Streetscape & Memory: Chinese Urban Pioneer Images

Is there a way for me to email you some of these images? I’m curious if you can glean anything about these children from the very poor quality images.

Thanks!

And I love your posts. Got me to sign up on tumblr!

After 1888, a masonry building was constructed at that address, and it had at least three floors on the Dupont St. side. However, it appeared to have extended down the hill on Clay St. which added at least one floor and a floor below the Dupont St. grade. See the later photos here at my new blogsite: https://medium.com/p/fecef539c281

“A Goldsmith’s Shop,” c. 1896 – 1906. Photograph by Arnold Genthe (from the collection of the Library of Congress). Historian Jack Tchen identified this photograph of the founder of the Tin Fook Jewelry Store (天福首飾; canto: “tin1 fuk1 sau2 sik1”) at 727 Jackson Street, owned by The Chew family.

A Goldsmith for All Seasons

Among the images captured by photographer Arnold Genthe, known of pre-1906 San Francisco Chinatown, was a goldsmith's shop in Chinatown. In his 1984 book, Genth's Photographs of San Francisco's Old Chinatown, historian John Kuo Wei ("Jack") Tchen wrote about Genthe's photograph of "A Goldsmith's Shop" as follows:

“Seen in this rare indoor shot are the typical carved and gilded sign, the intricate gilded carving of symbolic animals framing the counter, and the teakwood furniture imported from Vietnam. Mr. Chew, a a San Yi [三邑; canto: “Saam1 Yap1”] gold miner, opened Tin Fook as a cooperative store serving Chinese miners. At the time the store was located on the waterfront, off Kearney[sic] Street between Washington and Clay. Chinese miners would regularly deposit their gold in his safe at no interest. (General provision stores also commonly served in this manner as banks.) When they accumulated enough gold or wanted to return to China, these miners would have Mr. Chew make various gold objects to sneak past the customs officials. He frequently made gold belts and gold chains which could be sewn into the seams of clothing. It is said that once he made a solid gold frying pan which was blackened with soot to make it look authentic. Tin Fook reportedly had a sterling reputation among Chinatown residents.”

Forty years ago, Tchen (for whom access to old Chinatown’s business directories was more difficult prior to the deployment of the Internet), erroneously located the Tin Fook jewelry store (天福首飾; canto: “tin1 fuk1 sau2 sik1”) at 727 Jackson Street, its post-1906 address. The old Chinese Exchange directories show Tin Fook operated before the earthquake and fire of 1906 at 711-1/2 Jackson with an old phone listing as “China 526” from 1903 to 1905. Somewhat mysteriously, the jeweler appears nowhere in the Chinese business listings prior to the phone directories.

Genthe's "A Goldsmith's Shop" shares a Chew family connection with another of his striking photographs, “The Wild Cat (for the Highbinder’s feast of the uncooked meat).”

“The Wild Cat (for the Highbinder’s feast of the uncooked meat),” c. 1902 - 1906. Photograph by Arnold Genthe (from the collection of the Library of Congress). A sidewalk vendor arranges his wild game products, including a wildcat carcass. One of the men in the background is an itinerant fortune teller.

Although Genthe apparently did not identify the individual dressing the wild cat carcass, Tchen speculated that it may have been “Wing Chew, the son of the original owner of the Tin Fook jewelry store, [who] used to disappear into the mountains for a few days and bag a wildcat for sale in Chinatown…. ”

As Tchen alludes, Tin Fook’s founder, being an immigrant from the Sam Yap (三邑) region of Guangdong province would have been significant in shaping both his business and social standing in pre-1906 Chinatown. The districts of Nanhai, Panyu, and Shunde comprise the Sam Yap linguistic and cultural area of the province. It was one of the primary sources of the earliest Chinese migration to California, particularly among Cantonese-speaking merchants and artisans (and before the larger influx of laborers from the Toisanese-speaking counties). Immigrants from the Sam Yap area were well-represented among skilled tradesmen, including goldsmiths and jewelers, as well as merchants who formed the economic backbone of Chinatown.

The founding Chew's origins likely influenced his access to trade networks, labor, and capital, as many business dealings in Chinatown were structured around kinship ties, village associations (huiguan 會館), and district-based fraternal organizations. If he belonged to the influential Sam Yap merchant association, he would have benefited from mutual support, credit access, and community protection in an era of racial exclusion. Additionally, the Sam Yap people had a long tradition of craftsmanship and commerce, which may have helped him establish himself as a jeweler with expertise valued both within and beyond the Chinese community.

Furthermore, as a Chinese immigrant in an era of strict anti-Chinese laws, including the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), his status as a merchant (rather than a laborer) would have been crucial. Merchants were among the few Chinese immigrants exempt from exclusion laws and could sometimes travel between the U.S. and China, maintain business ties abroad, and even sponsor family members. His success in operating Tin Fook jewelry shop suggests he navigated these constraints skillfully, leveraging his regional background, professional expertise, and community networks to thrive in a difficult legal and economic landscape.

The Tin Fook enterprise, with other goldsmiths and jewelers, played a useful role in the Chinatown economy, especially in an era when Chinese residents were largely excluded from traditional banking institutions due to discriminatory laws and policies. The shops functioned not only as purveyors of jewelry but also as informal financial institutions, where individuals could safely store wealth, secure loans, and conduct financial transactions within the community. Gold, in particular, was often preferred over paper currency as a means of preserving and transferring wealth back to China during the 19th century.

“B 3649 Procession Wong Fong, Chinatown, S.F. Cal.” c. 1884-1888. Photograph by Isaiah West Taber. Taber captured  a street scene showing a procession of Chinese residents walking down a street, carrying lanterns and banners. The exact date of the photograph is not known, but contemporary newspaper accounts reported that “thousands” of non-Chinese viewed the parade as least by 1887. (“Procession Wong Fong” reposes in several collections, including the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley.”

The Wong Fong Parades of Old Chinatown

Long before Chinese dragons became a highlight of San Francisco Chinatown’s Lunar New Year parade—the largest in North America—they made their way through the streets for the Wong Fong or Hau Wong celebration, a tradition dating back to the late 19th century.

Hau Wong or Hou Wang (Chinese: 侯王; canto: “hau4 wong4”; pinyin: “Hóu Wáng”), which can be translated literally as “Prince Marquis” or “Holy Marquis,” is the title usually accorded to General Yeung Leung-jit [zh] (楊亮節; 杨亮节; canto: “joeng4 loeng6 zit3”; pinyin: “Yáng Liàngjiē”).  Despite his failing health, this reputedly loyal and courageous general chose to remain in the army to protect the last emperor of the Southern Song dynasty when the Song court fled southwards and took refuge in Kowloon.

The San Francisco Chinese community’s public and colorful reverence for the deified general prior to 1906 attracted the interest of not only the city’s press but also pioneer photographers such as Isaiah West Taber. 

The city’s newspapers frequently published reports about the Chinatown community’s public veneration of Hau Wong. For example, on September 26, 1884, the Chinatown community of San Francisco staged an extraordinary parade and celebration in honor of the 2,000th birthday of “How Wong,” a revered general of the “Canton District,” as the Daily Alta California newspaper described in its issue of the following day. The event had been meticulously organized by the Yeong Wo Company, one of what the reporter described as the “six influential district associations in America.”   

The Yeong Wo Association (陽和會館;  lit. “Yeong Wo Hall”; canto: “Yoeng4 Wo4 wui6 gun2“)  is one of the original district associations that formed the Chinese Six Companies in San Francisco around 1850, serving as a key organization representing Chinese immigrants from Heungshan (now Zhongshan) County in Guangdong Province. As part of the Six Companies, the Yeong Wo played a vital role in advocating for the rights and welfare of Chinese immigrants, providing social services, mediating disputes, and offering financial assistance. It also helped members navigate challenges such as anti-Chinese discrimination and restrictive immigration laws. Today, the Yeong Wo continues to operate as a significant cultural and community organization, preserving Chinese heritage and supporting the Chinese American community.

Detail from the “vice” map commissioned by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in July 1885 (from the collection of the Chinese Historical Society of America).

Contemporary directories indicate that the Yeong Wo moved from 727 to 730 Sacramento St. in 1881, and its acquisition of new headquarters and temple facilities, accessed by a courtyard from the north side of Sacrament Street into a mid-block space (as shown by the city’s 1885 Chinatown map), undoubtedly played a role in its sponsorship of the Wong Fong festivities.

“Scene in the Joss House” from the September 22, 1903, issue of the San Francisco Call newspaper.  The image purported to be the shrine of Hou Wong used in the Wong Fong celebratory parade of that year.  How Wong or Hou Wang (Chinese: 侯王; canto: “hau4 wong4”; pinyin: “Hóu Wáng”) can be translated as “Prince Marquis” or “Holy Marquis,” and represented the title usually accorded to Yeung Leung-jit [zh] (楊亮節; 杨亮节; canto: “yoeng4 loeng6 zit3”; pinyin: “Yáng Liàngjiē”).  Despite his failing health, this reputedly loyal and courageous general remained in the army to protect the last emperor of the Southern Song dynasty when his court fled southwards and took refuge in Kowloon.

The idol of Wong Fong was housed in the Yeong Wo’s temple on Brooklyn Place (a.k.a. Alley). Early in the morning, he was ceremoniously placed in a sedan chair, and by 10 o’clock, a grand procession of nearly 1,000 Chinese residents had assembled to escort him to a theater.  Leading the procession was Captain Ned McLaughlin, who carried out his duties as Grand Marshal with a flourish that rivaled the most distinguished drum-major. Behind him rode a Chinese gong band in horse-drawn carriages, followed by an honor guard composed of four men armed with Springfield rifles, four wielding spears, and four carrying crossbows.  Encircling Wong Fong, the guards presented a display of martial prowess.

The parade featured a striking array of banners and flags, including both the Stars and Stripes and the imperial dragon flag, carried side by side. Participants of all backgrounds—men and women, young and old, adorned in elaborate garments—marched alongside intricate pagodas, floral arrangements, and other elaborate displays. Among the most remarkable sights was a long wooden beam mounted on a pivot, with a Chinese youth at each end, dressed in armor and wielding swords. As the beam spun, the two performers engaged in a mock battle, reenacting scenes from the warrior exploits of Wong Fong.

Another dramatic highlight was an immense dragon, stretching fifty feet in length. Hidden within its brilliant-hued body, a dozen men manipulated the creature’s movements, their feet barely visible beneath its undulating form. The dragon surged across the street in a serpentine motion, while the bearer controlling its head made the enormous jaws snap open and shut, producing a hissing sound that added to the spectacle.

“Chinese Parade with the Dragon” c. 1882–1892. Photographer unknown (from the Marilyn Blaisdell collection). This elevated view toward the north on Stockton Street shows a dragon-led parade moving south on Stockton. Men (for whom Victor Nee would describe almost a century later as the “bachelor society”) comprise most of the crowd at street level. Other onlookers appear from rooftops, windows and the store awning in the center of the photo. The porch with iron railing at far left is part of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.  This photo, and another photograph taken by A.J. McDonald show parade participants carrying a portable gate preceding the main procession of the dragon. Two Chinese ideograms across the top of the gate read 禹門 (lit. “Yu Gate;” canto:”Yu munh”). The 禹 character referred to a near-mythical sage-king of ancient China, known as Yu the Great (大禹; canto: “dai Yu”) or “Yu the Engineer.”

After weaving through the city’s main thoroughfares, the procession arrived at the Grand Theatre on Washington Street. There, How Wong’s effigy was placed in a position of honor while the company performed a dramatic reenactment of his legendary deeds. The festivities continued into the evening with a grand feast at the Yeong Wo’s temple, and the celebration repeated the following morning before How Wong was returned to his resting place—until his next birthday.

Chinese parade with a dragon east down Washington Street and past pawnshops and the Grand Theatre in Chinatown, c. 1882. Photographer unknown. The dragon appears identical to the one shown in the preceding series of photos of the Stockton Street parade. However, unlike the apparent Sacramento Street route taken in the preceding series by Taber and McDonald, this procession is moving east down Washington toward Dupont Street (as confirmed by the inscription on the street lamp at lower left corner of the image).

The public veneration of Hau Wong returned the following year, when Chinatown mounted an even more lavish event.  In a September 17, 1885, issue of the Stockton Mail newspaper, a correspondent filed a “San Francisco Letter” which contained an eyewitness account of that year’s Hau Wong parade. 

The dispatch from San Francisco was also notable for including one of the first descriptions of Chinese brandishing not only traditional Chinese ceremonial weaponry but also firearms, indicating that the city’s Chinese “have been well supplied with arms and ammunition in expectation of an attack by the followers of Dr. O'Donnell,” who had been advocating for their violent expulsion.

Although it remains unclear if the Wong Fong celebration went on a hiatus, it made the news again two years later on a vibrant day in 1887, when San Francisco's Chinatown was transformed into a spectacle of color and sound. Businesses closed their doors, and, as the Daily Alta California reported on September 24, “the dragon flag flew from every staff in the Mongolian quarter” in honor of the “birthday of Tang Wong, the presiding deity of the Yeong Wo Company.” The Wong Fong parade, according to the newspaper, represented the culmination of six months of event preparations by the Chinese

Headlines from the Daily Alta California, September 24, 1887

In a foreshadowing of larger parades 66 years later, Chinatown’s streets filled with a sea of onlookers, “thousands of white people” joined Chinese, eager to witness the Wong Fong parade.  Dragon flags waved from every staff, and the air buzzed with anticipation.

The procession commenced at around 11 a.m. with a grand display of traditional Chinese culture. Leading the parade were striking banners and elaborately decorated floats.  A magnificent, parti-colored paper dragon, stretching an impressive 170 feet, snaked its way through the streets, carried by fifty-two men.  Miniature pagodas, adorned with burning incense and floral offerings, were paraded before the dragon.  The men carrying the dragon wore distinctive hats resembling inverted washbowls, embellished with golden-colored hair and gold buttons. 

“Procession of the Dragon” c. 1892.  The artist for this illustration, based closely on photo “B3649 Procession Wong Fong” by Isaiah West Taber, inserted a flag for dramatic effect. The flag appears absent not only from Taber’s original image and derivative illustrations, but also other photos taken of the same parade on Stockton Street. The second illustration, “Procession Wong Fong – The Most Representative Public Celebration Among the Chinese in San Francisco” 1895, is a reprint of a painting by “Thulstrup from photographs by Taber” and published as a magazine illustration. The illustration appears based on photo B 3649 by Isaiah West Taber and perhaps variants of the same Wong Fong parade proceeding south on Stockton Street.

Taber’s photo and the illustrations of the same event confirm the interest in viewing the Wong Fong parade by white Chinese San Franciscans, foreshadowing the Chinatown community’s invitation to, and participation of, non-Chinese in the New Year celebration of 1953.  

