History of the Chinese Americans in San Francisco

As of 2012, 21.4% of the population in San Francisco was of Chinese descent, and at least 150,000 Chinese American residents. The Chinese are the largest Asian American subgroup in San Francisco. San Francisco has the highest percentage of residents of Chinese descent of any major U.S. city, and the second largest Chinese American population, after New York City. The San Francisco Bay Area is 7.9% Chinese American, with many residents in Oakland and Santa Clara County. San Francisco's Chinese community has ancestry mainly from Guangdong province, China and Hong Kong, although there is a sizable population of ethnic Chinese with ancestry from other parts of mainland China and Taiwan as well.

History

The Gateway Arch (Dragon Gate) on Grant Avenue at Bush Street in Chinatown.

San Francisco's Chinatown was the port of entry for early Hoisanese and Zhongshanese Chinese immigrants from the Guangdong Province of southern China from the 1850s to the 1900s. The area was the one geographical region deeded by the city government and private property owners which allowed Chinese persons to inherit and inhabit dwellings within the city. The majority of these Chinese shopkeepers, restaurant owners, and hired workers in San Francisco Chinatown were predominantly Hoisanese and male. Many Chinese found jobs working for large companies seeking a source of labor, most famously as part of the Central Pacific on the Transcontinental Railroad. Other early immigrants worked as mine workers or independent prospectors hoping to strike it rich during the 1849 Gold Rush.

Although many of the earlier waves of Chinese immigration were predominantly males searching for labor, Chinese women also began making the journey towards the United States. The first known Chinese woman to immigrate to America was Marie Seise who arrived in 1848 and worked in the household of Charles V. Gillespie. Within a matter of months after Seis’s arrival to the West Coast, the rush for gold in California commenced which brought a flooding of prospective miners from all around the globe. Among this group were Chinese primarily from the Guangdong Province most of whom were seafarers who had al ready established Western contacts. “Few women accompanied these early sojourners, many of whom expected to return from after they made their fortune.” Although the oceanic voyage to the United States offered new and exciting opportunities, dangers also loomed for women while traveling and many were discouraged from making the trip due to the harsh living conditions accompanying the long and arduous journey. “During the Gold Rush era, when Chinese men were a common sight in California, Chinese women were an oddity” and in urban spaces were rarely seen in public. Unlike the rural areas, Chinatown afforded few opportunities for women to come into contact with the larger society.”

With national unemployment in the wake of the Panic of 1873, racial tensions in the city boiled over into full blown race riots. In response to the violence, the Consolidated Chinese Benevolent Association or the Chinese Six Companies, which evolved out of the labor recruiting organizations for different areas of Guangdong province, was created as a means of providing the community with a unified voice. The heads of these companies were the leaders of the Chinese merchants, who represented the Chinese community in front of the business community as a whole and the city government. The anti-immigrant sentiment became law as the United States Government passed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 – the first immigration restriction law aimed at a single ethnic group. This law, along with other immigration restriction laws such as the Geary Act, greatly reduced the numbers of Chinese people allowed into the country and the city, and in theory limited Chinese immigration to single males only. Exceptions were in fact granted to the families of wealthy merchants, but the law was still effective enough to reduce the population of the neighborhood to an all time low in the 1920s. The exclusion act was repealed during World War II under the Magnuson Act in recognition of the important role of China as an ally in the war, although tight quotas still applied. Not unlike much of San Francisco, a period of criminality ensued in some Chinese gangs known as tongs, which were on the produce of smuggling, gambling and prostitution, and by the early 1880s, the population had adopted the term Tong war to describe periods of violence in Chinatown, the San Francisco Police Department had established its so-called Chinatown Squad. One of the more successful sergeants, Jack Manion, was appointed in 1921 and served for two decades. The squad was finally disbanded in August 1955 by Police Chief George Healey, upon the request of the influential Chinese World newspaper, which had editorialized that the squad was an "affront to Americans of Chinese descent". The neighborhood was completely destroyed in the 1906 earthquake that leveled most of the city.

From 1910 to 1940, Chinese immigrants were detained at the Angel Island immigration station in the San Francisco Bay. To be permitted entry to the United States, Chinese immigrants crossing the Pacific to San Francisco had to enter through the gauntlet of Angel Island. Thousands, the majority being Chinese, were detained for months in a purgatory of isolation. Some spent years on the island waiting for entry to the U.S.

Many working-class Hong Kong Chinese immigrants began arriving to Chinatown in large numbers in the 1960s and despite their status and professions in Hong Kong, had to find low-paying employment in restaurants and garment factories in Chinatown because of limited English fluency. An increase in Cantonese-speaking immigrants from Hong Kong and Mainland China has gradually led to the replacement of the Hoisanese/Taishanese dialect with the standard Cantonese dialect.

In the Sunset District in western San Francisco, a demographic shift began in the late 1960s and accelerated from the 1980s as Asian immigration to San Francisco increased dramatically. Much of the original, largely Irish American population of the Sunset moved to other neighborhoods and outlying suburban areas, although there is still a significant Irish American and Irish minority in the neighborhood. Informal Chinatowns have emerged on Irving Street between 19th Avenue and 24th Avenue as well as on the commercial sections of Taraval Street and Noriega Street west of 19th Avenue. About half of the Sunset District's residents are Asian American, mostly of Chinese birth and descent. The immigrants in the Sunset District were both Mandarin- and Cantonese-speaking.

