Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco (50 page)

War production revitalized the San Francisco Bay Area, which developed into the largest shipbuilding center in the world during World
War II. Because of the labor shortage as well as federal guidelines against
discrimination, all six major shipyards in the Bay Area were willing to
hire racial minorities and women to build the cargo ships and tankers
needed for America to win the war.127 With the government sponsoring free classes in marine sheetmetal, pipefitting, electricity, shipfitting,
and drafting, the shipyards carried a labor recruitment campaign to San
Francisco and Oakland Chinatowns.128 According to the Chinese Press,
in 1942. some i,6oo Chinese Americans, out of a total population of
i 8,ooo, were in defense work, primarily the shipbuilding trades; and in
1943, Chinese workers constituted 15 percent of the shipyard work force
in the San Francisco Bay Area.129 In contrast, some 15,000 blacks worked
in the Bay Area shipyards in 1943; at its peak period of production, the
Kaiser shipyard alone employed 25,000 blacks.'3°

The largest shipyard in the Bay Area, the Henry J. Kaiser shipyard in
Richmond, boasted that it employed zo,ooo women out of a total work
force of 90,000, as well as a number of efficient all-Chinese male work
crews that were always ahead of schedule. "I will stack them up against
any other crew in the yard," remarked one superintendent to a newspa per reporter. The point was often made that Chinese shipyard workers
were motivated by more than just American patriotism. "The Chinese
are intent upon building ships as quickly as they can," another reporter
wrote; she then quoted a Chinese worker: "We're doing our part for the
United States [and] our efforts aid China. This is the chance we've been
seeking." Even Chinese women were leaving their homes to work in the
shipyards, "to show their spirit since women in China are to do their
share."131 The Kaiser shipyard's in-house publication, Fore 'n Aft, often
singled out Chinese employees as model workers doubly driven by the
desire to help both China and the United States win the war. In a sexist way, the publication commented on how even "pretty" and "delicate" women like Jane Jeong and Leong Bo San were proving to be
"amazing" workers:

Pretty Jane Jeong had an ambition to fly for China, but when the United
States entered the war, she decided she could better beat the Japs by building ships instead. So Jane's a burner trainee at Yard Two. Two hundred
flying hours are not the fighting lady's only accomplishment, for she's
been a dancer and manager of night club and vaudeville performers. Jane's
husband is a merchant seaman and has not been home once in the four
months of their marriage."'

"Shanghai Lil" is the name they know her by, over at Assembly 1 i on
graveyard shift.... Her name is Leong Bo San. Born in Shanghai, she
was the daughter of a silk merchant. She is five feet, one inch tall, and
she weighs lot pounds.... She has six children. One son is an Air Corps
meteorologist, another is an attorney. Tiny and delicate as she looks, she
works with an energy that amazes people twice her size. Says her boss,
James G. Zack: "I wish I had a whole crew of people like her."133

Marinship in Sausalito also boasted of large numbers of women and
racial minorities in its work force of zo,ooo in 1943 , 300 of whom were
Chinese. In a special issue of its publication Marin-er on "The New
China," Marinship expressed its pride in its Chinese American workers:
"They are practical, teachable, and wonderfully gifted with common
sense; they are excellent artisans, reliable workmen, and of a good faith
that every one acknowledges and admires in their commercial deal-
ings."134 In the same issue, Jade Snow Wong, who was working as a clerktypist at Marinship, wrote that Chinese workers came from all walks of
life and worked in all areas-as janitors, cooks, burners, draftsmen, time
keepers, boilermakers, and secretaries. "They are giving their all to the
job because they know from their Chinese countrymen what Japanese warfare is all about," she said. "Chinese at Marinship are each in his or
her own way working out their answer to Japanese aggression: by producing ships which will mean their home land's liberation." 135

Shipyard worker Lonnie
Young. (Judy Yung collection)

Kenneth Bechtel, president of Marinship, said much the same thing
in a letter he wrote to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, praising the Chinese workers' patriotic drive and crucial contributions to war production:

