the man who wears the uniform of
the U.S. Army.99

Unlike blacks and Japanese Americans, who were placed in segregated
units, Chinese Americans were partially integrated into the military.'oo
A high percentage of Chinese G.I.'s saw combat duty in Europe and in
the Pacific. Of the 12,041 Chinese draftees, 214 died in the war.101

As the country geared up for war, it became apparent that valuable
manpower was being wasted in duties such as office work that could be
carried out by women. Within the first fourteen months of the war, Congress passed bills to establish women's corps in the army, navy, Coast
Guard, and marines, with the stipulation that enlisted women be confined to noncombat duties. Out of patriotism and a sense of adventure,
and attracted by the economic benefits, over 3 50,000 women volunteered, making up z percent of the military. Most were white, single
women. Black women, numbering 4,000 in the Women's Army Corps
(WAC) alone, were the only sizable racial minority group. Like their male
counterparts, they were often kept segregated and bore the brunt of racial
discrimination in terms of poor work assignments, lack of promotion,
and overall treatment. Black women were outright excluded from the
WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, the women's corps in the navy) until 1945. In contrast, the small numbers of
Puerto Rican, Chinese, Japanese, and Native American women who
served were integrated into the women's military units and suffered less
discrimination.102 While most servicewomen experienced a sense of personal development and satisfaction in rising to the challenges of military service, they were never treated on a par with the men or allowed
to share power. Women, including officers, were generally assigned traditional female tasks of office work, communication, and health care.
Sexual harassment and male hostility were pervasive, and the inefficient
use of women's time and abilities contributed to lapses in morale. 103 AS
one historian put it, "Wacs, Waves, Spars, and women Marines were war
orphans whom no one loved." 104

The exception to this rule was nurses, who were welcomed into the
military from the beginning because of their sought-after skills as well
as the popular acceptance of nursing as noble war work for women. The
76,ooo women who served in this capacity represented 3 r percent of all
active professional nurses in the nation. Many risked their lives behind the battle lines, caring for the wounded under enemy fire. In return,
they were the first servicewomen to be accorded equal pay and full
military rank.105 Helen Pon Onyett was among the first Chinese American women to volunteer for the Army Nurse Corps.106 Twenty-five years
old at the time and with four years of nursing experience under her belt,
she welcomed the opportunity "to do better in the military." She recalled how she reached her decision to enlist:

I was visiting New York Chinatown with some friends of mine. On one
of those side streets they had stuck on the wall an announcement that
Pearl Harbor had been attacked. And all those people were milling around
there, and everybody was so excited about it and up in arms. It shook
everyone up. I was so irritated about it [the attack], whereas what was
happening over there in Germany didn't affect me as much. That's what
got me thinking about it. I ought to contribute something, so finally, after a year or so, I volunteered.

Her first hurdle was to pass "boot camp," where she learned military
maneuvers and survival techniques. "I hated it," she said, "wearing fatigues and helmets, living in tents that weren't temperaturized, and learning to abandon ship on rope ladders. It was all quite strenuous."

For the duration of the war Helen nursed the wounded aboard transports off North Africa and the acutely injured at a military hospital back
in the United States. "I can't swim, so I wore my Mae West [life jacket]
twenty-four hours a day," she said. "It was scary, especially when some
of the ships you would be traveling with would be sunk right under your
nose. All I could think was, `If you gotta go, you gotta go."' Compared
to the five hundred black nurses, who were kept in segregated units and
served only black troops, Helen experienced no racial discrimination. On
the contrary, she insisted, "I was treated as a nurse nurse, not an Oriental somebody." So rewarding was her military experience that Helen
decided to stay on after the war, serving more than thirty years in the
reserves and becoming one of the few women to be promoted to the
rank of full colonel (in 1971). "When I spoke before audiences," she
pointed out, "people gawked at me, saying, `Oh, my God, she's a
colonel,' not `She's Oriental."' When the general awarded her the Meritorious Service medal, one of eight major decorations for distinguished
military service that she would receive, she added, "all the wives came
over and said, `It's about time someone recognized a woman.' See, not
Oriental, but just a woman."

Jessie Lee Yip was one of the few Chinese women in San Francisco to become a Wac.107 She remembered first feeling the impact of World
War II at her high school graduation:

Sergeant Jessie Lee. (Courtesy
of Jessie Lee Yip)

All I remember is that we were graduating. We were all in a row and you
stood up to go get your diploma. I was near the front, and boys and girls
wore different colored robes. This one row stood up, and it was all girls.
And I heard a gasp from the audience because they were so shocked that
there were no boys. The reason was, most of the boys had enlisted.

Upon graduation, Jessie got a job at Western Union as a teletypist. Inspired by a family friend, Lt. Emily Lee Shek, the first Chinese American woman to join the WAC, she considered signing up out of a strong
sense of patriotism. However, most Chinatown parents opposed their
daughters enlisting. "Like dancing or anything that was different, all the
parents were against it," said Jessie. "I asked a couple of friends to join
with me, and they said they wouldn't even think about it because their
parents wouldn't let them."108 Despite the special efforts of Madame
Chiang Kai-shek and WAC recruiters to lower height and weight re quirements and entice women to form an all Chinese women's air unit,
few Chinese women in San Francisco volunteered for military service.109
"I had wanted to go on a ship and be a steward," said Jessie, "but family friends said, 'Nah, you don't want to do that, because on the ship
people get sick and you have to clean it up.' They thought I wouldn't
be happy or able to hack it." When Western Union switched her to the
graveyard shift, however, she finally decided to quit her job and enlist,
with the blessings of her liberal-minded mother. "My mother's more
modern," Jessie explained. "She was born in America and lived in New
York. In fact, I have a hunch she wanted to go [into the service] herself.
She's that kind."

The WAVES, known for being discriminatory, turned her down, so
she tried the WAC. After she had passed all the required tests, "they sent
a staff car out for me, and within five minutes I was a Wac." Six weeks
of basic training in Fort Des Moines, Iowa, followed: "It was to get us
used to military life. We had to parade. We had taps [bugle calls], shots,
KP, calisthenics, and everything but the front-line stuff." Jessie was then
assigned to the Third Air Force headquarters in Tampa, Florida, as a
teletypist. Local people would stare at the sight of a Chinese woman in
uniform, but, like Helen Pon Onyett, she did not recall experiencing
discrimination while in the service. Jessie became close friends with two
other Wacs who were white, and because they went everywhere together,
they became known as the Three Musketeers. Being one of the few Chinese women in the WAC had its advantages. She was "queen bee" to
Chinese G.I.'s on the base, who all courted her. Her only complaints
were having to work the night shift, endure the heat, and do without
good, Chinese home cooking. Like Helen, Jessie signed up for the reserves after the war, but she served only a brief period as a recruiter in
San Francisco Chinatown before returning to school on the G.I. bill.

In contrast to Helen's and Jessie's experiences, Charlotte Sexton, an
Amerasian from Hawaii who worked as a teletypist at army bases in Oregon, Virginia, and Maryland, recalled incidents of both racism and sexism. In one case, her friend Alice Chow was accosted while off duty.
"Alice really looks Oriental; and this fellow came up and spun her around
in the middle of the street in Baltimore, Maryland. He said, `You damn
Jap, get out of that uniform! "' Charlotte also noted that men whom she
and other teletypists trained were often promoted ahead of them: "We
taught the men how to do it, what to do, and kind of overseeing them.
Then lo and behold, not only one of them but two or three of them
would come up the ranks and pass us. Before you know it, they were
over us and not knowing any more than we knew."110