Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco (51 page)

Most important, the war gave second-generation women an opportunity to work outside Chinatown in better-paying jobs. For the first time,
Chinese American women had their pick of positions that were commensurate with their skills. Jane Kwong Lee recalled how the entire employment picture for Chinese American women brightened as a result
of the war:

As manpower became scarce, some mothers [seeking domestic help] were
desperate. Our [Chinese YWCA] office telephone was flooded with frantic calls, but our desk clerk simply took the messages and politely answered
that we would do our best. After a while everybody realized that requesting for help in homes was futile; no one would take a housework
job when there were high-paying positions begging to be taken. Even
school girls could fill in where vacancies were left open by adults who
went to work in shipyards or defense industries.151

According to the local Chinese press, sewing machine operators were in
demand at wages ranging from $ 18 to $4o a week depending on experience; laundry workers could find work at 74 cents to 99 cents an hour;
girls were needed to help with the harvesting of crops on nearby farms
at the rate of $4 to $8 a day; and post office jobs were available paying
as much as $7.1 o an hour. Clerical workers were especially sought after
at war factories, government agencies, and private firms.'52 According
to the Chinese Press, the "several hundred alert young Chinese American girls who have gone into the defense industries as office workers for
the duration ... [are] the little but important cogs in America's war machinery.... They help run the vital `behind-the-lines' business of the
United States at war."153

American-born and-educated Margaret Woo, who had been doing
ironing in a Chinatown garment factory, got a job as a clerk at the Relocation Center office. With that experience under her belt, she was able
to move on to clerical work in the stock market after the war.' 14 Lonnie
Quan, who moved from San Jose to San Francisco in 1941, also got into office work because of the war. Until then she had experienced repeated
rejection whenever she applied for work at white firms:

I went to look for a job in the insurance company and they came right
out and told me, "We do not hire Chinese." Well, after a few times of
that, you just give up. You say, "The heck with it." You just don't want
to go to any more interviews. It took them a long time to realize that
the Chinese girls are good workers. I was very discouraged. I was very
angry. And I said, "Well, I guess I won't be working in offices. I guess
I'd just as soon run an elevator," which I did.

At the beginning of the war, however, she was offered a job at the Draft
Board, where she worked from 1942 until 1947. "I enjoyed working
there. I had a wonderful boss who helped with all the things that needed
to be done. In fact, it was the best job I had ever had." From there she
moved on to the Internal Revenue Service, where she was well paid and
received good benefits. "Chinese people were getting better jobs during the war," she said. "Some of the girls I knew were working in offices, in mostly government jobs. And that's how most of the Chinese
girls got their office training.""" In contrast, black women with similar
skills had a difficult time landing jobs in the white-collar sector. Despite
President Roosevelt's efforts to eliminate employment discrimination
through executive order and the establishment of the Fair Employment
Practices Committee (FEPC), racial discrimination, particularly in the
private sector, was still rampant. The FEPC West Coast Regional Office
investigated an average of almost seventy cases per month. Approximately 8o percent were filed by blacks, 8 percent by Mexicans, and 7
percent by Jews.116 Chinese cases were rare.

ON THE HOME FRONT

Patriotism, a spirit of cooperation, and eagerness to sacrifice for the war effort permeated Chinatown as it did the rest of the
country. Even the grim conditions of war-the draft and the loss of loved
ones, food and labor shortages, and the constant threat of attack-did
not dampen people's spirits. Lonnie Quan recalled those days:

We had air raid warnings and things like that. We had blackouts in the
city. Nobody could go out when the blackout was on. And you can't even
light a cigarette because one little match when lit, you can see from far
away. I remember the blackout curtains that we had to put up. I remember
all the drills, and then, after a while, everybody got used to it and they
went on living the same way, going out, having fun.ls7