The men and women of Marinship, together with all United Nations patriots, pay tribute to the people of China. For more than five years they
have successfully withstood the maraudings of the evil foe, until now our
common road to Victory lies clearly in sight. No small part of the credit
for past accomplishment and future hope belongs to the brave and sturdy
Chinese-Americans who work and fight in the United States. More than
3 00 such patriots, both men and women, are working every day at Marinship, building cargo ships and tankers. We have learned that these Chinese-Americans are among the finest workmen. They are skillful, reliableand inspired with a double allegiance. They know that every blow they
strike in building these ships is a blow of freedom for the land of their
fathers as well as for the land of their homes.136

Indeed, when Marinship became the first shipyard to launch a liberty
ship in honor of a Chinese statesman-the S.S. Sun Yat-sen-Chinese
American employees voluntarily pledged one day's pay to the relief of
Chinese war orphans.137

As Jade Snow Wong pointed out, a mixture of first- and secondgeneration Chinese Americans from all walks of life found work at the
shipyards. Depending on their educational background, Chinese male
workers were assigned jobs in all departments except administration, from
assembly line to construction line to maintenance and services. As for
the women, older immigrants worked in janitorial services, younger
women were trained as draftswomen, burners, and flangers, while high
school graduates and college students were hired as office workers. Despite the obvious absence of Chinese in the top positions, these jobs provided Chinese Americans with union wages and benefits, training and
work experience outside of Chinatown, and the opportunity to contribute to the Allied war effort.

Although yard newspapers claimed that Chinese workers were well
liked and well treated, there were reports of racial and sex discrimination at all the shipyards. Despite liberal hiring policies, blacks were denied membership in parent unions and disadvantaged by restrictive,
union-enforced limitations on their employment and promotions. The
last to be hired and the first to be laid off, they were kept in low-paying
unskilled positions and rarely promoted to positions of authority.138
Women, who in 1943 made up zo percent of the shipyard labor force
in the Bay Area, met with male resistance and were held back in almost
all job categories. Black women, facing both racial and sex discrimination, were generally confined to laboring and housekeeping types of jobs
and were underrepresented in the crafts.139 According to Katherine
Archibald, who worked at Moore Dry Dock in Oakland, whites and Native Americans topped the racial hierarchy in the shipyards, Okies, Jews,
and Chinese were in the middle, and Portuguese and blacks were stuck
at the bottom. "The Chinese," she wrote, "were accepted without resistance or dislike, though with little positive friendliness." 110 It was
known that Chinese at Moore Dry Dock and Kaiser often worked in
segregated crews because of the racist sentiments of fellow employees.
"It's easier to adjust working conditions than try to adjust the prejudice,"
a San Francisco Chronicle reporter stated. A Chinese shipyard worker
interviewed by this journalist complained about being called a "Chink"
by his supervisor and about the lack of promotional opportunities for
Chinese Americans. "I don't think a Chinese boy has a Chinaman's chance," he said. "I have been here many months. Do you think I can
become a leaderman?"141 Although shipyard workers were earning the
highest wages of any industry and women were generally receiving equal
pay for equal work, Chinese workers were held back in almost all job
categories and locked out of certain crafts. Few were ever promoted to
supervisory positions.

Nevertheless, most Chinese American women recalled their shipyard
experience as only positive. Frances Jong, who accompanied her four
brothers to the Mare Island yard, was hired as a shipfitter's assistant. She
said, "It wasn't difficult work. I just carried these angle bars, followed
this Chinese shipfitter around, and did what he told me to do. I learned
a new trade and got good pay for it."142 The only Chinese woman in
her unit, she did not remember any discrimination. Similarly, Maggie
Gee, who was the only Chinese American and one of only three women
in the drafting department at Mare Island, experienced no discrimination, nor did her mother, An Yoke Gee, who worked as a burner. "It
was a positive experience for her," said Maggie. "She made non-Chinese
friends for the first time, and it broadened her outlook in life. She was
satisfied with being part of a Chinese community where she lived, but
this allowed her to become part of the whole."143 Working in the shipyard also introduced Maggie to new friends, a new line of work, and a
new sense of political consciousness. In 1943 she left the shipyard with
two female co-workers she had befriended to join the WASP.

