Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco (5 page)

Considering the myriad influential factors at play, my belated discovery of my true generational status and family history should not be surprising. For decades, anti-Chinese immigration laws discouraged the immigration of Chinese women and retarded the development of family
life. Because of anti-Chinese sentiment, life under exclusion in America
necessitated a pact of silence among Chinese immigrants about their past.
And until recently, racial minorities and women were generally excluded
from written American history. Only since the civil rights movement,
the establishment of ethnic studies programs on college campuses, and
the current interest in cultural diversity have studies such as this one been
possible.

As the only in-depth study so far on Chinese American women, Unbound Feet fills the information void and restores Chinese women's rightful place in ethnic, women's, and American history, acknowledging their
indomitable spirit and significant contributions. More important, by
showing how Chinese American women were able to move from bound
lives in the nineteenth century to unbound lives by the end of World
War II despite the multiple forms of oppression they faced, this study
adds to the growing scholarship on women of color and the ongoing
debate about the workings and eradication of race, gender, and class oppression. Although Chinese American women have still not achieved
full equality, the important strides they made during a period of great
social change warrant careful study. It is my hope that Unbound Feet will
contribute to a more accurate and inclusive view of women's history,
and to a more complex synthesis of our collective past.

The absence of talent in a woman is a virtue.

A Chinese proverb

Feet are bound not to make them beautiful as a curved bow, but
to restrain the women when they go outdoors.

Nii'er-Ching (Classic for Girls)

When Great-Grandmother Leong Shee arrived in San
Francisco on the vessel China on April i5, 1893, she had with her an
eight-year-old girl named Ah Kum. When asked by the immigration inspector who the girl was, she said that Ali Kum was her daughter. The
story she told was that she had first immigrated to the United States with
her parents, was married to Chong [Chin] Lung of Sing Kee Company
in 1885, gave birth to Ali Kum in 1886, and then returned to China with
the daughter in 1889. When asked what she remembered of San Francisco, she replied in Chinese, "I do not know the city excepting the names
of a few streets, as I have small feet and never went out." Thirty-six years
later, when she was interrogated for a departure certificate, she denied
ever saying any of this.'

Great-Grandmother most likely had to make up the story in order to
ger her mui tsai, Ah Kum, into the United States. She was probably
afraid of being accused of bringing in a potential prostitute. Yet having Ah Kum was as much a status symbol as a real help for Leong Shee.
Allowing Ah Kum to accompany his wife was probably one of the concessions Great-Grandfather Chin Lung had made to entice her to join
him in America. While Chin Lung continued to farm in the SacramentoSan Joaquin Delta, Great-Grandmother chose to live above the Sing Kee store at 8o8 Sacramento Street, where she gave birth to five children in
quick succession. Even with Ah Kum's help, Great-Grandmother found
life in America difficult. Unable to go out because of her bound feet,
Chinese beliefs that women should not be seen in public, and perhaps
fear for her own safety, she led a cloistered but busy life. Being frugal,
she took in sewing to make extra money. As she told my mother many
years later, "Ying, when you go to America, don't be lazy. Work hard
and you will become rich. Your grandfather grew potatoes, and although
I was busy at home, I sewed on a foot-treadle machine, made buttons,
and weaved loose threads [did finishing work]."2

Great-Grandmother's secluded and hard-working life in San Francisco
Chinatown was typical for Chinese women in the second half of the nineteenth century. Wives of merchants, who were at the top of the social
hierarchy in Chinatown, usually had bound feet and led bound lives. But
even women of the laboring class-without bound feet-found themselves confined to the domestic sphere within Chinatown. Prostitutes,
who were at the bottom of the social order, had the least freedom and
opportunity to change their lives. Whereas most European women found
immigration to America a liberating experience, Chinese women, except in certain situations, found it inhibiting. Their unique status in
America was due to the circumstances of their immigration and the dynamic ways in which race, class, gender, and culture intersected in their
lives.

Passage to Gold Mountain

Few women were in the first wave of Chinese immigrants
to America in the mid-nineteenth century. Driven overseas by conditions of poverty at home, young Chinese men-peasants from the Pearl
River delta of Guangdong Province (close to the ports of Canton and
Hong Kong)-immigrated to Gold Mountain in search of a better livelihood to support their families. They were but a segment of the Chinese
diaspora and a sliver of the international migration of labor caused by
the global expansion of European capitalism, in which workers, capital,
and technology moved across national borders to enable entrepreneurs
to exploit natural resources and a larger market in undeveloped coun-
tries.3 According to one estimate, at least z.5 million Chinese migrated
overseas during the last six decades of the nineteenth century, after China was defeated in the Opium Wars (1839-4z; 1856-60) and forced open
by European imperialist countries to outside trade and political domination.' Except for the 250,000 Chinese who were coerced into slave
labor in the "coolie trade" that operated from 1847 to 1874, most willingly answered the call of Western capitalists, immigrating to undeveloped colonies in the Americas, the West Indies, Hawaii, Australia, New
Zealand, Southeast Asia, and Africa to live, work, and settle.

Kwangtung (Guangdong) Province: Emigrant Districts. SOURCE: Sucheng
Chan, This Bittersweet Soil: The Chinese in California Agriculture, 1860-1910
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1986), p. 1g.

Peasants in the Pearl River delta in southeast China were particularly
hard hit by imperialist incursions. Aside from suffering increased taxes,
loss of land, competition from imported manufactured goods, and unemployment, they also had to contend with problems of overpopulation,
repeated natural calamities, and the devastation caused by the Taiping
Rebellion (185o-64), the Red Turban uprisings (1854-64), and the ongoing Punti-Hakka interethnic feud. Because of their coastal location
and their long association with the sea and contact with foreign traders,
they were easily drawn to America by news of the gold rush and by labor contractors who actively recruited young, able-bodied men to help
build the transcontinental railroad, reclaim swamplands, develop the fisheries and vineyards, and provide needed labor for California's growing
agriculture and light industries. Steamship companies and creditors were
also eager to provide them with the means to travel to America.5 Like
other immigrants coming to California at this time, Guangdong men
intended to strike it rich and return home.6 Thus, although more than
half of them were married, most did not bring their wives and families.
In any case, because of the high costs and harsh living conditions in California, the additional investment required to obtain passage for two or
more, and the lack of job opportunities for women, it was cheaper and
safer to keep the family in China and support it from across the sea.

The absence of women set the Chinese immigration pattern apart
from that of most other immigrant groups. In 18 50, there were only 7
Chinese women, versus 4,0 18 Chinese men, in San Francisco.? Five years
later, women made up less than z percent of the total Chinese population in Americas As merchant Lai Chun-chuen explained in response
to the anti-Chinese remarks of California Governor John Bigler:

It is stated that "too large a number of the men of the Flowery Kingdom have emigrated to this country, and that they have come alone, without their families." We may state among the reasons for this that the wives
and families of the better families of China have generally compressed
feet; they live in the utmost privacy; they are unusual to winds and waves;
and it is exceedingly difficult to bring families upon distant journies over
great oceans. Yet a few have come; nor are they all. And further, there
have been several injunctions warning the people of the Flowery land
not to come here, which have fostered doubts; nor have our hearts found
peace in regard to bringing families.9