Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco (53 page)

By the time my mother was pregnant with their third child, the United
States was deeply immersed in World War H. The family moved to San
Francisco Chinatown to be closer to a modern hospital and so that my
father could take advantage of the well-paying jobs in the shipyards.
Mother began working in a Chinatown sweatshop, often bringing
sewing home to do at night. My parents rented two rooms in a tenement. Although there was no kitchen, private bathroom, or running hot
water, it was still an improvement over Menlo Park. Mother now had the
comforts of an ethnic community and a network of relatives and friends
close by. Virginia was born at the beginning of 1943, and Patricia at the
end of that same year. I followed in 1946 and proved to be the lucky
fifth daughter because I preceded the son my parents had so longed for.
When my brother, Warren Tom Yung (note the middle name that honors my father's real surname), was a month old, my parents splurged and
threw a Red Egg and Ginger banquet to announce his birth. And they
stopped having children. (I have always been painfully aware of my possible nonexistence had my brother been born first.)

Ironically and tragically, Warren suffered an accident when he was nine
years old and has since been institutionalized, confined to a wheelchair.
When it became clear that he would never be able to sire children and
continue the Tom family line, my mother sought solace in the Chinese
Independent Baptist church. My father, however, could find no outlet
for his despair. He never returned to China to pay homage to his ancestors as a filial son should. Instead it was we daughters who carried on
the duties of the sons. We all worked through high school and afterward to help support the family. We took care of our parents in their old
age. We represented the family at clan functions. We returned to China
to worship the ancestors and sent money home to build a schoolhouse
and to have our grandparents properly reburied. As the fifth daughter,
I brought honor to the family name by being the first from our ancestral village to earn a doctorate. Since my father's death in 1987, we daughters have gone regularly to tend his grave at the local cemetery. We keep
the lineage and stories alive, passing them on to the next generation.
And those of us with children have broken tradition by celebrating every
birth, regardless of gender. When my mother reflects on her bittersweet
past, she recalls how our relatives used to ridicule her for bearing only
girls. Now she proudly points out that her daughters have been as valuable as sons. "Just look at how good my daughters have been to me,"
she says. "My heart is totally satisfied."

As she had promised her mother, Mother worked hard as a seamstress
to save enough to send for her two younger brothers. Although the Chinese Exclusion Act was finally repealed in 1943, the new law allowed
only 105 immigrants a year from China. Many more Chinese, especially
women, were able to come as non-quota immigrants under the War
Brides Act of 1945, the Displaced Persons Act of 1948, and the
Refugee Act of 19 5 3. The easiest way for my mother, who was not yet
a U.S. citizen, to get my Uncle Lurt to America was to buy papers for
him to come as a son of a U.S. citizen. When that failed, she studied
hard for six months and succeeded in becoming a naturalized citizen in
1964. The next year, Congress passed a new Immigration and Naturalization Act, which ended the restrictive quota system and placed China
on an equal footing with other countries. Now that zo,ooo persons per
year were allowed to immigrate from China, my mother could begin the
process of chain migration by bringing Uncle Lurt and his wife over from
Hong Kong. Uncle Lurt, in turn, sent for his wife's parents, brother,
and sister after he became a U.S. citizen. Then when China and the
United States resumed full diplomatic relations in 1979, Uncle Lurt was able to help his brother, Haw, and his family immigrate directly from
China. Thus, my mother fulfilled her promise. She wanted her three sisters to come too, but by the time they could emigrate after -1979, they
declined to do so, saying they were too old to start over in America. So
Mother has continued to send remittances home to help them. And in
the last decade she has made repeated trips back to visit them in the village. Her only regret is that she was unable to provide for her parents
in China. Upon her arrival in San Francisco in 1941, she immediately
sent them the large sum of $-1oo. Because of the war with Japan, however, she was unable to get any more money through to them. Both died
of starvation before the war was over.

