The Children of Chinatown: Growing Up Chinese American in San Francisco, 1850-1920

CHAPTER 2: Recentering the Chinese Family in Early Chinese American History

2 recentering the chinese family in early chinese american history Zona Gale, writing for the San Francisco Chronicle in 1903, described her visit to the home of Foo Tai, a Christian Chinese woman and president of the Woman’s Society of the Baptist Mission. Curiosity about the home life of Christianized Chinese prompted Gale’s visit: ‘‘I longed to know Foo Tai, in her own home, and to try to break the silence that hangs over homes like hers. It was possible that, within its walls she simply swept and cooked and gossiped, like the rest of the Christianized world, but I doubted it. For some way there seemed to cling to her the perfume of almond flowers, and the memory of strange worship and strange fabrics, which all possible civilizing could not quite destroy.’’∞ Gale expressed surprise at the cleanliness of the apartment and frequently commented to that e√ect throughout her article. Gale noted the parallels between Foo Tai and her white counterparts. Still, Foo Tai and her family remained foreign: ‘‘It was a little room in which everything was for use, but it was absolutely clean. About the air clung that indescribable odor of alien flowers and precious wood and of censer smoke which characterizes all the Chinese shops.’’≤ Even though Foo Tai conformed to American standards of cleanliness and had clearly adopted the teachings of Christianity, the author emphasized her Chinese clothing and food as symbols of her continued foreign status. As white Americans increasingly agitated against Chinese immigration in the 1870s and 1880s, Chinese families found themselves the object of greater scrutiny, and they became important players in the overall debate over the future of the Chinese in America. By the mid-nineteenth century, the image of the two-parent family was vital to white, middle-class Americans, who Recentering the Chinese Family : 43 envisioned the home as a haven against the corrupting influences of the outside world. Fathers, and especially mothers, played crucial roles in preserving the innocence and malleability of their children. The changes accompanying industrialization, urbanization, and immigration threatened to undermine the sanctity of the middle-class American family and the ideal of the sheltered childhood. The apparently deviant family relations of the Chinese in San Francisco stood in opposition to the ideal two-parent family model of the American middle class. As the debate between American and Chinese leaders illustrates, the controversy over Chinese immigration spilled over into discussions of daily life and ultimately became a dispute over ideal family models. The intent of this chapter is to recenter the Chinese family in the historical narrative by focusing on the significance of Chinese family life within the conflict over Chinese immigration. More importantly, however, this chapter considers how the Chinese surmounted substantial barriers to ensure the safety of their children and establish a uniquely Chinese American family life in San Francisco. attacks by the anti-chinese movement Without the immigration of thousands of Chinese women and children to the United States beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, Chinese families could never have developed, nor could an identifiably Chinese American community have emerged. Although anti-Chinese politicians and labor leaders sought primarily to limit the influx of male laborers to America, they attacked Chinese family life as well. As we saw in the last chapter, prominent politicians and journalists generated propaganda that attempted to arouse the anger of white voters, not only by highlighting examples of vice and disease in Chinatown but also by criticizing Chinese immigrant men for failing to bring their families to America. The speeches, pamphlets, and promotional literature of politicians and various labor organizations appealed to the sensibilities of American middle-class men and women by emphasizing the unwillingness or inability of Chinese immigrants to establish normal family relations, as well as the possible dangers of intermarriage between Chinese men and American women. The Chinese in America seemed to represent the most visible threat to the sanctity of the white middle-class household. Anti-Chinese writers argued that the small number of Chinese families in San Francisco served as evidence of Chinese unwillingness and inability to adapt to American society or con- 44 : Recentering the Chinese Family tribute to the economy. These critics not only denounced the failure of Chinese immigrants to establish families in the United States; they also condemned the few existing Chinese American families for failing to raise...