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

In Unbound Feet, Judy Yung traces the experience of Chinese women in San Francisco from the mid-1800s to the end of the World War II. The particular strength of this book lies in the success with which it captures multiple sociohistorical forces and the complex, often contradictory and diverse ways in which they played out in the lives of Chinese women in San Francisco. The rich accounts of individual women’s lives continually remind us of the agency of the women and the variability with which they responded to larger social forces.

Yung begins the book with a brief account of her own family history of migration from China and settlement in the United States, starting with her maternal great-grandfather and her paternal grandfather. The chapters that follow offer a chronologically organized account of the experiences of Chinese women in San Francisco. In producing this account, the author draws on a wide range of primary sources: government documents, census data, the archives of Christian and Chinese women’s organizations, Chinese- and English-language newspapers, oral histories, personal memoirs, and photographs.

A central question throughout this book is that of women’s status. Specifically, how did migration and settlement affect gender relations among Chinese immigrants and their descendants? As suggested by the title of the book, Yung’s approach to this question is organized around the metaphor of footbinding. In her introduction, the author argues that she does not use the metaphor to imply that the status of Chinese women in the United States moved only in a linear direction. However, progress is one of the basic themes of the book. We see Chinese American women make progress over time, moving away from patriarchal traditions and gaining greater control over their lives. To be sure, the course of progress is uneven and bumpy rather than smooth; however, its essentially positive direction is clear. In light of this theme of progressive change, I often found myself wanting more information about the contradictions of the “forward” movement that Yung describes and the possible long-term costs for women of integration into the larger United States society.

Chapter One, “Bound Feet,” deals with Chinese women’s experiences in the United States in the nineteenth century. The chapter looks at the experiences of women in vastly different circumstances, including those who were coerced into prostitution and those who entered as the wives of Chinese merchants. But across these circumstances, the lives of Chinese women remained “bound,” constrained by United States racism as well as the force of patriarchal Chinese traditions.

Chapter Two, “Unbound Feet,” discusses the period of 1902–1929, where we see an overall improvement in women’s lives, with a decline in prostitution and the loosening of cultural constraints on women with the rise of nationalist and women’s movements in China. Yung describes the growing involvement of women in community organizations. Immigrant wives also came to be seen as indispensable partners in the family economy, as men struggled with racism in the United States labor market.

Chapter Three, “First Steps,” is about the experiences of the second generation during the 1920s. The second-generation women struggled with the conflicts and problems generated by acculturation and continued discrimination in the United States labor market. But they also branched out into clerical and sales jobs and created family lives that were more egalitarian then those of their mothers.

In Chapter Four, “Long Strides,” we learn that Chinese Americans of San Francisco were protected to a significant degree from the tragedies of the Great Depression of the 1930s by Chinatown’s segregated economy and resources. Chinese Americans were incorporated into the federal relief programs initiated at this time. In 1938, the Chinese American women garment workers launched a strike, an event that marked a movement towards growing political participation and empowerment for women.

The final chapter of the book, “In Step,” deals with the war years, 1931–1945. Yung identifies this time as an important turning...