Following the dragon came a captivating array of participants.  Maidens, dressed in their finest attire, rode gracefully on horseback.  Priests, clad in richly colored robes, walked solemnly in the procession.  Other participants carried large, ornate lanterns, adding to the visual splendor.  Among them were men identified as descendants of Mandarins or members of the "blue blood" class, and students representing the Chinese Empire, each group distinguished by unique tablets.  A particularly striking figure was a large, fantastically constructed serpent with a large head, horns, bright eyes, and a wide-open mouth.

Chinese parade on Dupont Street, no date but prior to 1906. Photographer unknown (from a private collection). 

The parade also featured warriors carrying an assortment of weapons, including blubber-knives, long guns (described as “O’Donnell rifles” to dissuade interference by anti-Chinese agitators led by the ten-city coroner), tridents, machetes, and axes.  They marched with a spirited air, drawing cheers from the crowd.  A maiden and a youth rode in a wagon, and two young boys engaged in mock combat with wooden spears.  Before the dragon, several priests walked, periodically attempting to place golden balls into its mouth, seemingly as an offering.  The crowd watched intently as the dragon appeared poised to consume one of the worshippers.

Chinese bearing traditional infantry weapons prepare to march in a San Francisco parade. No date. Photographer unknown (from the collection of The Bancroft Library). Newspaper accounts of parades in pre-1906 Chinatown frequently reported on the traditional Qing-era weaponry displayed in community processions and parades.

The Daily Alta article significantly recites that the 1887 parade paused at the Yeong Wo’s “newly constructed” temple on the third floor at 730 Sacramento Street, which suggests that the association had recently refurbished its temple premises, although it had occupied its quarters on the north side of Sacramento since at least 1881. 

After arriving at the Yeong Wo’s building, priests entered the building to install the “Pak Seek Tan Wong” into its new place of worship.  The dragon was ceremoniously brought to rest amidst lamentations and the sounds of tin-pan music.  Two chiefs prostrated themselves before an image representing the "sender of rain," seemingly oblivious to the onlookers.  After a period of kneeling, one of the chiefs threw a piece of curved wood, inscribed with Chinese characters, into the air, signifying the conclusion of the day's festivities.  Incense filled the air, and the sounds of firecrackers echoed through the streets as merchants burned them in large quantities.

The Daily Alta California followed up with another report about a second day of Wong Fong-related festivities in its September 25, 1887, issue. Again, the interest displayed by non-Chinese in the parade’s pageantry was significant.

From the Daily Alta California, September 25, 1887.

Two years later, the Daily Alta California provided over the course of three days’ coverage (September 2-4, 1899) another rich account of the feast of Wong Gow [sic] or Hau Wong, a celebration of what the newspaper referred to as the “Chinese God of Charity” in San Francisco’s Chinatown.  

On the first day of the 1899 event, organized by what the reporter mistakenly referred to as the association of “Yung Wo”province, notably involved feeding thousands of people, including impoverished Chinese residents and American transients, at various locations throughout Chinatown. The main distribution of food took place at the Yeong Wo’s 730 Sacramento Street building, where apparently no one was turned away. Sidewalks were transformed into banquet tables, accommodating the large crowds seeking free meals.

During the festivities, many eating-houses were decorated with lanterns, fans, rugs, and images, creating an elaborate and artistic display. In addition to the charitable feast, the Yeong Wo planned a grand procession to celebrate their annual harvest festival. The parade was scheduled to move through the principal streets of Chinatown, with rumors that it might extend onto Kearny Street. The event featured josses, banners, human figures, and a large dragon, which had been expanded to sixty feet with additional details since its previous appearance. A small army of Chinese men in traditional dress carried the dragon, followed by performers skilled in acts such as tambourine and kettledrum playing.

The newspaper reported on September 3 that the parade was to begin at 10 a.m. from the corner of Stockton and Jackson Streets, with expectations of a successful and vibrant celebration following days of festivities. 

On the following day, the Daily Alta California described the September 2 parade the grand parade in Chinatown led by the American flag and accompanied by gong-pounders, flute players, and a large joss representing “Wong Gow.”  A paper dragon, described as the deity’s deadly foe, was also featured prominently. Crowds filled the sidewalks, rooftops, and windows along the parade route, with Chinatown decorated in colorful lanterns and filled with the aroma of roast pork and garlic.

Before the parade began, the streets were packed with participants, ensuring that nearly every Chinese resident in the city, from rag-pickers to boarders, was in attendance. At 10 o’clock, the march commenced down Stockton Street to Sacramento, proceeding to Kearny, Commercial, Dupont, and Clay, before weaving through Chinatown’s smaller lanes. The parade was led by three Chinese men, followed by a woman riding a slow-moving horse. Behind them, thousands of participants, both on foot and horseback, dressed in bright traditional clothing, moved in rapid succession.

The newspaper printed a third story in its issue of September 4, 1889, that the Yeong Wo repeated the parade it had held on Monday, September 2.  On the second day of festivities, thousands of spectators gathered to witness the parade, which was marked by the usual fusillade of firecrackers and an atmosphere of excitement throughout Chinatown. The procession again began around 10 a.m. in front of a joss house on Washington Street. The line of parade participants marched up Washington to Stockton, then proceeded south on Stockton to Sacramento, onto Dupont, and through the principal alleys and streets of Chinatown.

The event lasted until approximately 4:30 p.m., when the participants gathered at a house on Washington Street to conclude the celebration with worship. Following the religious rites, the dragon was ceremonially laid away. Throughout the parade, thousands of onlookers had lined the streets, observing what the article referred to as the “queer actions” of the Chinese participants. The event also attracted a significant number of European visitors staying in the city, who reportedly expressed surprise at the manner in which the Chinese community celebrated its festivals.

As usual, the highlight of the parade was an enormous dragon carried by 100 men. The dragon was adorned with three glaring eyes, a red nose, and green paint with tinsel. A Chinese warrior walked ahead of it, pretending to attack the creature with a spear, causing it to roll its eyes and open its mouth. At the conclusion of the parade, the dragon was taken to a Chinese theater, where a special performance was held in its honor. The newspaper notes that the procession was scheduled to be repeated the following morning.

The Yeong Wo Association apparently continued How Wong celebrations in succeeding years.  In 1903 the San Francisco Call published its account of what had become an eight-day festival in Chinatown:

“A Street Scene in the Chinese Quarter of San Francisco, Cal., during the Celebration of the Chinese New Year’s” c. 1888. Lithograph based on a sketch by Joseph Baker and published in the Harper’s Weekly (from a private collection).

Notes about an Old Chinatown Picture Worth (not quite) 1,000 Words

On this Chinese New Year's parade-day, 2025, it is only appropriate to examine an image of one of the early celebrations of the Lunar New Year by San Francisc's Chinese residents.

The illustrator for Harper's Weekly captured for one of the magazine's 1888 issues the predominantly male presence at the street level, reflecting the bachelor society that characterized Chinatown until the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (Hart-Celler Act). This demographic pattern was a consequence of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which barred most Chinese immigration and severely restricted family formation. Even after the symbolic repeal of the Exclusion Act in 1943, the restrictive National Origins Quota system continued to allow only 105 Chinese immigrants per year—a paltry number that kept the gender imbalance largely intact. Some Chinese WWII veterans were able to bring wives under the War Brides Act of 1945, but the overall social structure of Chinatown remained male-dominated. (Lee, 2003; Takaki, 1993).

Firearms & Resistance Several individuals are brandishing muzzle-loading firearms—outdated by 1888 standards but indicative of Chinese firearm ownership in self-defense. In 1885, anti-Chinese violence erupted in Rock Springs, Wyoming, and Tacoma, Washington, leading to mass killings and expulsions of Chinese residents. In response, some Chinese communities armed themselves. The Bingham Ordinance (1890) in San Francisco attempted to disarm Chinese residents under the pretense of public safety, but Chinese gun ownership persisted until the California Alien Firearms Law of 1920, which effectively disarmed non-citizens—targeting Chinese and Japanese immigrants. (McClain, 1994; Gyory, 1998).

Economic & Social Markers • Food and Beverage Vendor (Lower Left): The man carrying a lantern and food containers represents itinerant vendors who catered to the overwhelmingly male population without families to cook for them. Chinatown’s economy relied heavily on street hawkers, despite frequent anti-Chinese municipal ordinances meant to restrict their movement. (Yung, 2006). • Cigar-Smoking Man (Left): Chinatown was a major center for cigar manufacturing in the late 19th century, employing thousands of Chinese workers in hand-rolling operations. By the 1880s, the anti-Chinese Knights of Labor were actively campaigning against these workshops, alleging they undercut white laborers. (Saxton, 1971). • Laundry and Traditional Medicine Signs: The visible signage indicates two core sectors of Chinatown’s economy—laundries and Chinese herbal medicine shops. The laundry industry became a legal battleground in the 1880s, culminating in Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886), where the U.S. Supreme Court struck down racially discriminatory laws targeting Chinese laundries. (Salyer, 1995).

Cultural & Legal Nuances • Separation of Women (Upper Balcony): The artist captures a real social dynamic documented by photographers like I.W. Taber—Chinese women were often spectators from balconies, removed from the overwhelmingly male public street life. However, the hairstyles and accessories shown here are questionable; the long hairpins resemble Japanese kanzashi, which were not common in Qing-era Chinese dress. Instead, Chinese women’s hairstyles of this period typically featured coiled buns, sometimes held with combs rather than long pins. (Chang, 2003). • Bucket Carrier with Carry-Pole (Center): The man carrying fish with a shoulder pole is subtly defying city law. San Francisco banned carry-poles on sidewalks in the 1870s, citing them as a public nuisance (though the real motivation was to restrict Chinese labor). However, this individual appears to be complying technically by walking in the middle of the cobblestone street. (Ling, 2010).

Some Additional Observations • Firecrackers and Festivity: The glowing embers and scattered debris indicate firecrackers, a key part of Chinese New Year celebrations, meant to ward off evil spirits. Many non-Chinese residents saw them as an annoyance, leading to repeated attempts to ban firecrackers in San Francisco, culminating in restrictions by the early 1900s. (Light, 2012). • Hats & Attire: Most men are wearing jackets and round-crowned hats with upturned brims, both characteristic of Chinese laborers. The variation in clothing reflects class distinctions, with some appearing wealthier. Wealthier merchants typically wore longer robes and silk garments, while laborers wore shorter jackets and cotton or hemp fabric. (Liu, 1998). • Crowd Density & Movement: The scene conveys bustling activity, with arms raised, heads turning, and figures engaged in various interactions—capturing a moment of celebration, in contrast to more static or staged depictions of Chinatown common in contemporary white-American newspaper illustrations and photos.

For further reading:

• Chang, Iris. The Chinese in America: A Narrative History. Penguin, 2003. • Gyory, Andrew. Closing the Gate: Race, Politics, and the Chinese Exclusion Act. UNC Press, 1998. • Lee, Erika. At America's Gates: Chinese Immigration During the Exclusion Era, 1882-1943. UNC Press, 2003. • Light, Ivan. Deflecting Immigration: Networks, Markets, and Regulation in Los Angeles. Russell Sage Foundation, 2012. • Ling, Huping. Chinese Chicago: Race, Transnational Migration, and Community Since 1870. Stanford University Press, 2010. • Liu, Haiming. The Transnational History of a Chinese Family: Immigrant Letters, Family Business, and Reverse Migration. Rutgers University Press, 1998. • McClain, Charles J. In Search of Equality: The Chinese Struggle Against Discrimination in Nineteenth-Century America. University of California Press, 1994. • Saxton, Alexander. The Indispensable Enemy: Labor and the Anti-Chinese Movement in California. University of California Press, 1971. • Salyer, Lucy. Laws Harsh as Tigers: Chinese Immigrants and the Shaping of Modern Immigration Law. UNC Press, 1995. • Takaki, Ronald. Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans. Little, Brown, 1993. • Yung, Judy. San Francisco's Chinatown: A Guide to Its History and Architecture. University of California Press, 2006.

“'North Side of Montgomery Street, From California to Sacramento,“ published in 1856. Photograph by George R. Fardon (from the Martin Behrman Negative Collection/curtesy of the Golden Gate NRA, Park Archives). In this elevated view of the northwest corner of California and Montgomery Streets, the Wells Fargo & Co. Bankers and express office has moved into the Parrott Building. Vance's Ambrotype appears at right. The John Parrot Building was the first granite-faced building constructed in San Francisco in 1852 after a great fire in 1851 destroyed this section of the financial district. Due to the scarcity of seasoned lumber, the building was built with imported granite from stone quarried and cut to specification in China.

Wells Fargo Bank and the Chinese

The announcement in December 2024 by Wells Fargo Bank that it will vacate and sell its headquarters and museum building on Montgomery Street in San Francisco called to mind the bank's origins and the pioneer Chinese community’s pivotal role in rescuing the then-fledgling banking institution during the financial crisis of 1855. At a time when economic instability threatened the bank’s future, Chinese merchants and laborers rallied to deposit their hard-earned wealth, offering critical stability and trust.

The remarkable story about how the bank's partnership with the community began was recounted vividly by the late Thomas Chinn, a renowned historian of Chinese American history and founder of the Chinese Historical Society of America, in his book Bridging the Pacific. The pertinent excerpt from Chinn’s book follows.

The John Parrot Building, the very first granite-faced building in San Francisco, was erected on the corner of Montgomery and California streets in 1852. The granite for its construction was cut, polished, and fitted in old granite quarries in China before being shipped to San Francisco. But the quarrying of the granite was not to be the end of Chinese involvement with this building. And Wells Fargo Bank, as it turned out, had good reason to be glad about that. A great fire had swept through San Francisco in 1851. The building housing the offices of the flourishing Adams & Company, express agents who handled the major portion of gold shipments from the mines, was among those destroyed, and they planned a brand new style of building to replace their old quarters. The firm engaged John Parrot to build a new, three-story office building on the northwest corner of Montgomery and California streets. To save time and money, because heavy timber would need to be cut, sawn, seasoned, and then transported to the site, Parrot devised another plan. He decided to import granite, cut to specification, polished, and ready for assembly, from China. When the stones arrived in San Francisco, however, the markings indicating their placement were found to be in Chinese. Caucasian workmen, of course, could not understand the markings, and so Chinese laborers were recruited from the city's Chinatown to put together the first stone building in San Francisco. When the Chinese masons arrived to assemble the huge granite pieces, they looked at the Chinese words on the finished stone, looked at the spot on which the building was to be put up, and refused to work on the project. The stones sat there until a builder from China could be hired and brought over to do the job. When the builder arrived, he and his crew went straight to the site. A local group watched as he examined the stones, the markings, and the site, which he went over with compass and tape measure. Finally he told them, "You are placing the building on the wrong corner of the street. It must be erected on the opposite side. The stones are all cut and marked for the other corner, where no evil influences will be encountered. Building here will bring you bad luck."

Elevated view north on Montgomery from California, showing buildings on west side of street, 1865. Photographer unknown (from the Martin Behrman Negative Collection/courtesy of the Golden Gate NRA, Park Archives). At left, the Wells Fargo Express office and bank appears in the Parrott Building, or Parrott Block (1852, Architect Stephen Williams), on the northwest corner of the intersection. Two horsecars roll in a southerly direction, the signage for Silas Selleck's Photographic Gallery (415 Montgomery) appears at upper-center on the side of a building, and Telegraph Hill appears in distance.