For May Lew Gee, who worked as a tacker at the Kaiser shipyard, "it
was the patriotic thing to do, to work in some kind of war industry." It
was also "great money" and a way to acquire new skills. Whereas before
she had earned only z5 cents an hour waitressing, in the shipyard she
earned $ i. z 6 an hour on the graveyard shift tacking pieces of metal onto
the bottoms of ship bulkheads for the welder to weld together. "Every
couple of days, there's a new ship and you start all over again," she said.
"They were building them faster than you can ever count." Although
she did "the same thing over and over again," she did not consider the
job boring, hard, or dangerous. "We heard about accidents, about people falling off the ship and drowning, but I never saw any or paid any
attention. We just kept working," she said. Nor did she remember any
instances of discrimination. "There was a terrific mixture [of people]
and everyone got along well. They were there to do a certain job ...
build ships so they can go and fight the war." After two years as a tacker,
May left to accompany a pregnant friend back to Detroit, Michigan. Unable to find transportation home, she ended up enlisting in the WAC.144

For someone like Rena Jung Chung, who has always enjoyed "fiddling with machines," working as a burner at the Kaiser shipyard was
the chance of a lifetime. When war broke out, she was the only woman
mechanic at a shop that made spray guns. Her boss closed the shop and
told everyone to go work at the shipyards. Although she was a trained
machinist, Rena started out as a machinist's helper in prefab, where the
front and back parts of ships were built. "All I had to do was to go get
the tools for the machinist and then just stand there doing nothing for
the rest of the day," she recalled. "So I got restless and told the foreman I wanted to do the burning job that looked more interesting to
me." Ruth learned in four hours what most others took forty hours to
master and was able to change her job to burner. Except for the "Okies
[who] asked you all kinds of crazy questions [because] they have never
seen a Chinese [before]," she got along with everyone "because I spoke
good English and I didn't let them pick on me." In addition to receiving good pay, she got to indulge her machinist passions as well as contribute to the war effort.145

Jade Snow Wong wrote in her autobiography that the job of clerktypist at Marinship during the war helped her develop confidence in dealing with male co-workers. Contrary to the opinion of her college placement officer, who had told her that being Chinese would only be a
handicap in the work world, she found that she was accorded nothing
but respect at the shipyard. While there she won first prize in a national
essay-writing contest on the topic of absenteeism. As a reward she was
given the honor of launching the S.S. William A. Jones, which gained
her recognition both at the shipyard and in the Chinese community. At
the launching ceremonies, she said it was her Chinese and American education that helped her find a practical solution to absenteeism in the
war industry; this same Chinese and American unity, she stated, would
help bring the war to an early end.146

Because of the war economy and labor shortage, jobs also opened up
for women in the private sector. White women moved en masse into factory and white-collar jobs, while black women increasingly left private
household service to enter commercial and factory occupations. During
the war, clerical wages increased by 15 to 3 o percent, and factory wages
grew by 47 percent, although women still earned less than men for the
same type of work.141 Chinese women also made inroads into the private sector, including the Chinatown business world. With the men away
at war or taking on defense work, women were needed to fill Chinatown
jobs. Restaurants broke with tradition and advertised for waitresses, and Chinatown finally saw one of its curio shops under the management of
a second-generation Chinese American woman.148 Overall, Chinatown
restaurants experienced a 300 percent increase in business between 194 r
and 1943, while bars and nightclubs did a brisk trade serving soldiers
and a fully employed wartime population.149 As Gladys Ng Gin, who
was working as a cocktail waitress at the Forbidden City, exclaimed, "During the Second World War, it was good money-fifty to sixty dollars a
night in tips alone-wow!"150