As of 2012, many immigrants from China and Taiwan moved to the San Francisco Bay Area due to jobs in the technological industry. Many of them reside in the South Bay Area cities of Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, San Jose, and Fremont.

Geography

Chinatowns in San Francisco:

• Chinatown, San Francisco
• Clement Street Chinatown, San Francisco, the "Second Chinatown"
• Irving Street Chinatown, San Francisco, the "Third Chinatown"
• Noriega Street Chinatown, San Francisco, the "Fourth Chinatown"

Chinatowns around San Francisco:

• Chinatown, Oakland
• Chinatown, San Jose, California
• Milpitas Square, a Chinese shopping center in Milpitas, California

Cultural institutions

The Chinese Culture Center, a community-based, non-profit organization, is located between Chinatown and the Financial District in San Francisco.

Healthcare

The San Francisco Chinese Hospital (東華醫院) is in the San Francisco Chinatown, and was established in 1925. It is the only Chinese-language hospital in the United States.

Education

Palo Alto Chinese School is located in Palo Alto, and has classes teaching both Mandarin and Cantonese. The Chinese American International School, Cumberland Chinese School, North Valley Chinese School, and Mei Jia Chinese Learning Center are located in San Francisco. The Shoong Family Chinese Cultural Center in Oakland serves as the premier Chinese-language school in the East Bay Area, and Contra Costa Chinese School is located in Pleasant Hill. The North Valley Chinese School in Milpitas and San Jose Chinese school both serve the greater San Jose area. The Redwood Empire Chinese Center's Chinese school in Santa Rosa serves the North Bay.

Media

The Hong Kong-based newspaper Sing Tao Daily (星島日報) has an office in San Francisco. The Chinese-American newspaper World Journal (世界日報) has an office in Millbrae.

Transportation

Previously the Taiwanese airline China Airlines operated a bus to San Francisco International Airport from Milpitas and Cupertino in California.

Cultural events

The Chinese New Year Parade in San Francisco is held on every Chinese New Year's, and is celebrated in Chinatown. It is the largest Chinese New Year event in North America. The Taiwanese American Cultural Festival, started in 1993, is held in Union Square, San Francisco every May.

Notable people

This includes ethnic Chinese in the San Francisco Bay Area

• Francis Chan, preacher
• Wilma Chan, member of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors
• Raymond Chow Kwok Cheung, criminal
• Carmen Chu, politician
• Edsel Ford Fong, waiter at Sam Wo
• Ed Jew, politician
• Bruce Lee, actor, born in Chinatown
• Ed Lee, Mayor of San Francisco
• Edsel Ford Fong, waiter, born and raised in Chinatown
• Heather Fong, former Chief of San Francisco Police Department
• Alex Gong, kickboxer
• Fred Lau, former Chief of San Francisco Police Department
• Walter U. Lum, activist
• Eric Mar, politician
• Betty Ong, American Airlines Flight 11 flight attendant
• Amy Tan, author
• Katy Tang, politician
• Phil Ting, politician
• Alex Tse, screenwriter
• Gene Luen Yang, cartoonist
• Martin Wong, artist
• Willie "Woo Woo" Wong, basketball player, who a playground in Chinatown is named after
• Leland Yee, politician

See also

• Sam Wo

Further reading

• Chen, Yong. Chinese San Francisco, 1850-1943: A Trans-Pacific Community. Stanford University Press, 2002. ISBN 0804745501, 9780804745505.
• Isaacs, Sally Senzell. Life in San Francisco's Chinatown. Heinemann Library, 2003. ISBN 1403405247, 9781403405241.
• Jorae, Wendy Rouse. Children of Chinatown: Growing Up Chinese American in San Francisco, 1850-1920: Growing Up Chinese American in San Francisco, 1850-1920. University of North Carolina Press, 2009. ISBN 0807898589, 9780807898581.
• Lim, Roger T. The Chinese in San Francisco and the Mining Region of California, 1848-1858. Dominican College of San Rafael, 1979.
• Shah, Nayan. Contagious Divides: Epidemics and Race in San Francisco's Chinatown (Volume 7 of American crossroads). University of California Press, 2001. ISBN 0520226291, 9780520226296.
• Tong, Benson. Unsubmissive Women: Chinese Prostitutes in Nineteenth Century San Francisco. University of Oklahoma Press, August 1, 2000. ISBN 0806132841, 9780806132846.
• Yung, Judy. Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco. University of California Press, 1995. ISBN 0520915356, 9780520915350.
• Yung, Judy (editor). Unbound Voices: A Documentary History of Chinese Women in San Francisco. University of California Press, 1999. ISBN 0520922875, 9780520922877.

External links

• Chinese American Voters Education Committee (CAVEC; 華裔選民教育委員會 Huáyì Xuǎnmín Jiàoyùwěiyuánhuì)