The American contractors wouldn't listen, however. They decreed that the building would be built as planned, evil spirits or no evil spirits. The Chinese builder said that no good would come of the undertaking, and he refused to have anything to do with it, as did all of the local Chinese. They knew, as for many centuries their ancestors had known, that going contrary to these ancient beliefs would lead to calamity. The Chinese had always done all they could to protect themselves from evil spirits. They suggested that, if John Parrot and his builder insisted on going ahead with their foolish plan, they should exorcise the evil spirits by preparing a tray with some rice and three cups of tea, placing a lighted incense stick at each corner, burning some yellow or gold paper, and emptying the three cups of tea on the burning paper while scattering the rice. This, they said, would have the effect of drawing away the evil spirits and appeasing the good ones. But the Americans refused to perform the ceremony. After spending much time and labor to determine the placement of each stone, Parrot completed the structure, which finally cost $117,000. It was occupied immediately by Adams & Company. Over the entrance hung huge signs that read “Adams & Company, Bankers and Express” and “Page, Bacon & Company, Bankers.” The latter occupied part of the first floor and was closely related to Adams & Company. Each day, the bulk of the state's newly mined gold was stored here before being shipped by boat to the U.S. mint in Philadelphia. From the very beginning, no Chinese ever went into the building, nor would they ship their gold through the Adams & Company express. They seemed to favor a thriving little express company called Wells, Fargo & Company, located farther down Montgomery Street, dwarfed by larger buildings.

View northeast from across intersection the intersection of California and Montgomery Street toward the buildings on east side of Montgomery in July 1855. Photograph by George R. Fardon (Martin Behrman Negative Collection/Courtesy of the Golden Gate NRA, Park Archives). At right, the Express Building built by Sam Brannan appears, which served as the headquarters of Wells Fargo 1854-1855. Also seen from right to left: The C. Th. Hauchar apothecary in Masonic Hall, French Spanish bookstore, Dr. David Burbank Dentist, Sam Brannan's Armory Hall at the Sacramento Street corner, the Alta California newspaper offices, and Telegraph Hill in the background above and to the left.

Adams & Company seemed to do well in its new building and gradually became the most widespread express agency on the West Coast. It had an office in every camp and town of importance in California. Page, Bacon & Company also grew to become the largest banking concern on the coast. The smaller Wells, Fargo & Company was not far behind, however. It soon occupied a large stone building across from Adams & Company, on the very comer on which the Chinese builder had wanted to erect the Parrot building. When Wells Fargo moved into its new building, there was much burning of incense and paper before the temples and buildings in Chinatown, as well as in their mining camps. They seemed to be making every effort to prevent evil spirits from interfering with the progress of their favorite express company and bank. When Wells, Fargo & Company opened up its new building, a long file of Chinese walked in one door of the banking house and out the other. They did not conduct I any business on this first day; they came to pay their respects to their god, who had blessed their favorite bank The new Wells Fargo building seemed of great interest the Chinese. Sometime later, the banking people learned that a certain local Chinese man had made a neat sum by setting up a stall not far from the bank's entrance and charging his fellow countrymen a small fee for the privilege of walking through the building for good luck. By 1855 the competing firms occupying the two buildings seemed to be doing so well that the dire predictions directed toward Adams & Company and Page, Bacon & Company seemed ill-founded. One morning however, into the Golden Gate came the ship Oregon, with it news that shocked the financial foundation of California's banking system. Page, Bacon & Company, leading bankers of St. Louis, had suspended operations. The news started a panic as depositors began a run on Page Bacon's San Francisco branch. Before the day was out, the panic included all the other banks in the city, and it soon spread to the mining camps. Wells Fargo closed its doors for two days to accumulate additional funds. When it reopened, it began paying all its depositors on demand. No Chinese came to take out their gold during the panic, and their mines continued without interruption to ship their gold to Wells Fargo, as if nothing exceptional were happening. After the panic of 1855 had receded, more than 200 San Francisco firms had failed. Their liabilities exceeded 8 million dollars, and their assets were estimated at less than 20 percent of that amount. Of all the city's banks, only Wells Fargo managed to maintain its integrity. The Chinese population in the closing months of 1855 became a major factor in helping to maintain Wells Fargo's position as the leading bank in the city.

“170. San Francisco -- Wells, Fargo & Co’s Express Office - Corner Montgomery & California Streets,” circa 1865. Photograph by Lawrence & Houseworth (from the Martin Behrman Negative Collection/courtesy of the Golden Gate NRA, Park Archives).

“170. Wells, Fargo & Co’s Express Office - Corner Montgomery & California Streets,” circa 1865.” In this elevated view of the Parrott Building on the northwest corner across the intersection, a North Beach & Mission horsecar headed for Willows amusement gardens in Mission District appears in the foreground.

In time the doors of the granite building opened wide once again. But it was not Adams & Company waiting to greet its old customers; Wells Fargo had taken over the John Parrot Building. Before the reopening of the building, Wells Fargo and its Chinese friends had spent much time and made many prayers and offerings to their god of wealth, Choy Pak Sing Kung, to bless the building and look after the welfare of Wells Fargo in its new home.

“Montgy St. & Calif St - SF 1867 – Wells Fargo Express Co.” Photographer unknown ((from the Martin Behrman Negative Collection/courtesy of the Golden Gate NRA, Park Archives). In this elevated view southwest on Montgomery toward California and to the buildings on west side of Montgomery, the Germania Life Insurance appears at the southwest corner of the intersection of California and Montgomery streets. The signage for Wells Fargo Express appears in the Parrott Building, or Parrott Block, seen at center-right.

These efforts must have done the job, because today, more than 130 years later, Wells Fargo is one of the leading banks in the state. And many Chinese are still among its most loyal customers.

The pioneer Chinese community’s support and patronage forged a bond with the bank, and Wells Fargo further cemented this relationship by publishing one of the major Chinese business directories of the 19th century, which became an invaluable resource for the growing Chinese commercial sector in California and beyond, as well as for the broader American business community.

The front and back covers of the Wells Fargo Co. 1882 Directory of Chinese Business Houses. The compilation and release of the directory represented an extraordinary commitment to the community during the same year as the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Copies of the directories from 1871, 1878, and 1882 still exist today in the bank's corporate archives, serving as a testament to the bank's ties with generations of Chinese businesses that lasted nearly 170 years, symbolizing mutual respect and shared prosperity.

By 1882, Wells Fargo & Co. had expanded its “Directory of Chinese Business Houses” to include Chinese businesses throughout California and north to Oregon and British Columbia. Copies of the directories from 1871, 1878, and 1882 still exist today in the bank's corporate archives, serving as a testament to the bank's ties with generations of Chinese businesses that lasted nearly 170 years, symbolizing mutual respect and shared prosperity.

In 2024, Wells Fargo announced the sale of its main building in San Francisco, marking a turning point in a historic relationship but perhaps the final chapter in what was an enduring San Francisco economic partnership.

“An Opium Den, Chinatown, San Francisco, California, U.S.A.” copyright 1896. Photograph by Strohmeyer & Wyman (from the Robert Dennis collection at the New York Public Library).

Old Chinatown: Proving Ground for the US War on Drugs

The opium trade and its use in San Francisco's pre-1906 Chinatown played a significant role in shaping enduring negative perceptions of Chinese Americans, casting a shadow that persists to this day. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, opium dens became a visible symbol of vice in Chinatown, fueling stereotypes of Chinese immigrants as criminals and corrupters of moral society. These harmful narratives were often amplified by sensationalized media stories and racist propaganda, painting Chinese Americans as dangerous outsiders who threatened public health and safety.

“Underground Opium Den in San Francisco” no date. Drawn Henri F. Farny for Harper’s Weekly (from the collection of the California Historical Society).

The legacy of these biases has made the topic of opium’s place in Chinatown's history particularly sensitive, even for the first wave of Chinese American historians during the 20th century. Many community historians are reluctant to explore this dark chapter, concerned that revisiting it might perpetuate harmful stereotypes rather than provide a fuller understanding of the complex socio-economic forces that shaped early Chinese immigrant communities in America.

Opium dens had operated openly in Chinatown almost since its founding. “If Ross Alley was the focal point of gambling activity in the pre-Manion days,” police historian Kevin Mullen wrote in his book Chinatown Squad, “and Sullivan's Alley filled the same role for prostitution, Duncombe Alley—the little street off Jackson Street just below Stockton— had the highest concentration of Nineteenth-Century opium dens.”

Duncombe Alley, 1885. Detail from July 1885 map commissioner by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (from the collection of the Chinese Historical Society of America). The alleyway, named Duncombe Ct. after 1906, still exists, but access from its southern end at Jackson Street is controlled by a private security gate.

In Chinatown’s early years, opium was legal and could be easily purchased at any drugstore, with little enforcement or violence associated with its use. As former Chief of Police Jesse B. Cook recalled in his unpublished memoir Tiger Eye of Chinatown (written in collaboration with Lydia Kingsley), opium usage became a greater law enforcement issue during his years with the Chinatown Squad as addiction spread beyond the Chinese population:

“We had cleaned up gambling in Chinatown but the opium dens were still giving us trouble. There was nothing against a Chinaman’s smoking the drugs, but the Whites were prohibited from the dens. We had to keep a sharp watch for offenders for the use of opium was spreading rapidly and doing a deadly work.

“Approach to an underground Opium Den: Chinaman astonished at the Flash-light. No. 7 5835.” Photograph by Isaiah West Taber.

“There were hundreds of joints in the underground passages of the section before the earthquake drove them out. I never did like going down into those dens; the low rooms were so full of smoke that we couldn’t see the globes of the lamps overhead, and the sweetish smell clung to our clothing for hours after we were in the open air. Men on the picked narcotic squad at headquarters knew what a tough job it was to hold out against the frenzied pleading of drug addicts. “Along with my study of the Chinese language and the history of the tongs in Chinatown, I was to learn a lot about narcotics which stood me in good stead later on in my work as Chief of Police and Commissioner.

“Opium Den underground. By Flash-light, showing double row of smokers: some broke out through the door, others concealed their heads. The lights were blown out as the Photographer entered. No. 5 5833" no date. Photograph by Isaiah West Taber (from a private collection).

“Opium began coming into San Francisco in 1850 from China. It was packed in five tael tins containing six and two-thirds ounces of potential dynamite and the government collected a tax on these boxes which could be resold for from fifteen to twenty dollars and purchased at almost any shop. “Up to 1903, there was practically no law in this country, Federal, State, or Municipal, requiring that opium and its derivatives, heroin and morphine, be sold on prescription. Anyone could buy any quantity. That year 202,140 pounds of opium prepared for smoking and 486,613 pounds for other ways of consumption were imported into the country, and people woke up to the danger of a nation of drug addicts. “The use of opium dates back as far as the memory of man. It was taken back to Europe by the Crusaders who learned of its medical properties through the Arabs, and the Arabs carried it into India and China through their route caravans. The Chinese brought it with them into this country, and it has been here ever since, a problem for law enforcement. “The poppy is known as the “flower of the sleep”. In its seed pods it is a white milky juice which coagulates when the seed capsules are opened to the air. In the poppy fields of China this coagulated juice was scraped off into solid cakes and packed in tins. In this state it was raw opium and had to be cooked before it could be smoked.

"Chinese opium joint in San Francisco. This cat is addicted to the fumes of opium. This den visited in company with Dr. Rupert Blue, Mrs. Victor Blue, Mrs. G. Stoner, E. L. Sampson" -- handwritten caption. Photographer unknown (from the collection of the California State Library).

“The underground opium dens in Chinatown were all provided with cooking and smoking outfits consisting of a tray containing a small lamp, a dipper with a sharp end, a long slender pipe with a little bowl near the center, and a lump of raw opium. “Along the walls of the dens were tiers of shelves filled with Chinamen in all stages of preparation and smoking. They lay in full length on their sides never looking up from their occupation. Each bed had a wooden pillow and a tray containing a lump of raw, sticky opium, a metal dipper with sharp point, a lamp, and a long slender pipe with a small bowl with a small bowl near the center.

“Chinese Opium Smokers at San Francisco” no date. Artist unknown (from a private collection).

“The men preparing to smoke speared a morsel of the cake with the pointed end of the dipper and held it over the flame of the lamp, twirling it around and around between their yellow fingers until it was roasted and shaping it into a pellet against the heated side of the pipe bowl. When the pill looked like burnt wool it was ready to smoke and was twisted off on top of the little opening in the bowl. This operation took about ten minutes and gave- about thirty seconds of bliss. “Domestic opium was made by boiling the scrapings from the pipes in water. The Chinese steamed the appraiser’s government stamps off the imported tins and pasted them on cans packed with domestic opium and made a huge profit. After the appraisers got onto the racket they used a five bladed knife in cutting the stamps and that stopped them. I used to see little lichee nuts filled with opium pills selling for twenty dollars in the bazaars along the streets. … * * * “White men in the opium dens were generally derelicts forth and not worth saving, but we had to herd them out and take them to headquarters night after night. It always went across the grain to see a white face among those yellow faces on the pillows. When white men got that low there wasn’t much hope for them.”

“The Chinaman’s Paradise” no date. Artist unknown (from a private collection). A group of non-Chinese, either “slumming” tourists or missionaries can be seen at left.

The push for anti-drug laws was driven by sensational stories of respectable white women being seduced into opium dens by Chinese operators, never to be seen again. There was some truth to these claims. Many patent medicines, marketed as cures for "female complaints," were laced with opium, leading unsuspecting middle-class white women to develop addictions, with some ultimately ending up in Chinatown opium dens to sustain their habits.

“5965 White women in Opium Den, Chinatown. S.F.” Photograph copyrighted by Isaiah West Taber, May 31, 1892 (from the collection of the Bancroft Library). The veracity of this photo has been questioned as being staged for the photographer, as the individual appearing in the upper left-hand corner appears to be a non-Chinese.

In 1875, San Francisco passed the Opium Den Ordinance, the nation’s first anti-drug law, targeting Chinese opium smoking amid rising anti-Chinese sentiment. This ordinance, spearheaded by Dr. George Hewston during his brief tenure as mayor, aimed to suppress public opium dens, which were increasingly attracting white patrons.

"White Opium 'Joints' of San Francisco," The San Francisco Call, August 5, 1895, reported that increased use by white users of opium and the increasing number of “dope fiends” had “spread beyond the limits of Chinatown” to such an extent that the police had failed to realize “[t]he City is infested with the haunts and dens of opium-smokers.”

The city’s 1875 ordinance, however, it did not ban private use or sales of opium, and Chinese dealers and apothecary businesses frequently evaded the imposed license fees or, if assessed, appealed such impositions. Tourist travelogues confirmed Chinatown Squad member Cook’s observation that city officials and law enforcement did not disrupt Chinese use of opium during this period.