My mother's immigration to and life in America follow a pattern similar to that of Chinese women who preceded her, but with some different contours owing to the socioeconomic and historical circumstances
of her time. Because of the Chinese Exclusion Act, she could only come
as one of the exempt classes, and she had to endure detention and interrogation to prove her right to immigrate as a merchant's wife. It was
not until the early 195os, after political pressure was applied by the American Civil Liberties Union and Chinese American organizations because
of reports of suicide by a number of despondent immigrant women,
that the U.S. Immigration Service ceased the practice of detainment and
began settling an immigrant's right to enter the country at the point of
departure instead of the point of entry.

Although the World War II economy meant a good job for my father
as a shipfitter, it was only a temporary situation. After the war he returned to being a laborer, or what he called "a mule's life." With no education or fluency in English, and handicapped by racism, the best he
could do was land a job at the Mark Hopkins Hotel as a janitor; this enabled him to join the Service Employees Union and enjoy the benefits
of union protection until he retired in 1968. It proved to be the best
job he ever had-decent wages, regular hours, two-week vacations annually, health insurance, and a good pension plan.

My mother, however, with six children to support and a husband who
was addicted to gambling for a period, had little choice but to work in
a Chinatown sweatshop. The job allowed her flexible work hours, but
it also exploited her by paying low piecework wages. Finding employment at a union shop in later years made no difference in terms of her
wages, although it did mean set hours, medical coverage, and vacation
and retirement benefits.3 Like many other immigrant women, Mother
sewed day and night while raising us children, trapped in Chinatown in a dead-end job because she never had a chance to learn English or acculturate into American society. One difference that set her life apart
from the lives of her Chinese immigrant predecessors was that there was
less of a gendered separation between the private and public spheres in
the postwar years. Mother and her peers felt no qualms about appearing in public. They freely walked the streets of Chinatown and even went
shopping downtown whenever they felt like it-usually with one of us
in tow to serve as translator. On the whole, though, Mother was so busy
working and taking care of us that she had little leisure time to socialize or engage in community activities. Her few pleasures were to attend
the Chinese opera or movies and, later, to go to church on Sundays.

My mother's economic role had a direct impact on family gender relations. Although my father made twice as much money as she did, he
always acknowledged her ability to contribute to the family income and
her acumen in business affairs. (Against Father's wishes, she wisely invested in two flats in North Beach, the neighborhood adjacent to Chinatown, in the early 196os.) Their marriage was an interdependent partnership, with priority always going to the well-being of the family. They
shared decisions about our welfare, and Father was never ashamed to
don an apron and help with the cooking, washing, and ironing. Mother
ruled at home, controlling the pursestrings, disciplining us, and signing
our report cards, but Father was always the head of the household in
public, the spokesperson for the family in clan matters. Although the
separation of public and private spheres had weakened over time, it remained in effect to a consistent degree: Mother always stayed home at
night with us while Father went out to his tong to smoke the bamboo
water pipe and socialize with his fraternal brothers.

With resumed immigration from China, Chinatown teemed with
women and young children, and the community's restaurants and sweatshops benefited from the new supply of immigrant workers who, like
my mother, lacked English-language and job skills to work or live anywhere but in Chinatown. In contrast, young war brides married to husbands who were somewhat educated and acculturated to American life
did much better. The recipients of veteran's benefits, their husbands were
able to provide for them, find housing outside Chinatown, and guide
them in adjusting to life in the United States. Chinese students and professionals who had opted to remain in or come to America under the
Displaced Persons or Refugee acts bypassed Chinatown altogether. Arriving at a time when attitudes and conditions were more favorable toward Chinese Americans than ever before and when their scientific and technical skills were in demand, they found work in academic and professional fields and housing in suburban communities away from Chinatown. This is not to say that racial discrimination against the Chinese
ended. Although employment and housing discrimination was now illegal, Chinese Americans still experienced difficulties finding jobs commensurate with their abilities and assimilating into mainstream society.
They were not always welcome as new homeowners in all-white neighborhoods or as members in certain elite social clubs.