While their men were away fighting, women bore the brunt of responsibilities on the home front. Spearheading their efforts in San Francisco were Chinese women leaders such as Dr. Margaret Chung, who
was affiliated with the Red Cross; Jane Kwong Lee, of the Chinese
YWCA; and Emily Lee Fong and May Chan, of the Chinese chapter of
the American Women's Volunteer Services. Certainly Chinese women
from all walks of life were behind the war effort; however, these women
and the organizations they represented were the most active in linking
the Chinese effort with that of mainstream America. Although Chinese
American women basically did female-identified tasks such as Red Cross
work, entertaining soldiers on leave, selling war bonds, and making
household goods last longer, their volunteer efforts thrust them into the
public limelight and in step with the rest of America. Men, who still
held the political power in the Chinese community, continued to direct
activities; but as the war dragged on they came to recognize the abilities of their women to cope, cooperate, contribute, and lead. Moreover,
whereas black women volunteers experienced racial discrimination in war
work (for example, black women were generally excluded from volunteer activities run by whites; and one USO club in Boston prohibited
black hostesses from dancing with white servicemen), 158 Chinese women
faced no such restrictions.

Second-generation women like Dr. Margaret Chung proved to be capable leaders as well as important links between the Chinese community and mainstream society. Already active in raising American support
for the anti-Japanese war effort in China, after the Pearl Harbor attack
she redoubled her efforts in propaganda and Red Cross work. She continued making radio speeches and went on lecture tours all over the country to promote a better understanding of China and Chinese Americans. Instrumental in establishing the Red Cross station at Grace
Cathedral, she put in many volunteer hours there as well as teaching
classes in first aid and home nursing to Chinese women in San Francisco.
She was also one of the strongest advocates of price control as a solution to wartime inflation. During World War II, in addition to shortages
of coffee, beef, sugar, flour, and milk, Chinatown residents suffered
shortages of imported Chinese staples: rice, ginger, mushrooms, water
chestnuts, soy beans, and the like. As food prices rose, newspaper editorials criticized businesses that took advantage of the situation and asked
the cooperation of every Chinese American to help curb the inflation.
Dr. Chung, in cooperation with the Office of Price Administration, encouraged merchants and housewives to comply with the price regula tions. "Price control keeps down the cost of war and helps plan production," she said over the radio. "Likewise, it keeps down the cost of
living so that the home front can be secured."159

Two projects earned her particularly high marks as a Chinese American woman in the political arena. One was her successful lobbying of
Congress to establish the WAVES; the second was the formation of the
Fair-haired Bastards Club, an organization recognized by the U.S. government as the "Phi Beta Kappa of aviation." "In 1942, when there was
such a desperate need for men to fight on the front lines, I wanted to
do something actively to help in the war effort," she wrote later in her
unpublished autobiography. "I had a pair of trained hands, a medical
degree, and I felt that there were a great many other women in the United
States who wanted to do their part in the War Effort ... but there were
no laws which permitted women to be taken into the Armed Forces." 160
Through her political contacts in Washington, D.C., she helped to push
through the WAVES bill in record time, allowing women into the navy.

Garnering even more renown was her wartime "adoption" of 1,5oo
servicemen. It all began with seven aviators in the Naval Reserve who
came to her office for an examination in 1931. Discovering that they
were hungry and broke, she took them to dinner and looked after them
while they were in town. The numbers of such servicemen increased,
and when they insisted on calling her "Mom" she protested that since
she was unmarried they would be illegitimate-and so they dubbed themselves the "fair-haired bastards of Mom Chung." By 1941, the group
had grown to 780. She took a personal interest in the young men, giving each one a jade Buddha as a talisman, writing them personal letters,
sending them gifts on holidays, and welcoming them into her home
whenever they were in town. It was not uncommon for her to have 175
of them as guests for Sunday dinner. During the war she added to this
group the Golden Dolphins, which included crewmen of U.S. submarines, and the Kiwis, a women's auxiliary that included such notable
women as Amelia Earhart and Alice Roosevelt Longsworth. Because of
these connections, she was asked by the Chinese government to recruit
the first two hundred American aviators for the Flying Tigers, and for
her services in the war effort she became the first woman in the United
States to receive China's prestigious "People's Medal," in 1945.161

