The Chinese in America - Iris Chang [106]
Though loath to accept government handouts, many Chinese did not hesitate to fight when the interests of their community were threatened. During the Great Depression, Chinese laundry owners in New York City successfully battled white competitors trying to drive them out of business with restrictive municipal codes. In 1933, city aldermen proposed that U.S. citizenship be a requirement for operating a laundry, and set high license fees and security bonds that were far beyond the means of the majority of Chinese laundries, which for the most part were small operations. If it had passed, the ordinance would have damaged if not destroyed the entire Chinese laundry industry in New York.
The response was immediate. The Chinese washermen organized the Chinese Hand Laundry Alliance, which issued a public statement declaring that if they did not fight this ordinance immediately, “tens of thousands of Chinese laundry men would be stranded in this country, and our wives and children back home would be starved to death.” Pooling their resources to hire a prominent white attorney, the CHLA succeeded in pressuring the city to reduce the license and bond fees substantially and exempt all “Orientals” from the U.S. citizenship requirement. CHLA continued to thrive for years, reaching its peak in 1934 with 3,200 members.
Smaller battles, less epic in scale but equally important, were also waged as individual Chinese tried to save their businesses during the depression. In some cases, they revealed remarkable reserves of strength within families. In her poignant autobiographical essay, “An Early Baltimore Chinese Family: Lee Yick You and Louie Yu Oy,” Lillian Lee Kim described how she and her siblings survived double disasters before the onset of the depression: first the death of her father in 1928 from illness, then the physical collapse of her mother after battling her husband’s first son from a previous marriage for control of the household savings. One evening, after vomiting a stream of blood, the mother was confined to bed, leaving her grade-school children completely responsible for the day-to-day operation of the laundry. Amazingly, they kept the business alive without adult supervision. Arranging for a wholesaler to wash the soiled laundry during the day, they rushed home from school each afternoon to sort, starch, and press clothes until bedtime, with the younger ones standing on stools to reach the ironing board. As they grew older, they found part-time jobs on weekends—doing housework, carrying groceries for shoppers, and helping vendors sell fruits and vegetables. Their valiant teamwork helped them rescue the laundry from bankruptcy and weather the Great Depression.
As Chinese family businesses worked harder during the depression, Chinese civic leaders joined together to discuss strategies for increasing their earnings. Tourism appeared to be a reliable source of cash. In San Francisco, immigrant Chinese merchants had sensed early the potential profits of this industry: after the 1906 earthquake and fire destroyed the old Chinatown, Chinese businessmen erected new structures that, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, were “thoroughly modern” yet projected an “Oriental charm and attractiveness.” With a steady stream of articles, brochures, and advertisements, the local media, the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, and the Chinese community itself all worked together to promote Chinatown as one of the city’s visitor attractions. In 1915, San Francisco Chinatown staged its first beauty pageant to encourage white male tourism.