The Chinese in America (59 page)

63 1,086 miles:
Ibid.

64 one thousand Chinese railroad workers died:
An estimated 1,200 Chinese died out of 10,000 to 12,000 Chinese workers.
(The Asian American Almanac,
p. 46; Connie Young Yu, “Who Are the Chinese Americans?,” in Susan Gall, managing ed., and Irene Natividad, executive ed.,
The Asian American Almanac: A Reference Work on Asians in the United States
[Detroit: Gale Research, 1995]; Lynne Rhodes Mayer and Kenneth E. Vose, 28.)
The Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups,
p. 219, gives the figure of 12,000 to 14,000 Chinese workers. William Chew, a descendent of a transcontinental railroad worker, found through his research that on average for every two miles of track laid, three Chinese laborers died in accidents
(Salt Lake Tribune,
May 11, 1999).

64 twenty thousand pounds of bones:
Lynn Pan,
Sons of the Yellow Emperor: A History of the Chinese Diaspora
(New York: Kodansha America, 1994), p. 55.

64 journey back to the Sierra Nevada to search for the remains of their
colleagues: Connie Young Yu, “John C. Young, A Man Who Loved History,”
Chinese America: History and Perspectives
1989 (San Francisco: Chinese Historical Society of America, 1989), p. 6.

64 excluded from the ceremonies:
Sucheng Chan,
Asian Americans,
p. 31.

64 laid off most of the Chinese workers:
Ibid., p. 32.

64 refusing to give them even their return passage:
Ibid.

64 retained only a few hundred:
Ibid., p. 32.

64 converted boxcars:
Origins & Destinations: 41 Essays on Chinese America,
p. 129.

66 whites were paid seven dollars a day, the Chinese only two dollars or less:
Leigh Bristol-Kagan, “Chinese Migration to California, 1851-1882: Selected Industries of Work, the Chinese Institutions and the Legislative Exclusion of a Temporary Work Force,” Ph.D. dissertation in history and East Asian languages, Harvard University, 1982, p. 38.

66 “shaking, toothless wrecks”:
Edwin Clausen and Jack Bermingham,
Chinese and African Professionals in California: A Case Study of Equality and Opportunity in the United States
(Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1982), p. 14.

67 austere Chinese work ethic all but disappeared:
Madeline Y. Hsu,
Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home,
p. 42.

67 “when the ships occasionally cannot
[sail]”: Madeline Y. Hsu, p. 42.

67 “simple, reverential, and thrifty”:
Zhiqiu Pan,
Ningyang Cundu
(
Ningyang
deposited letters) (Toishan: n.p., 1898), as cited in Madeline Y. Hsu, p. 40.

68 “In a flash”:
Ibid.

68 “various charities are everywhere”:
Madeline Y. Hsu, pp. 41—42.

68 beheaded some seventy-five thousand suspected participants:
Jack Chen, p. 16.

69 clashes killed two hundred thousand people:
Madeline Y. Hsu, p. 27.

70 “red-haired, green-eyed foreign devils”:
R. David Arkush and Leo O. Lee, eds.,
Land Without Ghosts: Chinese Impressions of America from the Mid-Nineteenth Century to the Present
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989), p. 16; Lee Chew, “The Life Story of a Chinaman,” in Hamilton Holt, ed.,
The Life Stories of Undistinguished Americans
(New York: J. Pott, 1906), p. 285.

70 “[A]s we walked along the streets”:
“Life History and Social Document of Mr. J. S. Look,” Seattle, August 13, 1924 by C. H. Burnett, p. 1. Major Document 182, Box 27, Survey of Race Relations, archives of the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University. (The hair color, clothes, and courtship rituals of white Americans provoked the most interest among Chinese immigrants, judging from their memoirs.)

70 “barbarian women”:
R. David Arkush and Leo O. Lee, p. 34.

70-71 “cacophony of dingdang
noises”: Ibid., p. 34.

71 “a great bother”: Ibid.,
pp. 35-36.

71 “ritual of touching lips together”:
Ibid., p. 38.

71 “requires making a chirping sound”:
Ibid., p. 38.

72 only one in ten California farm laborers was Chinese:
Betty Lee Sung,
The Story of the Chinese in America
(New York: Collier, 1971), pp. 35-36. Carey McWilliams,
California, the Great Exception
(New York: Current Books, 1949), p. 152.

72 one in two:
Ibid.