“Opium smokers” c. 1886. Photograph attributed to Isaiah West Taber (from the collection of the California State Library).

In an article titled “The Chinese in San Francisco,” for The Pacific Tourist (Henry T. Williams pub., 1878 p. 323) F.E. Shearer described opium smoking as follows:

“A block serves for a pillow. The opium, pipe, lamp and a five-inch steel needle are all that is necessary to bind the victim in fatal fascination. The poisonous drug is boiled into a thick jelly-like mass, and with the needle a small portion is scraped from the vessel containing it, rolled into a pill on the end of the needle, and placed in the flame until it swells like a soap-bubble, half an inch in diameter. “The pipe has an inverted bowl with a flat, circular top, two inches in diameter, in the center of which is a small opening, in which the heated paste is placed, and as the smoker reclines on his side he places the pipe to the flame and takes two or three short whiffs, removes the pipe, and lies back motionless, while the smoke is blown slowly through his pallid nostrils. He repeats the process till he falls back in a state of silly stupefaction, alike pitiable and disgusting. Once formed, the habit is never given up, and only three or five years will wreck the strongest constitution and noblest manhood.

“Chinese Opium Palace, San Francisco” no date. Artist unknown (frm a private collection).

“Exaggerated stories are told of visits to these dens by youth and women of American descent, tor indulging in this vice, but they are rare and only by the lowest classes of the women.”

By the late 19th century, smuggling opium to avoid import taxes became an issue, mainly affecting the federal Treasury Department. It wasn’t until the early 20th century, when opium and other drugs were outright banned, that the public began to view drug use as a serious problem.

Despite local bans, opium dens persisted, often operating underground and fueling corruption similar to other vices like gambling and prostitution. While Chinese dens were generally left alone, those serving whites were frequently targeted by law enforcement. In 1881, the California Legislature enacted a statewide ban, yet Chinese opium dens continued to thrive and feed anti-Chinese animus.

Opium den and lodge house. Photographer unknown (from the collection of the Library of Congress). The suggested date of 1921 is probably incorrect, particularly in view of the pre-1911 queues worn by the men in the photo.

Such sentiment remained strong, prompting stricter measures, including state Senator George Perry’s 1885 bill to prohibit opium sales without a prescription. Critics argued the bill aimed at extorting bribes from opium dealers, and it was vetoed amid accusations of corruption. Local efforts continued, such as San Francisco’s 1889 law prompted by the San Francisco Medical Society’s concerns about the impact of Chinese opium on youth. This ordinance restricted sales to pharmacies and for medical use only.

Sergeant John Donovan’s Chinatown Squad in 1889. Photographer unknown (from the collection of the Bancroft Library). L. to R. standing - Phil Herrin - D. Campbell - D. Lyons - A. Say - M. Griffin. The squad under Donovan (seated) brandishes the standard axes and sledgehammers. In the foreground, a tray full of an opium pipe and paraphernalia appears, along with ropes used to rappel down from skylights to overcome barricaded doors. The Chinese man is Dong Gong (or “Dong Tying”) the interpreter. “Not surprisingly,” police historian Kevin Mullen wrote about Dong that -- one of the first Chinese auxiliaries to the San Francisco Police Department -- “he was not too popular in some Chinatown quarters and he had a bounty placed on his head.”

Police Commissioner Jesse B. Cook, a former chief of SFPD and a sergeant of the “Chinatown Squad” before the 1906 earthquake, wrote in 1931 about his experience with opium in the city at the turn of the century as follows:

“These kinds of dramatic clampdowns came after decades of San Francisco mostly turning a blind eye to the opium boom. What started with the arrival of 52 boxes of opium in 1861 had created around 300 opium dens by the end of the 1880s. While the city served as the primary American gateway for drug imports from China, law enforcement was slow to do anything about it. … “… At that time nearly every store in Chinatown had an opium layout in the rear for their customers. In those days the Chinese were allowed to smoke opium, provided they did not do so in the presence of a white man. If a white man was present it meant the arrest of all who were in the room at the time. … [S]ome dens could accommodate as many as 100 opium smokers. The opium smoke was sometimes so thick in those dens that the gas jets looked like small matches burning. Opium has a peculiar, sweet smell, not at all distasteful, and many times when coming home from Chinatown after going through dens, people in the cars sitting near me, would be sniffing, smelling the opium in my clothes and wondering what it was. When I got home it would be necessary to undress in an outer room and air my clothes to get the opium fumes out of them.”

“Picturesque San Francisco. Scenes in Chinatown – Opium Den Underground, by flashlight,” April 24, 1897. Photographer unknown (from the collection of the California Historical Society).

Despite these regulations, enforcement was inconsistent, with San Francisco’s law largely becoming ineffective by the early 1890s. By 1893, however, The Chronicle declared the ordinance a "dead letter."

As Dale Gieringer, the California director of NORML, observed in his 2007 op-ed’s recounting of California's then-century-old war on drugs in the Chronicle:

"California’s war on drugs began in earnest with the 1907 amendments. The Board of Pharmacy launched an aggressive campaign and pioneered the modern tactics of drug enforcement. The board hired undercover agents who posed as suffering patients, wheedling drugs from unsuspecting pharmacists, then arresting them. The board swept down on the Chinatown dens, busting down doors and arresting hundreds. It strategically expanded its powers through new legislation. In the crucial move, possession was outlawed in 1909. This set the stage for the criminalization of users . . .”

Two men watch a third prepare to light an opium pipe from a tray in Chinatown, 1903. Photograph by J. M. Williamson M.D. Board of Health (from the collection of the San Francisco Public Library).

The more aggressive and punitive drug enforcement policies often disproportionately impacted Chinese communities involved in the opium trade and use. “The board also moved to ban possession of opium pipes,” Gieringer wrote. “It then garnered headlines by staging gigantic public bonfires of confiscated paraphernalia and drugs in the heart of Chinatown.”

"Opium Fiend, Chinatown - San Francisco." Photograph by Charles Weidner, postcard produced by Goeggel & Weidner, San Francisco, postmarked 1903.

As I write here (https://demospectator.tumblr.com/post/184728580203/up-in-smoke-the-drug-wars-big-day-in-chinatown), the Board of Pharmacy staged the best known bonfire in the middle of Washington Street between Ross Alley and Dupont in the heart of Chinatown on May 9, 1912.

The incineration of seized opium and drug paraphrenalia organized by the California Board of Pharmacy on May 9, 1912, occurred on Washington Street just below Ross Alley. Photographer unknown (from the collection of the Bancroft Library). This street was rebuilt after the 1906 earthquake and fire and retained its designation as the 800 block of Washington. In the left side of the frame, the ideogram 押 (‘aap3") denoting a pawnshop operation can be seen.

After Chinatown was destroyed in 1906, Cook wrote in his 1931 memoir as follows:

“After the 1906 earthquake decimated much of Chinatown,” many of the city’s opium dens disappeared literally overnight. And by 1914, public attitudes to narcotics entered a major shift on a national level. In 1908, Hamilton Wright had become United States Opium Commissioner and launched a passionate and concerted campaign to stamp out opium… .” * * * "… America tip-toed into the war on drugs via the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914. The legislation imposed “a special tax on all persons who produce, import, manufacture, compound, deal in, dispense, sell, distribute, or give away opium or coca leaves, their salts, derivatives, or preparations, and for other purposes.’ “The act quickly reduced the amount of opium in circulation—without anyone having to publicly set it on fire.”

By the 1950s, police historian Kevin Mullen observed, “a few old Chinese men still smoked their pipes in sealed rooms to avoid the attention of the Chinatown Squad. But they were dying off as well. Some of the younger residents took to the harder drugs, in keeping with the changing drug habits of society at large.”

By the late 20th century, however, the damage had already been done long ago. The opium trade and its use in early Chinese communities in North America left a lasting imprint not only on Chinatown’s historical narrative but also on the broader perceptions of Chinese Americans. What began as a legal and accessible substance became a flashpoint for racial tension, moral panic, and discriminatory policies. The demonization of Chinese immigrants, tied closely to opium use, fueled anti-Chinese sentiment and contributed to exclusionary laws that further marginalized the community.

Today, the reluctance to fully examine this history reflects the fear of reviving damaging stereotypes, but understanding the complex factors behind the opium trade and its role in the micro political economy of Chinatown is crucial for a more nuanced and empathetic view of the challenges faced by pioneer Chinese throughout North America. By confronting these uncomfortable truths, Chinese Americans and the broader culture can move beyond stigma and gain deeper insight into the resilience and survival of these early communities amidst widespread prejudice and exclusion.

“The Wild Cat (for the Highbinder’s feast of the uncooked meat),” c. 1902 - 1906. Photograph by Arnold Genthe (from the collection of the Library of Congress). A sidewalk vendor arranges his wild game products, including a wildcat carcass. One of the men in the background is an itinerant fortune teller.

Ruminations on the Wild Cat

Arnold Genthe's photograph "The Wild Cat (for the Highbinder’s feast of the uncooked meat)" presents a striking and unusual image from San Francisco's Chinatown taken between 1896 and 1906. It depicts the carcass of a wildcat suspended outside a storefront, flanked by other freshly killed fowl. Although the individual tending to the wild cat was not identified, historian John Tchen observed about the photo that “Wing Chew, the son of the original owner of the Tin Fook jewelry store, used to disappear into the mountains for a few days and bag a wildcat for sale in Chinatown…. ” (The telephone directory of 1902 first mentions the Tin Fook & Co. as operating a jewelry store at 711-1/2 Jackson Street, presumably up to the earthquake and fire of 1906.)

The photo provides a glimpse into the cultural and economic practices of the time. Wildcat meat was highly prized for its supposed medicinal and aphrodisiac qualities. It was often used in traditional remedies and consumed in concoctions that mixed the meat with ingredients like chicken, snake, and various herbs. Tong fighters, known for their violent turf battles and vendettas, would drink wildcat-infused wine for courage before going into combat.

The Wild Cat was taken in Chinatown during a time when the community was subject to the effects of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. As a result, violence and other hostile acts drove Chinese out of rural counties and into San Francisco Chinatown even as it became more segregated and isolated. However, it remained a vivid and mysterious subject for outsiders like Genthe and his fellow photographers of the Camera Club. His images, including "The Wild Cat," were part of a broader fascination with Chinatown’s cultural practices, capturing a mixture of admiration and morbid exoticism. Genthe's work often walked a fine line, romanticizing and sometimes distorting life and referring explicitly to criminal organizations in Chinatown to fit white American perceptions.

The Wild Cat remains among his lesser known works, as it can evoke uncomfortable conversations around so-called "foreign" eating habits, particularly when viewed through a modern lens. The image, featuring a feline carcass hung outside a Chinatown store, serves as a historical record of traditional practices, but it also readily stokes long-festering tropes about Asian culinary customs, fueled by xenophobia and cultural misrepresentation. These tensions are not new, as they linger to this day.

In recent times, this discomfort resurfaced when presidential candidate Donald Trump and his running mate accused immigrants in Ohio of consuming dogs and cats, a false claim that played into harmful stereotypes and generated widespread backlash for its inflammatory nature. The episode reminded audiences about the long and dishonorable history of castigating immigrants’ eating habits as recounted in a Guardian article here: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/14/racist-history-trump-pet-eating-immigrant

Curiosity about 19th century Chinatown's food and cultural practices was often accompanied by suspicion or derision from outsiders – influenced and exacerbated initially by the great encounter of white migrants from the eastern United States with Asian immigrants to California in the mid-19th century.

“The Globe Hotel -- Chinatown, San Francisco, Cal. -- Victor Hoffman, Architect,” March 1906. Photographer unknown (from the collection of the San Francisco Public Library).

The Globe Hotel: Old Chinatown’s Decadent Architectural Landmark

Long forgotten now, the Globe Hotel occupied a prominent, if not notorious place in the history of San Francisco Chinatown’s existence. Situated on the northwest corner of the intersection of Dupont (now Grant Ave.) and Jackson streets, the hotel’s distinctive facades appeared in numerous photos around the intersection and in westerly and easterly views of Jackson Street prior to 1906.

A westerly view up Jackson Street from across its intersection with Dupont Street , no date. Photographer unknown (from a private collection). The Globe Hotel appears prominently at right, and what is probably the Yuen Fung Low” (遠芳樓) restaurant at 710 Jackson Street appears in the center.

Constructed in 1857, the Globe Hotel stood as an early example of Italian Renaissance palazzo-style architecture in San Francisco, preceding the more widespread adoption of this style by Beaux-Arts-trained architects after 1880. Architectural historian Harold Kirker commended the building for its “beautiful proportions and superb stuccowork.”

An easterly view of the north side buildings on the 700-block of Jackson Street toward the northwest corner of its intersection with Dupont Street. Photographer unknown (from a private collection). A horse-drawn wagon can be seen outside the Globe Hotel on the north side of Jackson at right of center of the photo. The vertical signage for the herbalist shop, Fook Wo Tong (福和堂各省地道藥材; canto: "fuk1 wo4 tong4 gok3 saang2 dei6 dou6 joek6 coi4"; lit. "Fook Wo Tong authentic medicinal materials from various provinces") located at 711 (but probably listed incorrectly by Langley directories at 811) Jackson Street, appears along the right side of the frame.

According to San Francisco theater historian Bill Counter, a Chinese opera venue appeared to have been established on the ground floor of the hotel.

The SF Examiner in its June 23, 1865, issue reported improvements under way for a “new Chinese theatre” in the Globe Hotel building.

“The venue at the Globe was mentioned in … the Daily Alta California,” Counter writes. “It appeared on November 21, 1867” in connection with an announcement of construction of what would later become the Royal (or “Old”) Chinese Theatre:

“NEW TEMPLE OF THE DRAMA. - The Chinese have lately had two theatres in full blast in this city, the old one at the Globe building, on the corner of Jackson and Dupont streets, and the remodeled Union Theatre, on Commercial street, where the last arrived troupe -- a high-toned one -- made its first appearance. They now propose to have a first-class one erected immediately on Jackson street, between Kearny and Dupont, on the lots now being cleared for that purpose by John Apel. The structure is to be of brick, two stories in height and have a frontage of about 50 feet…”

“The date [the Globe] ceased being a theatre is unknown,” Counter continues. “The theatre isn't listed in the 1871 city directory.”

“Globe Hotel, Jackson St., Chinese Quarter, S.F. 3756” c. 1875-1880). Stereograph by Carleton Watkins (from the collection of the California State Library). The negative or plate no. of 3756 suggests that Watkins took his photograph from across the intersection of Dupont and Jackson streets before walking up Jackson Street to the building adjacent to the hotel housing the restaurant where Watkins took his 3760’s series of photographs.

Despite its architectural grandeur, the Globe Hotel's fortunes started to decline over the years. According to author Hugo Wong, the Presbyterian missionary August Ward Loomis founded his school for Chinese immigrants in the hotel at the corner of Jackson and Dupont streets. Originally named the “Globe Hotel School,” Loomis later renamed the school to Loomis Memorial Presbyterian Mission School. (See, Wong, Hugo, America’s Lost Chinese: The Rise and Fall of a Migrant Family Dream, pub. C. Hurst & Co. 2023).