While Margaret Chung was invaluable for bringing together the Chinese American community and the larger society, Jane Kwong Lee
proved to be an important link between immigrant and American-born
Chinese women as well as between women's groups and the male-dom inated CWRA. As concerned about food shortages as was Dr. Chung,
Jane took a course on nutrition through University of California Extension and began offering classes at the Chinese YWCA on how to cope
with the problem. "No more food imports from China need not mean
poor meals for Chinatown," she told Chinese housewives. "With most
of us giving extra energy to the war efforts, it is important to maintain
a healthful standard in diet, and the change to an American diet, or substitution of some American foods for Chinese, is inevitable." `2 Following her advice, many housewives switched to Texas-grown rice, used
substitutes in their cooking, and tried to adjust their families' palates to
a Western diet. One Chinese American housewife summed up the situation thus: "Well, I'm a good American-1 might as well go completely
Yankee and get used to pork and beans."163

As director of the Chinese YWCA, Jane worked hard to galvanize the
involvement of Chinese women in the all-American war effort. In cooperation with other YWCA centers in the city, she organized a wartime
educational and recreational program that included activities ranging
from knitting for the Red Cross to air raid precaution classes, from sports
to the fine arts. "In its own way, by building up the individual's life and
her group life, the YWCA is doing its part in national defense," she explained in the Chinese Press. "A girl who is physically and socially fit, a
housewife who gives her family the right nutritional food, both help the
national morale. In this respect the YWCA is very alert to the present
emergency." 16' Through her leadership the YWCA became the focal
point for women's contributions to the war effort. They went there to
attend civil defense classes, do Red Cross work, participate in citywide
parades and patriotic celebrations, and go out in work teams to forage
for old magazines, yarn to be used in afghans, used leather to be converted into aviatorvestees, and used fats, tin cans, and paper boxes for
the manufacture of munitions and medicines. The YWCA also sent
women out to help harvest crops at nearby farms, encouraged citizens
to write Congress to get the Exclusion acts repealed, and called on volunteers to visit Chinese American servicemen in the hospitals and serve
as hostesses at the weekly open house for American servicemen on furlough.

Popularly referred to as the "Chinatown Canteen," the weekly event
held at the Chinese YWCA on Thursday evenings was orchestrated by
Chinese women but drew the support of all Chinatown. It was paid for
by contributions from local residents and involved scores of business and
college women as well as members of the six key women's organizations. All volunteered to take turns shopping and cooking Chinese food as well
as dancing and socializing with Chinese American soldiers, sailors, and
coast guardsmen on leave. Although some of the upper-class ladies would
normally not have bothered to cook at home, said Jane Kwong Lee,
"wartime was different. The response to serve was spontaneous." 16' Special occasions, such as Thanksgiving and Christmas, entailed more elaborate menus and gifts. During the month of December 1943, attendance
averaged sixty-five servicemen each week, and beginning in March 1944
Sunday afternoons were added to the schedule.166

As in the rest of America, when it came to civil defense preparedness,
the Chinese Press proclaimed, "It's a Woman's World!"167 Most active in
this area was the newly formed Chinese chapter of the American
Women's Volunteer Services (AWVS), under the leadership of Emily Lee
Fong and May Chan. The AWVS sponsored air raid precaution classes
in which Chinese women of all ages and backgrounds learned to make
blackout curtains, convert old newspapers into flashlights, and apply first
aid in the event of enemy attack. "The women of Chinatown are definitely responding to the need for gearing the home to possible wartime
emergencies which the next blackout may bring," said Daisy K. Wong,
one of the instructors quoted in the Chinese Press article.16H Aside from
skills associated with the domestic realm, courses were also offered to
Chinese women in motor transportation, motor mechanics, map reading, and photography; girls at the Chinese YWCA were instructed to
build model airplanes for use by the army and navy. Those trained in
communications and codes volunteered for the Aircraft Warning Service and the Chinese Code Corps, which aided in directing motor convoys, shore to land signaling, and other communication duties. "Every
Sunday morning from 6 A.M. to noon, we would help with charting the
course of all aircraft in the area," recalled Alice Fong Yu, one of the vol-
unteers.169 Many AWVS members also volunteered to entertain soldiers
at the Chinatown Canteen, chauffeur them around town, or work as telephone operators, interpreters, and nurses' aides at the local Red Cross
and twenty-four-hour first aid station. 110