72 almost nine in ten:
By 1886, the Chinese comprised 85.7 percent of the California agricultural force. Susan Auerbach,
Encyclopedia of Multiculturalism,
Vol. 2 (New York: Marshall Cavendish, 1994), p. 372.

72 two-thirds of the vegetables:
Jack Chen,
The Chinese of America,
p. 84;
Origins & Destinations,
p. 437.

72 reclamation of the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta:
C. D. Abbott, a landowner who employed Chinese laborers, asserted that “white men refused to work up to their knees in the water, slime and filth”; Sandy Lydon,
Chinese Gold: The Chinese in the Monterey Bay Region
(Capitola, Calif.: Capitola Book Company, 1985), p. 286.

73 left the Chinese behind, to scream out at passing ships:
Julian Dana,
The Sacramento: River of Gold
(New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1939), pp. 160-64, as cited in Sucheng Chan, “The Chinese in California Agriculture, 1860-1900,” in Genny Lim, ed.,
The Chinese American Experience: Papers from the Second National Conference on Chinese American Studies (1980),
p. 71.

73 “tule shoe”:
Sylvia Sun Minnick,
Samfow: The San Joaquin Chinese Legacy
(Fresno, Calif.: Panorama West Publishing, 1988), p. 69; Jack Chen, p. 87.

73 two or three dollars an acre:
Tzu-Kuei Yen, p. 103.

73 seventy-five dollars an acre:
Ibid.

73 hundreds of millions:
The value of Chinese labor to the construction of the railroad and the reclamation of the tule land was estimated to be $289,700,000 in 1876-1877 dollars. Thomas W. Chinn, H. Mark Lai, and Philip P. Choy, eds.,
A History of the Chinese in California: A Syllabus
(San Francisco: Chinese Historical Society of America, 1969), p. 56. Also Jeff Gillenkirk and James Motlow,
Bitter Melon: Inside America’s Last Rural Chinese Town
(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1987), p. 9.

73 lice and fleas:
Robert A. Nash, “The ‘China Gangs’ in the Alaska Packers Association Canneries, 1892-1935,”
The Life, Influence and the Role of the Chinese in the United States, 1776-1960,
Proceedings/Papers of the National Conference held at the University of San Francisco, July 10, 11, 12, 1975, sponsored by the Chinese Historical Society of America (San Francisco: Chinese Historical Society of America, 1976), p. 273.

74 more than three thousand Chinese:
Thomas W. Chinn, H. Mark Lai, and Philip P. Choy, p. 42. By 1881, 3,100 Chinese cannery workers were employed by Columbia River canneries.

74 “Only Chinese men were employed in the work”:
Rudyard Kipling,
From Sea to Sea: Letters of Travel
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1923), pp. 33-34, as cited in Chris Friday,
Organizing Asian American Labor: The Pacific Coast Canned-Salmon Industry, 1870-1942,
p. 25.

74 “not so much like men”:
Chris Friday, p. 30.

74 “as with the whip”:
Ibid., p. 40.

74 debone up to two thousand fish:
Ibid., p. 30.

74 “the Iron Chink”:
Ibid., p. 84.

75 special four-dollar-a-month fishing license:
Jack Chen, p. 100; Arthur F. McEvoy,
The Fisherman’s Problem: Ecology and Law in the California Fisheries,
1850-1980 (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 112-14.

75 withhold fishing licenses:
Arthur F. McEvoy, pp. 112-13; Sylvia Sun Minnick, p. 74.

75 almost a quarter of all of the Chinese:
Ronald Takaki,
Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans
(New York: Little, Brown, 1989; reprinted by Penguin Books, 1990), p. 79.

76 Description of San Francisco in the 1870s:
Roger W. Lotchin,
San Francisco, 1846-1856: From Hamlet to City
(Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1997), p. xxxvii.

76 “narrow, revoltingly dirty”:
Ibid., p. xxxviii.

77 nearly half of the labor force in the city’s four major industries:
Benson Tong,
Unsubmissive Women,
p. 76.

77 80 percent of the workers in woolen mills:
Jack Chen, p. 111. According to Jack Chen, 80 percent of the shirtmakers in San Francisco were also Chinese.

77 90 percent of the cigar makers:
Stephan Thernstrom, ed., Ann Orlov, managing ed., Oscar Handlin, consulting ed.,
Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups
(Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1980), p. 219.

77 had five thousand highly successful Chinese businessmen:
Otis Gibson,
The Chinese in America,
p. 59.