Reverend Augustus Ward Loomis, who had learned the Ningbo dialect during his mission in China, acquired the Sze Yap dialect in order to better serve the San Francisco community. In 1872, and while operating his Chinese mission school in the Globe Hotel, he published one of the first practical bilingual Chinese and English language study books, including lively dialogues and letters; the book proved useful to children, businessmen and missionaries.

By the mid-1870s, the city directories had characterized the hotel as offering “Chinese” lodgings; the building had transformed into a crowded tenement housing primarily Chinese residents. Already part of a neighborhood marked by squalor and overcrowding, the conditions inside the Globe Hotel had deteriorated, with city reports of it becoming a notorious, rat-infested space where tenants lived in cramped, unsanitary conditions.

“Slave Girl in Holiday Attire,” c. 1900 -1905. Photograph by Arnold Genthe (Genthe photograph collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division). This image was captured at the intersection of Dupont and Jackson streets outside the Globe Hotel. “The baroque-style Globe Hotel,” wrote historian Jack Tchen, “now occupied by Chinese, stood on the northwest corner, from which tours of Chinatown often started. Jackson Street was the red light district of Chinatown.” The term “slave girl,” Tchen asserted, “was used loosely to designate Chinese women sold on contracts. This woman is said to have been an especially beautiful and popular prostitute. It was fairly unusual for a woman to walk un-escorted in public.”

Moreover, the area around the Globe had devolved into a red-light district, where unmarried men could visit “hundred-men’s-wives.” More accurately, the east-west alleyways noted on maps as “Cum Kuk Court” and Baker Alley, both of which dissected the block between Jackson and Pacific streets, and ran perpendicular into Sullivan’s Alley (running north-south) allowed access to at least 26 Chinese prostitution locations by 1885.

Detail of the 700-block on the north side of Jackson Street, July 1885 (from the Cooper Chow collection of the Chinese Historical Society of America). The corner building at the bottom of the diagram outlines the gambling, lodging and communal kitchen uses found in the Globe Hotel at 1001 Dupont Street. Along the vertical street, shops housing druggists (including “opium”), a pawnbroker, a Chinese drugstore (at 706 Jackson), and a restaurant (710 Jackson) are indicated. The theater use is nowhere apparent from the 1885 map, and the entertainment venue had presumably ceased operation.

The Globe Hotel building is on the right in this c. 1885 view westerly up Jackson from Dupont Street. Photographer unknown (from a private collection). The lettering on the streetlight says "Dupont St.," here seen in reverse. A Philadelphia Lager beer sign on the corner of the building.

The Globe Hotel building is seen at the lower left in this portion of image 29 of volume 1 of the 1887 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map (from the collection of the Library of Congress). A theater use is nowhere apparent from the map, and it had ceased operation. This map’s indicating a “Chinese school” in the corner part of the building shows that the mission school established initially by Presbyterian minister Augustus Ward Loomis as the “Globe Hotel School” was still operating in the building.

Conditions inside the once-grand building continued to deteriorate during the next decade, and the city Board of Health condemned the Globe Hotel in 1896 and planned its demolition. As the San Francisco Call reported on August 26, 1896, the Globe's owners objected, citing recent repairs and lease obligations to a variety of tenants.

This detail from image 44 of volume 1 of the 1899 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map (from the Library of Congress) shows the Globe Hotel building.

The city's attempt to demolish the Globe Hotel proved unsuccessful, as the hotel remained standing by the time a Sanborn map of the property was produced in 1899. A year later, however, the Globe would become infamous in San Francisco history.

The San Francisco Plague and Public Health Crisis

The Globe Hotel gained notoriety during the bubonic plague outbreak in San Francisco's Chinatown from 1900 to 1904. On March 6, 1900, Wong Chut King, a Chinese immigrant and lumber salesman living in the hotel's basement, became the first official plague victim in California. Wong apparently occupied a dark, below-ground room at the Globe Hotel which was shared with several other men. As Kirstin Butler wrote in May 2022 for the PBS documentary Hunting the Plague,“they took turns sleeping on a wooden bed on the floor in shifts. Dug into the ground was a pit that functioned as their only toilet, and rats above them came and went via an unused sewer pipe.”

Wong’s death marked the beginning of a public health crisis that highlighted the discriminatory practices of the time. As Marilyn Chase wrote in her book The Barbary Plague: The Black Death in Victorian San Francisco (Random House, 2003), federal quarantine officer Joseph Kinyoun struggled to impress San Franciscans with the threat posed by the infection that had invaded Chinatown. However, the ensuing public health interventions “so terrified the Chinese that some conceal[ed] their sick and dead. Most city newspapers respond[ed] with ridicule or a conspiracy of silence, as the corpses mount[ed].”

"Globe Hotel on Dupont Street at Jackson Street," 1903. Photographer unknown for the San Francisco (Calif.). Department of Public Health (from the J. M. Williamson M.D. Board of Health Photograph Album of Chinatown, San Francisco, in the collection of the San Francisco Public Library).

The outbreak led to a significant exodus from the Globe Hotel and the surrounding Chinatown area. Fear of quarantine, chemical fumigation, and forced vaccinations drove many residents to flee. The once bustling hotel, which typically housed around three hundred tenants, saw its population dwindle to a mere dozen individuals, all prepared to leave at a moment's notice.

A cartoon published by the Chung Sai Yat Bo newspaper on June 22, 1900, shows federal public health officer Joseph Kinyoun being injected in his head with Waldemar Haffkine's experimental plague vaccine. Two other doctors appear to be developing buboes on their heads from the oversized inoculations. Federal judge William W. Morrow looks on.

Although city officials initially denied the severity of the outbreak, San Francisco's quarantine measures were explicitly segregatory, targeting Chinese and Japanese Americans while allowing European Americans to leave the affected area without the same restrictions.

The outbreak caused intense conflict among local, state, and federal authorities and fueled Yellow Peril narratives that wrongly blamed Chinese immigrants and residents for the outbreak. Public health officials eventually controlled the plague with what they believed to be effective fumigation and demolition measures against Chinese properties.

Foot traffic along the Jackson Street frontage of the Globe Hotel building, no date. Photographer unknown (from the Granger collection).

As life in Chinatown returned to a semblance of normalcy after the plague, the Globe Hotel was repurposed as a warehouse – far removed from a building that had once exemplified architectural elegance.

“Jewish Balloon Man” c. 1896 – 1906. Photograph by Arnold Genthe (from the collection of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division). Two Chinese men and a child inspect the offerings from a balloon seller. Fortunately, this wider angle image of a well-known Genthe photo captures sufficient architectural detail of the building at left to locate the seller at the northwest corner of the intersection of Dupont and Jackson streets, just outside the Globe Hotel.

“The capricious ornamentation of the window frames in the second and third stories recalls Viennese palace architecture and hints that Hoffman may have emigrated from the old Hapsburg empire,” architectural Harold Kirker wrote about the Globe. “The extraordinary quality of the stuccowork suggests the talents of two little-known pioneer architectural plasterers, Carpeaux and Pepin, the latter of whom is said to have won a first prize at the University of Paris for excellence in design and execution of his art.” (See, Harold Kirker, California's Architectural Frontier: Style and Tradition in the Nineteenth Century, [Salt Lake City: Gibbs M. Smith Incorporated, 1986], p. 78.)

Although long gone from Chinatown, the story of the Globe Hotel remains a noteworthy chapter in the social history of San Francisco, encapsulating not only a period of architectural distinction but also its re-purposing to serve the needs of San Francisco’s Chinese bachelor community, and its ultimate fate as a sad focal point for the city's first major public health crisis of the 20th century.

“The Fourth of the Future” color lithograph on paper by Henry Barkhaus (1865-1886), published in The Wasp, volume 15 (July-December 1885), July 4, 1885, pages 8-9 (from the collection of The Bancroft Library).

Celebrating the 4th: Chinatown's 1890 Coming Out Party

On this July 4, a cartoon inspired by the Chinese America of 1885 is considered both for both its satirical and prophetic qualities. For nearly a century (1856-1935), The Illustrated Wasp, later known simply as The Wasp, was among California's most popular tabloids. It thrived particularly in the late 1870s and early 1880s, especially under the editorship of Ambrose Bierce from 1881 to 1886. As a weekly publication, it covered San Francisco's social, political, and commercial scenes, featuring a mix of local and international news, social commentary, numerous advertisements, and topical humor.

The Wasp’s written content was often complemented and overshadowed by intricate full-page illustrations, many focusing on the contemporary issue of Chinese immigration. These illustrations vividly depicted the discrimination and prejudice faced by the Chinese, highlighting, according Bancroft Library curator Theresa Salazar, the “struggle to survive as individuals and communities as well as the issues that dominated the imagination of their white contemporaries.” Salazar writes about the vivid illustration which appeared in The Wasp on July 4, 1885, as follows:

“The cartoon, published just three years after the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, imagines the Fourth of July parade in San Francisco with racial roles completely reversed. The Palace Hotel is filled with Chinese occupants who look down on the parade, led by an Uncle Sam wearing a formal Chinese ceremonial costume and followed by a large American flag with a dragon supported by a string of Chinese firecrackers. A Chinese policeman beats a white tramp while Chinese boys throw stones at a white businessman. On the corner, the “Chinese Call” newspaper is for sale, an obvious reference to the San Francisco Call, just behind an orientalized Mexican selling tamales. In the building to the right a white barber is giving a haircut beneath a sign reading “M U G K DE YOUNG BARBER,” another obvious reference, to Michael H. De Young, the owner of the San Francisco Chronicle. In the room above, a Caucasian laundry advertises its services as ‘AH SCOTT WASHING AND IRONING.’”

Although Barkhaus’ illustration was patently satirical, some elements would prove to be prescient a century later, such as Chinese policemen, a parade down Market Street (currently part of the main procession for the city's annual Chinese New Year parade), thousands of Chinese American spectators (with more women, unlike 1885) lining the route in front of the Palace Hotel. Even the cartoon's mash-up with Japanese motifs, such as a dragon on a fanciful rendering of a Japanese-style mikoshi borne by loincloth-attired Shinto-esque adherents, would also presage Japanese American participation in future civic festivities.

In pre-1906 San Francisco, the Chinese community in Chinatown would have been well aware of American holidays such as July 4th. Independence Day celebrations appear in the earliest images of pioneer San Francisco.

Fourth of July parade passing in front of Old St. Mary's Church on Dupont Street in 1864. Photographer unknown (from the collection of the San Francisco Public Library). The description on the verso reads: “Day Before Bank Opened--Fourth of July parade 1864 on Dupont Street, now Chinatown’s Grant Avenue, San Francisco. Note Old St. Mary's Church, and sparsely built Telegraph Hill in background. This photo was taken just 1 day before The Bank of California first opened 100 years ago on July 5, 1864.”

Hence, the artist Barkhaus undoubtedly drew on his past observance of Chinese parades and foreshadowed Chinese participation in general July 4th celebrations just five years later.

Most Gorgeous Chinese Pageant Ever Witnessed in San Francisco,” photo feature from The Call Sunday Magazine Section, San Francisco Sunday, July 16, 1890, describing Chinese participation in San Francisco's observance of the July 4 holiday of that year. The photographers are uncredited in this 1890 spread. However, the square center photo of three children is identical to Hortense Schulze’s photo titled “Taking the Air with Sister,” copyright-claimed in 1899.

“Taking the Air with Sister,” 1890. Photograph by Hortense Schulze printed in The Call, July 16, 1890, and reprinted (with claimed copyright 1899) for the “Babies of Chinatown” article written by artist Mary Davison for The Cosmopolitan, An Illustrated Monthly Magazine (vol. 28, no. 6) of April, 1900 (pp. 606-612).

As a feature story and photo spread in The Call newspaper of July 16, 1890, observed, Chinese participation in US Independence Day festivities appeared to have been “tentative” in San Francisco until the last decade of the 19th century. Chinatown was no stranger to elaborate processions through the neighborhood. However, as The Call’s story implies, the lack of participation in mainstream July 4 festivities had reflected hard, learned experience about Chinatown’s uneasy relationship with the rest of the city:

“On previous occasions, when the natives of the Flowery Kingdom were asked to participate in public spectacles – which asking was rare – they took part in a shy, tentative sort of way. Long years of neighboring with the citizens of San Francisco had taught them the lesson that the more they kept to themselves the better off they were. The consequence was, always, when the turned out in parade, they were few in numbers and poor in show. “This year, how different!”

The Call reported that the participation by the Chinese community in the July 4, 1890 celebration was due in large part to the “vision,” intervention, and influence of Chinese Consul General Ho Yow. Significantly, such participation was embraced by the Native Sons of the Golden State (later to be named the Chinese American Citizens Alliance), which organized a Chinese contingent for the parade, channeling the community’s natural capacity for processional logistics and showmanship.

In addition to the photos printed in The Call, images in the collections of the Stanford Libraries and Bancroft Library provide representative samplings of what a typical Chinese contingent carried, and how it appeared, when on the march for parades as Chinatown approached the turn of the century.

Untitled Chinese parade standard-bearers standing in a street in front of white onlookers, probably in San Francisco, c. 1900. Photograph by Hortense Schulze (from an album pending cataloging courtesy of the Manuscripts division of Stanford Libraries). This image is signed and numbered by Schulze in the negative.

Untitled Chinese ceremonial halberd-bearers walking past a gathering of other Chinese (with a mixed group of Chinese and white onlookers across the street and in the left of the frame, probably in San Francisco, c. 1900. Photograph by Hortense Schulze (from an album pending cataloging courtesy of the Manuscripts division of Stanford Libraries). This image is signed and numbered by Schulze in the negative.

Chinese bearing traditional infantry weapons prepare to march in a San Francisco parade. Photographer unknown (from the collection of The Bancroft Library).

Chinese bearing traditional infantry weaponry begin their march in a San Francisco parade. Photographer unknown (from the collection of The Bancroft Library).

Robed Chinese bearing ceremonial pikes prepare to march in a San Francisco parade. Photographer unknown (from the collection of The Bancroft Library).

As The Call reported in 1890, the “kaleidoscopic beauty” and pageantry of the Chinese procession left a lasting impression celebrants and spectators. The lessons learned in the July 4 parade would be reapplied by the Chinese as a tool of civic engagement with the broader community in subsequent years and, most notably, with the public celebrations of Chinese New Years starting in 1953.

As a 1907 photo from Oakland Chinatown indicates, Chinese pioneer communities outside of San Francisco applied their cultural traditions and joined in general American July 4th celebrations.

“Chinese in Parade, Chinatown, Oakland July 4th, 1907.” Courtesy of Ed Clausen Collection. Chinese join in July 4 celebrations a year after more than 4,000 Chinese survivors of San Francisco’s 1906 earthquake and fire found refuge in Oakland, showing a rising spirit of Oakland’s transformed Chinatown.