By the 19 5 os, the public role of Chinese women was no longer questioned. But although they were very much a part of the labor force and
public scene outside the home, they were still excluded from Chinatown's
power structure. Women were yet to be made full-fledged members of
the family, district, or fraternal organizations. No woman sat on the board
of the Chinese Six Companies, Chinese Hospital, or Chinese American
Citizens Alliance. As before, however, immigrant women of the educated, middle class continued to be active leaders in such gendersegregated organizations as the Chinese YWCA and Chinese Hospital
Auxiliary. Although Protestant churches and associated organizations
continued to work with Chinese women, offering them social activities
and services in addition to salvation, they were not as effective as the
Protestant missions of the Progressive era. Chinese nationalism, which
had been the other influential force in women's emancipation, was also
on the wane now that Chinese exclusion had come to an end and China
had become Communist. The break in diplomatic relations between the
United States and China, and the subsequent anti-Communist hysteria,
forced many Chinese Americans to sever ties with their homeland and
to desist in leftist political activities. Conservatism pervaded the community. Many people responded to the red-baiting tactics of this period
by assuming a passive stance, coping through evasion rather than confrontation. Others sought to prove their loyalty to American democracy
by supporting the Guomindang regime or engaging actively in partisan
and electoral politics.

As in Jade Snow Wong's time, life as a second-generation Chinese
American in San Francisco Chinatown during the Cold War era had its
pluses and minuses. While we had the comforts of a safe, nurturing environment, we were often overprotected from the realities of racism and
prevented from assimilating into mainstream society. Growing up in Chinatown meant attending a segregated public school with a Eurocentric
curriculum taught by white teachers, and a Chinese language school
where authoritarian teachers reinforced the values of unquestioned obe dience, respect for the Confucian classics, and allegiance to Chiang Kaishek's Republic of China. Among the benefits from such a dual education were bilingualism and biculturalism, and some of us developed a
strong appreciation for our ethnic heritage. Yet there were costs as well:
we were fit into a "model minority" mold, expected to work hard, become educated, and, by all means, not "rock the boat" or make the family, community, or the Chinese race "lose face."

Moreover, Chinese girls like myself were made consciously aware of
our inferior status as females and our proper gender role as self-effacing
homemakers. At home and in our limited social circles, boys were still
favored over girls. My brother, Warren, always got the best servings of
food at the dinner table. He had his own tricycle, while we five sisters
shared a single pair of roller skates. My parents had big plans for his future, expecting him to finish college and become a doctor. As for us girls,
it was considered enough that we finish high school and marry well,
preferably with Chinese American men who could provide for us.

Our socialization in self-effacement was reinforced both at school and
in the popular media. Women's history and contributions to society were
not included in the public or Chinese school curriculums; nor was Chinese American history or the history of any minority group in the United
States. In Chinese school, our role models were all male-patriotic heroes like Sun Yat-sen and Yue Fei; in public school, they were all whiteGeorge Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Florence Nightingale. Positive
images of minorities and women were equally absent in the popular mass
media. Hollywood moved from the China Doll and Dragon Lady roles
portrayed by Anna May Wong to that of the sexy, subservient prostitute played by Nancy Kwan in The World of Suzie Wong. With billboards
and magazines projecting the American standard of beauty as blonde,
blue eyed, and big breasted, Chinese American women received a message of inferiority as strong as that conveyed at home. In spite of all of
this, many of my peers strove to be all-American, participating in integrated high school club activities and competing to be cheerleaders, student body officers, and prom queens. Others of us chose to become socially active in the Chinese YWCA, Cameron House, Protestant churches,
or Chinese language schools. But like the second generation of preWorld War II days, even as we sought to become assimilated into mainstream society, our physical features and our home and social life were
constant reminders of our cultural differences, of our perceived racial
and gender inferiority.