77 owned half the city’s cigar factories:
Ping Chiu,
Chinese Labor in California,
p. 122.

77 eleven out of twelve slipper factories:
Chin-Yu Chen, “San Francisco’s Chinatown,” p. 86; Jack Chen, p. 113; Thomas W. Chinn, H. Mark Lai, and Philip P. Choy, p. 51.

77 gleaming with crystal, porcelain, and ivory:
Lynn Pan,
Sons of the
Yellow Emperor, p. 102.

77 “It is no uncommon thing to find”:
Otis Gibson, p. 54.

78 “there were so many of us”:
“Life History and Social Document of Mr. J. S. Look,” Seattle, August 13, 1924, by C. H. Burnett, p. 1.

78 crates found on the street:
Victor G. and Brett de Bary Nee,
Longtime Californ’: A Documentary Study of an American Chinatown
(New York: Pantheon, 1972), p. 70.

78 slept in shifts:
Ibid., p. 69.

78 “scarcely a single ray of light”:
Otis Gibson, p. 54.

78 Description of Chinatown informal government:
Victor G. and Brett de Bary Nee, pp. 64-66.

78-79 served as unofficial ambassadors:
Chin-Yu Chen, p. 35.

79 own guild in San Francisco:
Jack Chen, p. 28.

79 Kong Chow Association:
Christopher Lee Yip, “San Francisco’s Chinatown: An Architectural and Urban History,” Ph.D. dissertation in architecture, University of California at Berkeley, 1985, p. 37.

79 split into two groups:
Ibid., p. 37.

79 offices in prominent neighborhoods:
Ibid., p. 94.

79 Description
of services of the Six Companies: Chin-Yu Chen, pp. 34, 37.

79 house of worship:
B. Lloyd,
Lights and Shades in San Francisco
(San Francisco: A. L. Bancroft and Company, 1876), pp. 272-74; Pauline Minke, “Chinese in the Mother Lode (1850-1870),” thesis, California History and Government Adult Education, 1960, Asian American Studies Library, University of California at Berkeley.

80 Description of funerals and burials:
Linda Sun Crowder, “Mortuary Practices in San Francisco Chinatown,”
Chinese America: History and Perspectives 1999,
pp. 33-46; Sylvia Sun Minnick,
Samfow,
p. 292; B. Lloyd, p. 367, and
San Francisco Daily Alta California,
September 1, 1868, April 4, 1868, and June 1, 1867, as cited in Christopher Lee Yip, pp. 109-13. As late as 1992, 1,300 sets of bones were still warehoused in San Francisco for future shipment to China (Chin-Yu Chen, p. 18); Sandy Lydon,
Chinese Gold,
pp. 131-32.

81 “Tonight we pledge ourselves”:
Lynn Pan, p. 20.

81 Description of
mui tsai:
Judy Yung,
Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), pp. 37-39.

81 “death was all around them”:
Elizabeth Cooper,
My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard
(New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1914), pp. 13-14, as cited in Benson Tong, p. 18.

82 “Mother was crying”:
Victor and Brett de Bary Nee, p. 84.

82 “grand, free country”:
“Story of Wong Ah So.” Major Document 146, Box 26, Survey of Race Relations, Hoover Institution of War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University. Wong Ah So was later rescued by Donaldina Cameron, converted to Christianity, learned how to read and write English, and married a Chinese merchant in Boise, Idaho. In 1933, she wrote to Cameron to report that one of her daughters would graduate from the University of Washington, where she was studying bacteriology.

82 “devil American prison”:
Benson Tong,
Unsubmissive Women,
p. 57.

82 Quick-witted girls managed to escape their fate:
Ibid., pp. 58-59.

83 audiences that included police officers:
Ibid., p. 69.

83 a Chinese theater or even a Chinese temple:
Ibid., p. 70.

83 Description of parlor houses and cribs:
Stephen Longstreet, ed.,
Nell Kimball: The Life As an American Madam by Herself
(New York: Macmillan, 1970), pp. 226-27; Herbert Ashbury,
The Barbary Coast:
An
Informal History of the San Francisco Underground
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1933), pp. 174-76; Judy Yung, pp. 27-30.

83 “Two bittee lookee”:
Judy Yung, Unbound Feet, p. 29.

84 both feet frozen:
Huping Ling,
Surviving on the Gold Mountain:
A
History of Chinese American Women and Their Lives
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), p. 57.