Although Chinese celebrations were somewhat distinct from the mainstream American observance, fireworks appear to have been a common feature in both Chinese and American festivities. The Chinese community would set off firecrackers and fireworks, symbolizing not just the American independence but also their own cultural heritage, as fireworks are traditionally used in China to ward off evil spirits and bring good luck.

Richard Mark and Thelma Lee pose to light a string of firecrackers in San Francisco Chinatown on July 4, 1934. Photographer unknown (from the collection of the San Francisco Public Library).

July 4 celebrations in Chinatown carried a sense of resilience during an era of exclusion and discrimination. By participating in Independence Day celebrations, the Chinese community asserted its presence and contribution to American society to foster goodwill and improve relations with the broader American public.

During the war years, however, the US Independence Day took secondary importance to events overseas, particularly in 1944 when Chinese communities across the US used early July parades to collect money for war relief in China’s struggle against Japanese aggression.

San Francisco Chinatown observes “Triple Seven” on July 5, 1944, by collecting funds to support China’s war with Japan. Photographer unknown published in the San Francisco Call Bulletin (from the collection of the San Francisco Public Library).

During WW II, China and other diaspora communities commemorated San Ch’i,” or the seventh day of the seventh month of the seventh year of resistance to Imperial Japan.

Fresno Chinatown, c. 1880. Photographer unknown.

The Armed Chinatown of Fresno

For this short roadtrip away from San Francisco, this brief paragraph from the Stockton Independent newspaper of September 15, 1879, mentioning “guns, pistols and daggers” illustrates the seriousness with which early Chinese Americans in Fresno, California, and other rural Chinatowns addressed external threats to their lives and livelihoods. This included threats from the then-surging Workingmen’s Party, led by notorious demagogue, xenophobe and racist agitator Denis Kearney.

from the "Valley Items" column published in the Stockton Independent newspaper of September 15, 1879.

In the 1870s Kearney began denouncing Chinese immigrants as the cause of white workers’ economic woes. By 1878, he frequently gave violent speeches against Chinese at San Francisco’s Sandlot forum, blaming them for white labor problems. His movement propelled his party to the 1879 California Constitutional Convention where various anti-Chinese laws, including a ban on employing Chinese laborers, were enacted. Kearney also took credit for nationalizing the debate over Chinese immigration to the US, culminating in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

Dennis Kearney (1847-1907), Irish-American political leader, influential in the passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

As recounted in more detail by author Jean Pfaelzer in her book, Driven Out: The Forgotten War Against Chinese Americans, (pub. Random House) rural Chinatowns throughout California became targets of economic boycotts and vigilante violence. Fresno’s Chinatown, established during the construction of railroad lines after the Transcontinental Railroad’s completion in 1869, was not immune from persecution by white agitators. Despite it’s the residents arming themselves, possibly for deterrence, the community faced vigilante violence in the next decade.

The Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 did little to calm rural California and its unemployed white workers. In 1886, an anti-Chinese economic boycott movement began in Truckee. Fresno’s local anti-Chinese club set up a whites-only employment office, attracting four hundred men. However, during the early spring planting season near Fresno, vineyard and fruit growers in the Fresno area rejected the boycott, stating that it was “absolutely impossible” to obtain white labor. The troubles in Fresno represented a symptom of the violence and roundup of Chinese Americans throughout California during the latter half of the 19th century, when Chinese were literally driven out rural areas to concentrate in the state’s cities, particularly San Francisco.

A map showing more than 200 incidents of rounding up Chinese in California for expulsions during 1849 to 1906.

Rather than calm the hostility by whites against Chinese, the congressional enactments of the 1882 Act and its 10-year extension, the Geary Act of 1892, seemed to foment more anti-Chinese boycotts, violence, and expulsions.

In Fresno, anti-Chinese violence peaked in the summer of 1893, when deliberately-set fires in Fresno destroyed several mills and packinghouses, not all of which employed Chinese workers. White workers demanded that merchants fire their Chinese workers. Fearing the mob, several packinghouse and vineyard owners complied and fired their Chinese workers. Many Chinese field-workers sought protection in Fresno’s Chinatown, which continued to provide refuge from mob violence.

Detail from Fresno Chinatown's main street, c. 1880.

On August 15, rioters invaded vineyards near Fresno, and another white mob raided the Fracher Creek Nursery, capturing Chinese workers, stealing their money and belongings, and bludgeoning one man to death. The mob marched the Chinese nursery workers toward Fresno in the valley heat until the sheriff intervened and released them. That same week, Chinese packers at the nearby Earl Fruit Company were forced onto a train to Fresno and given five days to leave the county. Gangs forced more Chinese men out of local vineyards and destroyed their tent camps. Hundreds of unemployed white workers and vagrants milled around Fresno’s streets, watching the Chinese depart. The roundups and expulsions of Chinese workers did not solve the massive unemployment crisis. Even after the purges, few jobs were available for whites. Hunger exacerbated the riots. By late August, Fresno’s Presbyterian church was providing eight hundred meals nightly to white men, some of whom had not eaten for days. The city council’s plan to give meal tickets to “idle men” for cleaning alleys failed due to a lack of funds.

The roundups and expulsions of Chinese did not solve the crisis of massive unemployment. Even after the purges, there were few jobs for whites. Hunger exacerbated the riots. Toward the end of August, Fresno’s Presbyterian church was nightly providing eight hundred meals to white men, some of whom had not eaten for days. The city council’s plan to give meal tickets to “idle men” for cleaning alleys failed when it ran out of money. The supervisors moved some of the “tramps and ruffians” out of town by forming them into chain gangs to clear roads or do field work.

The temple in old Fresno Chinatown, c. 1880. This detail from a larger photo appears to depict the Chee Kung Tong temple at 939 G Street, which was built in the early 1880's with contributions from the tong. The temple housed a wooden altar reportedly carved in 1869 in China. The two-story brick structure contained a meeting hall on the first floor. Lodgings wer located next door. The joss house was closed to the public in 1936 and later used by the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Society. The structure no longer exists.

The purge of Chinese workers from California’s fields, citrus groves, and orchards worsened the economic situation. Fresno’s labor bureau had over six hundred men seeking work, but farmers and nurserymen knew their crops would perish if unskilled laborers replaced the skilled Chinese workers, such as fruit tree "budders." Banks closed, and local stores went out of business.

Roundups of Chinese residents continued into the following year, often with judicial sanction. In May 1894, the Del Rio Rey Vineyard in Fresno replaced its white employees with Chinese workers. Within days, dynamite bombs were found under the bunkhouses. The new Chinese workers fled in response to the terrorism, but no arrests were made. Today’s diaspora communities across the US could learn from these pioneers who, contrary to passive stereotypes, were prepared to protect themselves by any means necessary. This was just one small railroad Chinatown arming itself in difficult times.

New Year's celebration and parade in Fresno, California, c. 1900. Some researchers have speculated that the dragon shown in this photo was the well-known Marysville Chinatown dragon which appeared all over California during this period.

Captain Wesley Ko in front of his decorations for service with the 82nd Airborne Division during WW II. (Photograph courtesy of the Cape Cod Times).

Airborne Chinese American Warfighters on D-Day

On the occasion of the June 6 allied landings at Normandy in 1944, and every National Airborne Day on August 16, we honor three Chinese American veterans of the Second World War.

Glider Infantryman Wesley Ko

Wesley Ko served as a Captain in the 325th Glider Infantry of the 82nd Airborne Division in the European Theater (ETO), earning the Silver Star and numerous other medals including the Purple Heart.

Initially aspiring to be a pilot with the Flying Tigers, Wesley was working in a print shop in Philadelphia when the U.S. entered the war. Despite his employer offering him a draft deferment, he chose to enlist to join his friends. After completing officer candidate school at Fort Benning, Georgia, and overcoming initial delays in assignment possibly due to his Asian ancestry, he joined the 82nd Airborne and subsequently the 325th Glider Infantry Regiment.

During his thirty months of service, Ko fought in six major campaigns including action in Sicily, Naples, Normandy (the day after D-Day), the Battle of the Bulge, the Allied assault on the Siegfried Line, and the battle for Cologne. He was also present at the liberation of the Wöbbelin concentration camp at Ludwigslust.

Capt. Wesley Ko. Ko received the Silver Star for his service in the six major campaigns of the ETO and numerous other medals including the Purple Heart.

In his later years, Ko dedicated his time to preserving the legacy of the 325th Glider Infantry. He shared his experiences through interviews, articles, and books such as The Greatest Generation and his biography On Silent Wings of Courage. He also served as editor of The Glider Tow Line, a quarterly newsletter dedicated to the glider men's stories.

In addition to his military service, Ko co-owned and operated Komak, Inc., an electronics company, with his brother David for 45 years. He had a wide array of interests including computers, boating, fishing, family, poetry, and furniture re-finishing and building.

Ko passed away in E. Falmouth, Mass., on Dec. 15, 2012. He was 93.

Leon Yee: San Francisco Chinatown’s Own

On the night of June 5, 1944, private First Class Leon Yee had found his way onto a paratroop transport plane, flying toward the coast of France. Having grown up in San Francisco Chinatown, Yee had volunteered for the paratroopers in early 1942. He had been motivated by the $50 bonus in hazardous duty pay, which he needed to support his family. After completing jump school at Fort Benning and earning his wings in mid-1942, he trained as a demolition expert and member of H Company in the 507th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division. According to Chinese American military historian, Montgomery Hom, Yee had concealed from his family how dangerous his duties were. “He tried to hide his combat status by telling his mother he was going to be working with planes,” Hom has written. “But in truth, he was going to be jumping out of planes as an airborne soldier.”

Leon Yee's jump boots, unit patches, and jump wings (from the collection of his nephew and documentarian, Montgomery Hom). The boots were designed initially in 1941 by William P. Yarborough, a test officer in the 501st Parachute Infantry Battalion/Provisional Parachute Group. They are also known as "Corcorans," after the J. F. Corcoran Shoe Company, one of their manufacturers.

At approximately 0200 on June 6, and as part of the then-largest airborne operation in human history, Yee hurled out of his plane, weighed down by more than 100 pounds of equipment, As he descended, he saw sporadic gunfire and small fires on the ground. He landed in a cow pasture northwest of the Merderet River, disoriented in the pitch-black night. under the cover of darkness. German anti-aircraft fire illuminated the sky, hitting some of the aircraft.

After landing without mishap and shedding his parachute harness, Yee took cover in a nearby ditch. He had no idea of his location, as his regiment had experienced the worst drop pattern of all the American airborne units, with only 20% of the paratroopers landing in their designated zones. Hours later, by 4 a.m., a helmetless sergeant from another company of the 82nd Airborne Division joined him. Together, they sat quietly in the ditch until dawn, trying to determine their location. They discovered they were north of their intended drop zone.

By daylight, Yee had joined other regrouped paratroopers regrouped to plant explosives to destroy enemy communication lines, and engage in firefights as elements the 82nd advanced over the next few days toward their main objective, about 5 miles from Utah Beach -- the marshes of the Merderet and Douve. The marshes formed a natural defensive line protecting the western end of the Allied amphibious landing zone. However, the flooded marshes also limited the Allies' potential to break out of the beachhead. They had been flooded to further impede movement. Allied planners deemed control of the bridges at Manoir de la Fière and Chef-du-Pont as vital.

Yee's ad hoc unit reached the La Fière area, and over the next five days attempted to seize causeways and bridges over the Merderet at La Fière and Chef-du-Pont and, further, destroy the highway bridge over the Douve River at Pont l'Abbé (now Étienville). The lightly-armed troops of the 82nd faced counterattacking Wehrmacht units supported by Panzer III and French tanks captured four years earlier.

Yee would see intense combat for five days. During an attack on a German machinegun position, he was severely wounded. A burst of gunfire had struck rocks in front of him, and a ricocheting fragment hit his right temple, just below his helmet. Bleeding profusely from his wound, he lost consciousness. Yee awoke on a cot in a landing craft headed back to England.

Paratrooper Kenneth Gong

On the eve of D-Day Kenneth Gong, a native Chinese American from the town of Cleveland in the Mississippi Delta, performed the first of his two combat jumps, with the 101st Airborne Division.

Sgt. Kenneth Gong of the 101st Airborne Division was a native of Cleveland, Mississippi.

Kenny Gong had earned the nickname “Machine Gun Gong” for his proficiency in firing the M3 submachine gun.

The M3 is an American-made, .45-caliber submachine gun adopted by the U.S. Army in late 1942, as the "United States Submachine Gun, Cal. .45, M3." The M3 was chambered for the same .45 ACP round fired by the Thompson submachine gun, but was cheaper to mass produce and lighter, at the expense of accuracy. Troops commonly referred to the firearm as the "Grease Gun" or "the Greaser" owing to its visual similarity to the mechanic's tool. The weapon is often attributed as the source of the WW II slang used by American soldiers in referring to enemy troops killed by this weapon, who were referred to as having been "greased."

T-4 Sergeant Gong was assigned to the headquarters command, 3rd battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. He saw combat in Normandy and Holland.

Sgt. Kenneth Gong of the 101st Airborne Division brandishing the M3 submachine gun, his handling of which would earn him respect from his comrades.

When US president Bill Clinton proclaimed October 26, 1998, Chinese Veterans of World War II Day, longtime Delta resident Kenny Gong was one of the White House honorees. His division’s motto remains “Rendezvous With Destiny.”

The Parachutist Badge, also commonly referred to as "Jump Wings," is a military badge of the United States Armed Forces. Some services, such as the Marine Corps, officially refer to it as an insignia instead of a badge. The original Army Parachutist Badge was designed in 1941 by Captain (later Lieutenant General) William P. Yarborough and approved by the Department of War in March of that year. The Parachutist Badge replaced the "Parachutist Patch" which had previously been worn as a large patch on the side of a paratrooper's garrison cap. (LTG Yarborough also designed the Senior and Master Parachutist Badges and the addition of stars to portray the number of combat jumps.) The airborne background trimming that is worn behind the badge of those assigned to airborne units is also a contribution of Yarborough.

On this 80th anniversary of the airborne landings in Normandy, let us honor not only the approximately 10 Chinese Americans who served with paratroop and glider units in the European Theater of Operations but all who answered the call to fight for their country during an era of exclusion and segregation.

They also served.

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The then newly-restored plaque in St. Mary’s Square honoring the “Americans of Chinese Ancestry” who gave their lives for America in its world wars, November 10, 2018. Photograph by Doug Chan.

The Last Full Measure: St. Mary’s Square Monument to the Fallen of Chinese America

In his book San Francisco Chinatown: A Guide to its History & Architecture, historian Philip P. Choy, shared his observations about the monuments in St. Mary’s Square as follows:

“Across from the statue of Dr. Sun Yat-sen is a less imposing but more significant monument, with 97 names of Chinese American soldiers of our community, who made the supreme sacrifice in World War I and II. Every year on Veterans Day, the Cathay Post No. 384 and the VFW Chinatown Post march to the square to honor those who died for us, that they never be forgotten. This commemorative plaque and day of remembrance are more symbolic of Chinese America than Sun Yat-sen’s statue and the “Ten Ten” celebration.”

During the Second World War, thousands of young men and women enlisted or were drafted from Chinatowns, Japantowns (and concentration camps), Manilatowns, and other small communities across the country.

According to the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs and researchers at the Oakland Museum, 13,499 Chinese American men fought in the armed forces. (Community estimates range as high as 20,000.) Approximately 75 percent served in the US Army, with ground units such as the 3rd and 4th Infantry Divisions in Europe and the 6th, 32nd and 77th Infantry Divisions in the Pacific. A quarter of the total Chinese American personnel under arms served in the Navy. Still others served in specialized units, such as the all-Chinese American 1157th Signal Corps -- part of 14th Air Service Group that would join the fight against Imperial Japan in the China Burma India theatre of operations.

Group of Chinese recruits for the U. S. Navy taking their oath on top of a captured Japanese submarine, on Navy Day in San Francisco Chinatown, October 27, 1942. Associated Press photographer unknown (from the collection of the San Francisco Public Library). As written on the verso: ""A two-man Jap submarine, captured after the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, T.H. [Territory of Hawaii], began its nation-wide tour in San Francisco Oct. 27. In Chinatown, Chinese recruits for the U.S. Navy lined up on the vessel and took their oath. It was part of Navy Day ceremonies."

The Chinese American men who served in the armed forces during WW II comprised 20 percent of all such men in the continental U.S. As historian Iris Chang would write decades later, “ethnic Chinese men gave their lives disproportionate to their presence in the country.”

As in many cities, the public spaces in San Francisco had included memorials to the fallen in America’s wars. On Memorial Day on May 30, 1919, city officials and thousands of spectators dedicated a 15-acre plot as the “Grove of Heroes,” in remembrance of the US dead and wounded in the First World War. In 1930, a sculpture originally created by M. Earl Cummings for the Pan Pacific International Exposition was acquired and installed in the meadow adjacent to the grove. The bronze figure holding a laurel wreath became known as the “Doughboy Statue,” and it is readily noticeable from the park’s John F. Kennedy drive and promenade. On Armistice Day (now known as Veterans Day), November 13, 1932, public officials assembled again to dedicate an 18-ton granite boulder (reportedly quarried from Twin Peaks) to commemorate US war dead. The monument, which was sponsored by the Native Sons of the Golden West, was inscribed with the names of 748 men and 13 women, all local soldiers and volunteers who died during the Great War.

The Doughboy Statue in the “Grove of Heroes” in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. The plaque, sponsored by the Native Sons of the Golden West and inscribed with the names of US dead in two world wars, omits the names of non-white military personnel killed in the line of duty.

Although Chinese Americans had served and died in WW I, no Chinese names had ever been inscribed in any of San Francisco’s war memorial monuments from that era. Their omission was hardly surprising. The Native Sons of the Golden West had been founded in July 1875 as a fraternal organization "embracing only the sons of those sturdy pioneers who arrived on this coast prior to the admission of California as a state." In the 1920s, the Native Sons adopted a white nativist stance on public policy issues. President William P. Canbu of the Native Sons wrote that “California was given by God to a white people, and with God’s strength we want to keep it as He gave it to us.” The Native Sons openly opposed Chinese, Mexican, and Japanese immigration. At the outset of the Second World War, the organization waged an unsuccessful legal battle for Japanese Americans to be disenfranchised.

The size of the returning cohort of Chinese American men (and the few women) from the Second World War had been unprecedented, and they produced a transformative generation of determined civic activists in the postwar era. As was the case with many other communities of color in the country, Chinese Americans had to struggle for acceptance and civil rights. Community activists such as John C. Young, a retired colonel from the United States Army and World War II veteran, made it their mission to join the struggle for Chinese Americans’ civil rights and participation in mainstream society. Young’s family led that effort by example as one of the first Chinese families to buy a home in defiance of racially-restrictive covenants against homeownership in San Francisco’s Richmond District (See the story here: https://www.outsidelands.org/chinese-in-the-richmond-alfred-john-young-and-connie-young-yu.php)

Left to right: Janey Young Cheu, Connie Young Yu, Mary Lee Young, Lt. Col. John C. Young, and Alfred John Young in the Young family house at 674 37th Avenue, circa 1952. (Courtesy of Al Young)

With the onset of the Cold War and actual armed conflict on the Korean peninsula, Chinese American leaders sensed that the path toward progress and acceptance of Chinese Americans had been jeopardized by the People’s Republic of China’s deploying troops to support North Korea’s military against UN forces.

As a commander of the American Legion Post #384 (Cathay Post), John Young and his fellow veterans spearheaded a proposal to erect a war memorial to the fallen Chinese American Veterans of World War I and World War II.

In 1951, the same year in which the Native Sons added the names of 16 white members who had died in World War II to the plaque on the rock pedestal of the Doughboy Statue, Chinese American veterans’ proposal to honor their fallen comrades in Chinatown gained acceptance.

Members of the VFW Chinatown post and Cathay Post no. 384 of the American Legion huddle and review conceptual drawings for a St. Mary’s Square monument with San Francisco Mayor Elmer Robinson in the Mayor’s office in City Hall, c. 1951. Standing (left to right): Lim P. Lee, Peter H. Wong (unidentified veteran), Shaw Pange, Charles Leong, and Joseph Quan. Sitting: John C. Young, Mayor Elmer Robinson, and James Hall. Photographer unknown (from the collection of the late Col. John C. Young and his daughter Connie Young Yu).

Before 1951, a large and dramatic stainless steel statue of Dr. Sun Yat-sen, designed local sculptor Benny Bufano, represented the principal statuary in St. Mary's Square.

St. Mary's Square Nov 12, 1943. In this view of St. Mary's Square, looking north toward Old St. Mary's Church, members of San Francisco’s Chinese community bow before the statue of Sun Yat Sen on the occasion of Dr. Sun’s birthday. Among those attending the ceremony was Tse Kiong Sun, grandson of Sun Yat Sen. Photographer unknown (Courtesy of a private collector).

According to historian Phil Choy, the statue had been commissioned by the Chinese Six Companies to commemorate October 10, 1911, the day Dr. Sun's revolutionary party overthrew the Manchu government and established the Republic of China. As Choy wrote in 2012:

“For almost a century, October 10th, known by the Chinese as “Ten Ten,” was a major day of celebration in the community. Banners stretched across Grant Avenue. Organized by the Chinese Six Companies, drum & bugle corps and pupils from every Chinese language school dutifully paraded through the streets. Today the celebration no longer has 100% community support. Members of the Chinese Six Companies are divided; some still embrace the Kuomintang (KMT) Party of the former Republic of China (now the Taiwanese Government), while others support the People’s Republic of China.”

The efforts by the Chinese community’s veterans and supporters to honor the fallen of two world wars culminated in 1951 with the installation of the memorial plaque still seen today in St. Mary's Square. (A recounting of the memorial's dedication and other recollections by the daughter of one of the leaders in the effort to establish the monument, historian Connie Young Yu, may be heard here. (https://chiamgi.substack.com/p/col-john-c-young-profile?triedRedirect=true)

“Soldiers firing salute at dedication of memorial to deceased Chinese-American veterans at St. Mary's Square,” May 28, 1951. Mayor Elmer Robinson stands at center in dark suit. Photographer Unknown (Examiner Negative Collection / courtesy of a private collector)

A large crowd attended the dedication ceremonies for the Chinese veterans memorial at St Mary’s Square on May 28, 1951. An Army band is seated with musical instruments, and members of the Chinatown Boy Scouts troop appear in the right foreground. Photographer unknown (form a private collection).

Civic leader and president of the Wing Nien Soy Sauce Co. Col. John C. Young (ret.) speaks to the crowd assembled on May 28, 1951, for the dedication of the memorial to Chinese American service personnel killed during the First and Second World Wars. His speech to the crowd occurred in the presence of his former commanding officer, General Albert Wedemeyer, under whom Young served as a heavy weapons officer in the China-Burma-India theater of operations.

If the irony of Chinese Americans' entering the US armed forces during wartime was apparent, it was never expressed publicly by those who had served honorably. Native-born, as well immigrants ineligible to naturalize as citizens by punitive immigration laws, had answered the call to service for an America that had, for most of the previous century, robbed, murdered, burned, lynched, taxed, and excluded the pioneer generations, while building much of the political economy of the American West on the strength of Asian labor.

Veterans from Chinatown's American Legion Cathay Post 384 and VFW Chinatown Post 4618 assembled on Memorial Day 2016 in front of the WW I and II memorial plaque in St. Mary’s Square to commemorate the Chinese American fallen in all the nation’s conflicts and wars. Photograph by Doug Chan.

The numbers of Chinese Americans KIA and MIA from the world wars remain imprecise. The honored dead, including Medal of Honor recipient Capt. Francis B. Wai are, and will be, remembered in perpetuity for their extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty. For others, such as Lt. Kenneth Kai-Kee, the memories, grief and loss of those he left behind have already faded with the passing of family, friends, and loved ones.

The passage of time confers on community historians the duty to impart to each new generation the mission to remember the wartime sacrifices of Chinese America's sons and daughters. The debt to those who gave the last full measure of devotion must be honored in perpetuity.

(left to right) "Walter," Phyllis Soohoo, and Kenny Kai-Kee outside Sather Gate on the campus of the University of California Berkeley, c. 1940. Photographer unknown (from the collection of Doug Chan).

War and Mother's Remembrance

In an old photograph, a smiling Chinese coed strolls out of the University of California Berkeley’s Sather Gate, circa 1940. Observing this image, one cannot help but infer that my future mother didn’t lack for male companionship eight decades ago. However, beyond the personal anecdote, the photograph of the trio encapsulates a broader narrative about the adventurous spirit of Chinese American youth who began entering college in significant numbers on the cusp of the Second World War.

The Chinese students who enrolled at Cal in the late 1930’s represented a subset of the second or third generation offspring of the Chinese settlers in California. Despite being a minority, these students embodied the inaugural All-American generation of the Chinese diaspora in the US.

Chinese collegians dine at the Persian Room in the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, June 12, 1942. Hollywood Nite Club Photos (from the collection of Doug Chan). Phyllis Soohoo appears second from right.

The confluence of access to higher education and the backdrop of WWII proved to be a watershed moment for Chinese American youth. The war coincided with the formation and facilitated the ascent of the first Chinese American middle class.

UC Berkeley classmates Kenny Kai-Kee and Phyllis Soohoo at Lake Lagunitas, March 21, 1940. Photographer unknown (from the collection of Doug Chan).

With the outbreak of war, my mother took breaks to work for Shell Oil Co.'s laboratories, where she contributed to the development and testing of waterproofing treatments for equipment such as tents. Alongside other Chinese American men and women on the homefront, she undertook real jobs for the first time outside of the segregated Chinatowns. Her generation garnered newfound respect from their compatriots and the larger society amidst an era scarred by exclusion.

Time and the passing of her generation have dimmed the sacrifices made by many of my mother's contemporaries and, most poignantly, the memories of young men who had served and fallen in combat.

Kenny Kai-Kee was the classmate and a friend seen at the right in my mother's photograph outside of Sather Gate. Remembered as a jovial and talented athlete who secured a spot on Cal's varsity basketball team, Kenny would earn a lieutenant's commission, joining the US Army Air Force in October 1943 and qualifying as a bomber pilot. As recounted in my earlier writing here, this year marks the 80th anniversary of the downing of Kenny’s B-17 to enemy fire over Austria in late July 1944.

Lt. Kenneth Kai-Kee poses in his US Army Air Force uniform before shipping out for service with the US Army Air Force in Europe, October 1943. Photographer unknown (from the collection of Phyllis Soohoo Chan).

My mother was a compulsive archivist. She kept all of the half-dozen photos of her and her former boyfriend, Kenny. She would continue to refer to grief-stricken parents, Lock and Rita, as “Mom” and “Pop,” and send them a Christmas card every year after that terrible summer of 1944. Years later, when her own family went out for dinner in Oakland, she would meet and greet Kenny’s parents on the sidewalks of Chinatown as the old-time families usually encountered each other going to or from dinners at the old Silver Dragon.

Kenny’s remains had been interred initially in a distant plot. The German records recorded a burial first on July 27, 1944, in the cemetery of St. Jakob i. Walde, Austria. More than five years later, Lock and Rita were notified that Kenny’s remains were coming “home” to be re-interred at the Jefferson National Cemetery Barracks. His parents traveled back to St. Louis, Missouri, to witness the re-interment, which occurred on May 15, 1950.

In a letter to my future mother, dated June 12, 1950, Rita wrote as follows:

“Dear Phyllis, "Please accept a very belated ‘Thanks’ for the cute Mother’s Day card and the kind thoughts conveyed. I was not at home on that day. Lock and I arrived in St. Louis, Mo. on the afternoon of Mother’s day. “I don’t know whether you have heard that Kenneth’s remains were found, together with those of two other boys. Inasmuch as each could not be individually identified the government had them brought back in a group for burial at a national cemetery. St. Louis was chosen as it was the most centrally located for the three families involved. The military services which took place on May 16th were very simple and very nice. … * * * “You young people who were Kenneth’s friends ae always so close to me that I almost feel you are my family. … “Anytime you are around this neighborhood drop in on us. We are always glad to see you. “Thanks again and again. “Love, “’Mom’ Kai-Kee”

No one can recall if Lock and Rita Kai-Kee ever revisited their son’s lonely grave in St. Louis, so far from family, friends and loved ones. If my mother knew of the location of Kenny’s grave when a cross-country motor trip with her family drove her through St. Louis in the summer of 1964, she never mentioned it. On the two or three times when I had asked her about Kenny, I recall her fleeting, faraway look when she mentioned his name. She and millions of other Americans knew first-hand not only the young men who had never returned from the great global conflagration of the 1940s, but the loss, grief, and the devastation of war. Like many other Americans who were left behind in sorrow, my mother emerged from the war years with not only her pharmacist's license but also specific, painful reasons to detest the horrors of the global conflict and its waste of life.

Another decade would pass before Mom crossed paths with my father. He had shared none of the transformational experiences of my mother's college cohort. His family had struggled during the years of the Great Depression in San Francisco Chinatown, and he lacked the means, and perhaps the inclination, to pursue university education before enlisting in the US Coast Guard.

Rita Kai-Kee would carry the bitterness of Kenny's loss and the cruelty of war’s cost until her death in August 1983. Lock died seven months later.

After my mother's passing in 2001, my then-grieving father had dispassionately set all of her personal effects, records, and old photos for disposal. I reclaimed a portion of her captured memories from a grim jumble of items he had discarded for the dump. Among the carefully compiled sets of letters and photos about her side of the family, were the small snapshots of her with Kenny and his portrait in uniform. My mother’s archive provided glimpses into a personal life in which Dad had played no part, separated by a ferry ride and later a new Bay Bridge. As such, her mementos comprised a sentimental narrative, ending on the eve of her encountering my father in San Francisco Chinatown’s Powell Garage in 1953.

I was brought into the world about a year later. Decades later, I would find among a pile of baby gift cards from family and friends the small card sent to my mother by “Mom” and “Pop” Kai-Kee. My mother had included their names on my birth announcement list.

The loss of Kenny Kai-Kee, the only son of a pioneering family, was doubly bitter because he exemplified the first All-American generation of Chinese. Death deprived him of the realization that the Second World War proved to be a watershed event for Chinese American youth. The young men and boys who flew in the B-17s of the 8th and 15th Air Forces came home to a Chinese America not quite free of the strictures of white racism, but well on its way to equal rights for Chinese Americans, freed from the Chinese Exclusion Act.

The war coincided with the making, and spurred the rise, of the first Chinese American middle class. As the image and condition of the Chinese in America changed, so did its economic opportunities. By 1943 -- the year the Exclusion Act was repealed -- 15 percent of the shipyard workers on San Francisco Bay were Chinese. During the war, Chinese American men and women were working real jobs for the first time in the world’s only industrial behemoth and gaining new respect from their fellow citizens.

Had he returned to Oakland, Kenny would have heard the laughter of unprecedented numbers of children in the Nation’s Chinatowns. He would have seen his buddies buying houses in gradually desegregating neighborhoods, resuming college careers on the G.I. Bill, and wading into the social and cultural mainstream of postwar America.

We will never know what Kenny could have accomplished had he lived. He probably would have married his fiancee Alice, the love of his short life, raised a family and grown old. We would have met and seen him as just another 80-year-old senior citizen, serving up decades' worth of easy banter along with the stacks of pancakes at the Wa Sung Club’s annual Easter breakfast. As a member of one of Chinese America’s greatest generations, he would have made his own contribution to community after his years serving the country.

Instead, we are left only with the perplexing example of the wrenching deaths of Kenny and the thousands of other young men who never made it back home. Such selflessness demands that we ponder the meaning of his brief life and how in our time, beyond the words and through our own deeds, we as Americans can make his death meaningful and us worthy of such a sacrifice.

If each generation must renew the task of reclaiming Chinese American history, then the stories of both gallantry and sacrifice should be told again and again. With each retelling, a new generation — both native-born and immigrant — is called to an act of faith in the future, reaffirming the hope that the mere utterance of the names will preserve the memories of their lives, valor, and sacrifices of the Chinese Americans who marched, sailed or flew in harm’s way. This solemn duty falls to ethnic historians and storytellers to remember the community’s forgotten heroes in unforgettable ways.

“Chinese Doctor - Pacific St., S.F.” c. 1870 (Photograph by Thomas Houseworth & Co. from the Marilyn Blaisdell Collection). At left, a man stands in front of a door over which a sign reads "Wa Kee. Cure All Diseases."

At the Junction of Medicinal and Devotional Practice

The image of a Chinese medicine practitioner’s office next to a temple represents one of the earliest images of a healthcare provider in the pre-1906 period of San Francisco’s Chinatown and an unusual juxtaposition of a temple with a healing artist. As such, it deserves a longer comment separate from my general discussion about old Chinatown's herbalists here.

By the time the city’s Official Map of Chinatown San Francisco was released in July 1885, neither a Chinese doctor nor a temple is shown as occupying any lot on Pacific Street between Stockton Street and Montgomery Avenue. Moreover, the Langley directory for San Francisco in 1868 appears to contain no listing for either a doctor “Wa Kee” who claimed to “cure all diseases” or the temple shown next door to the doctor’s small office.

As one reads the Chinese signage from left to right, the first sign (in Chinese characters read right to left in the old style) the name of a legendary Chinese physician of the late Eastern Han dynasty, 華佗先師 (canto: “Wah Tauh seen see”) or literally “Master Hua Tuo” can be discerned.*

Although a full discussion of Hua Tuo’s medical career and his subsequent deification are beyond the scope of this article, suffice to say that ancient Chinese, including pioneer Chinese Californians, came to venerate him as a shenyi (神醫, "divine physician"; canto: "sun yee") and worship him as a medicinal god or immortal in Taoist temples, including the one shown in the above photo. Hua Tuo also appeared in fiction, notably the 14th-century historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, wherein Hua Tuo heals the general Guan Yu from a poisoned arrow wound. The story, therefore, placed him in proximity to the also-deified general venerated by pioneer-geneation and today’s Chinese Americans as Guan Di.

The next sign reads 西山侯王 (canto: “Sai Sahn Hau Wong”; lit. "western mountain Hou Wang") or a Xishan Houwang- type of temple. Thus, the signage proclaims the dual purpose of the building as providing Chinese traditional medicine services as well as a place of worship.

Next, the long vertical signage to the left of the doorway of the small temple reads: 天寶物華 (canto: “tin1 bou2 muht wah”) or, referring to "heavenly or natural treasures is the essence of all things/items” (although temple scholars may provide a better translation). To the right of the open doorway the vertical sign reads 神靈地傑 (canto: “sun ling deih git,” referring to gods/deities/divinities and earthly heroes).*

"812 Chinese Joss House" c. 1874. Photograph by Thomas Houseworth & Co. from the collection of the California State Library).

The next two signs simply repeat the first two advertisements seen to the left of the temple entryway. Above the open door, however, one can discern the characters on the large horizontal sign as 西山侯王廟 (canto: “Sai Sahn Hau Wong Miu”) or a Xishan Houwang Temple. (According to quick web search by Wong Yuen-ming, the place name of “Xishan,” also known as Xipo Mountain, is located to the west of Guangzhou, in Guangdong province. The hill itself rises 10 to 20-meters and is surmounted by a platform. Now located in a residential area, the hill faces Liuhua Lake to the north, Renmin North Road to the east, City Children’s Palace to the west, and De Ni Road to the south.)

Studies of pre-1906 Chinatown have yet to disclose the existence of a Xishan Houwang-type temple on Pacific Street or anywhere else in the Chinese quarter of the city (aside from a Houwang temple contained within the headquarters of the Yeong Wo district association at 728 Sacramento Street).

"Scene in the Joss House," from the San Francisco Call newspaper of September 22, 1903. The image of Houwang (侯王) appears at left. This altar setup was installed in the Yeong Wo association building at 728 Sacramento Street.

One can infer from the Houseworth photograph that its occupant-custodian and herbalist believed that the co-location of his medical offices with such a temple conferred a competitive advantage. Patrons could both invoke the blessings of the patron saint of physicians Hua Tao and seek treatment from a presumed medical disciple, claiming boldly in his English language signage that “Wa Kee Cure All Diseases.”

[* Thanks to colleagues Wong Yuen-Ming for this research and Victor Wai Ho Lim for proofreading the Chinese characters.]

“No. 1015. A Chinese Chef driven from Kitchen to Curb by the San Francisco Earthquake disaster, April 18, 1906.” Photographer unknown (from the collection of Wong Yuen-Ming).

Wok-ing Outside: Chinese Quake Cooks of 1906

The settlement of the American West was marked by labor shortages in practically all fields of endeavor. In California, men far outnumbered women during the Gold Rush era, and domestic services were in short supply, and Chinese entered the field in which competition with white labor was less intense, as was the case in the industrial and agricultural sectors. “He was seen in homes, on the ranchs [sic] and farms,” historian Thomas W. Chinn wrote, “tending stock, cooking, cooking, doing indoor and outdoor work such as washing and ironing, cutting firewood and working in the garden.”

Officer’s home on Funston Avenue, c. 1880. Photographer unknown (from a private collection). Two Chinese servants flank the members of an Army officer’s family in the Presidio of San Francisco.

Chinese domestic workers often endeared themselves to Californians, and family memoirs often recounted the presence of Chinese houseboys and cooks in employers’ homes, often serving families for two or three generations. Domestic work provided the workers of the 19th and early 20th centuries the opportunity to work outside the confines of Chinatown and often for prosperous white employers.

In the chaos of the April 1906 earthquake and fire in San Francisco, Chinese domestic servants found themselves thrust into a harrowing ordeal. Many were forced to flee alongside their employers, abandoning their homes and livelihoods in the face of impending disaster. As they navigated the rubble-strewn streets and sought refuge from the encroaching flames, these workers faced challenges and uncertainty. Some managed to find temporary shelter in makeshift camps with friends or family members. Others remained with their employers.

A lone Chinese man, having fled from the 1906 earthquake and fire, sits next to a white woman amongst a collection of household goods with other refugees probably in the Potrero Hill area of San Francisco, c. April 1906. No other Chinese appears present. Photographer unknown (from a private collection).

In the aftermath of the 1906 disaster, it was hardly surprising that many Chinese domestic workers -- already adept in the culinary arts -- rose to the occasion. San Francisco lay in ruins, buildings and streets having crumbled or fractured. Amidst such desolation and chaos, the need for sustenance became paramount. Chinese cooks utilized their skills to provide food to their employer’s households and the displaced populace in improvised street kitchens, which had sprung up all over the city. Photographers captured images of makeshift kitchens operating outdoors in the face of adversity.

A lone Chinese cook stands outside a small shack, inspecting his improvised stove and oven probably assembled from salvaged bricks, a pile of which appears at left, c. April 1906. Photographer unknown (from the collection of the California Historical Society).

Chinese domestic servants were among the many who demonstrated remarkable adaptability in the wake of the disaster. With traditional households destroyed, they took to the streets, employing whatever resources were available to them. Improvised stoves and salvaged utensils allowed them to ply their culinary craft despite the challenges posed by the destruction.

The images of cooks with their employers reflect a kind of community and solidarity amongst the Chinese domestic servants and their patrons. Amidst the uncertainty and upheaval, the street kitchen became not only a place to procure nourishment but perhaps provided a higher degree of interaction through sharing of meals, amidst the ruins of homes and buildings in the aftermath of the disaster.

Chinese cook in a makeshift kitchen shack stands by while a man, possibly his employer, reads the day’s news, April 1906. Photographer unknown (from the collection of the California Historical Society).

The appearance of the street kitchens represent a snapshot in time of the perseverance and adaptability of Chinese domestic workers amidst community devastation and adverse conditions. The small stories recognize and honor the resilience that shaped the collective history of Chinese San Francisco and America.

The cover illustration by Yangsook Choi for the children’s book Earthquake written by my Aunt Mildred Chan Lee under the name of Milly Lee.

Day of Days: A Girl’s-eye View of San Francisco Chinatown and the 1906 Earthquake and Fire

My late aunt Mildred (a.k.a. “Nimsie”) Chan grew up in a bustling, multi-generational household in San Francisco. Her daily life involved attending Chinese school after her regular classes and communicating predominantly in Cantonese, both at home and within her local community. Her childhood occurred before WW II – before the beginning of the end of Exclusion and segregation – in the tight-knit confines of the Chinatown community.

As a school librarian, Nim noticed a lack of books that reflected her own experiences as a bicultural child. While there were stories about Asia, they often portrayed it as a distant, ancient world, disconnected from modern, and even Chinese American, life. This realization fueled her desire to see more stories that depicted American children, navigating life between two cultures.

After retiring and being actively involved in the American Library Association, among other professional groups, Nim was well-prepared to author her first book, "Earthquake" under the name “Milly Lee.” The story is based on my grandmother's harrowing experiences during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

"This morning the earth shook and threw us from our beds. We were not hurt, just stunned." The eight year-old Lily (a.k.a. Lillian) after literally being tossed out of bed by the earthquake in the early morning hours of April 18, 1906. (Illustration by Yangsook Choi for the children’s book, Earthquake, by Milly Lee).

She vividly describes through the childlike eyes of my future grandmother, being awakened by the earthquake, the family’s desperate packing for the flight through a devastated city, and the march west before the onslaught of the ensuing great fire.

My future great grandmother Hee Ching Shee, in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, packing household items, including a small household shrine to the goddess (Illustration by Yangsook Choi for the children’s book Earthquake written by my aunt under the name of Milly Lee.)

"BaBa hurried out to seek help and returned witha cart and two kinsmen." Family members loaded onto the cart what belongings they could salvage from a ruined Chinatown out to Golden Gate Park during the morning of the Great Earthquake, April 18, 1906.(Illustration by Yangsook Choi for the children’s book, Earthquake, by Milly Lee).

“Up the steep hills, across the city, we pushed and pulled the heavy cart.” (Illustration by Yangsook Choi for the children’s book Earthquake by Milly Lee.)

The book not only offers an engaging historical account but also serves as a poignant homage to the many Chinese who suffered immense losses during the catastrophe.

The Qing-era household shrine or altar of the pioneer family of Hee Hoy (formal name: 許呈輝 (canto: "Heui Ching Fai") which was saved by my great grandmother from the earthquake and fire of 1906 that literally scoured San Francisco Chinatown. (Photograph from the collection of the Chinese Historical Society of America). The figurine is the Goddess of Mercy, Guanyin (觀音; mando: “Guan Yin”; canto: “G(w)un Yum”). As researcher and collector Wong Yuen-Ming observes that the Chinese characters 水月宮 (mando: “shuǐ yuègōng“; canto: “seoi yuht gung“) or “Water Moon Palace” appear in relief on the gold-colored badge placed above the carved wooden alcove for the figurine. The iconography denotes the portable shrine as dedicated to Shuiyue Guanyin (Chinese: 水月觀音; pinyin: Shuǐyuè Guānyīn; canto: “seoi yuht G(w)un Yum“ ) or a “Water-Moon Guanyin.” This traditionally masculine form of Guanyin is often presented as a further manifestation of the Thousand-Armed Guanyin. The religious supplicant invokes the deity for good rebirth, safe childbirth, and enlightenment. The figurine in this artifact appears consistent with the portrayal of Guanyin as a young man or woman. According to scholar Chun-fang Yu, artistic expressions of the Water Moon Guanyin often depict the deity in a relaxed “lalitasana” pose beside a pond or lake with the moon reflected in the water; the moon in the water is a metaphor for the Buddhist tenet of Śūnyatā. Given the devotional popularity of Guanyin in Asian, the Chinese pioneers not surprisingly brought the worship of the Bodhisattva to California, among other deities venerated in southern China.

My grandmother was 8 years old at the time of the great quake and fire, but she never spoke publicly about her experiences. Decades later, and when one of my cousins talked about sleeping in a tent during a family camping trip, my grandmother casually remarked to my Aunt Nim: “I’ve slept in a tent before.”

"Where?" my late Aunt Milly Lee inquired.

"Golden Gate Park, we were there for the earthquake.” The rest, as is often said, remains history and the inspiration for the children’s book, Earthquake.

The protagonist for the children’s book, Earthquake, by Milly Lee. As San Francisco's Hall of Records had been destroyed by quake and firet, a 10 year-old, Lily (a.k.a. Lillian) Hee, sat for this identification photo to accompany a 1908 affidavit (signed by Dr. Minnie Worley) to prove her birth in San Francisco Chinatown as a third-generation Californian.

[April 18, 2024]