The Paper Daughters of Chinatown - Heather B. Moore Page 0,1

polygyny, and discipline their spouses as they saw fit” (Yung, Unbound Feet, 19).

Chinese women were up against anti-immigration laws from both sides of the Pacific. Chinese law forbade the emigration of women until 1911, and the 1852 Foreign Miners’ Tax affected Chinese miners, along with taxes “levied on Chinese fishermen, laundry men, and brothel owners” (Yung, Unbound Feet, 21), making it even more expensive to support a family. Besides passing punitive ordinances aimed specifically at the Chinese, the California legislature denied them basic civil rights, including immigration rights, employment in public works, intermarriage with whites, ability to give testimony in court, and the right to own land.

Then came the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, in which Congress suspended Chinese laborers from immigrating for ten years. The Act was renewed in 1892, then again in 1904, and so on, until it was finally repealed in 1943. “In the interest of diplomatic and trade relations between China and the United States, Chinese officials, students, teachers, merchants, and travelers were exempted by treaty provisions—and therein lay the loophole through which Chinese, including women, were able to continue coming after 1882” (Yung, Unbound Feet, 22).

This was the open door that allowed slave owners or members of the criminal tong to bring Chinese women into the country under false identities supported by forged paperwork. By virtue of this forged paperwork system, in which the Chinese woman would memorize her new family’s heritage and claim to be married or otherwise related to a Chinese man already living and working in California, the paper daughter was allowed into the country. “Upon arrival in San Francisco many such Chinese women, usually between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five, were taken to a barracoon, where they were either turned over to their owners or stripped for inspection and sold to the highest bidder” (Yung, Unbound Feet, 27).

It wasn’t until the early 1870s that women’s missionary societies discovered the need to provide a safe place for Chinese women fleeing slavery. Despite facing opposition herself for helping the Chinese women, Mrs. Samantha Condit, wife of a Presbyterian missionary assigned to Chinatown, advocated for their cause until she established the California branch of the Women’s Foreign Missionary Society. Not only was she up against a myriad of anti-Chinese city ordinances, but finding donors proved to be difficult, with many refusing to donate to a cause that supported supposedly depraved women (New Era Magazine, 137).

Condit prevailed. In 1874, she and her board rented a small apartment just below Nob Hill in San Francisco, officially founding the Occidental Mission Home for Girls. This was the beginning of establishing a place of refuge, healing, education, and Christian religious instruction for the destitute women of Chinatown. Although Bible study and attending church on Sundays were part of the curriculum at the mission home, Donaldina Cameron and her staff incorporated the girls’ heritage and culture as well throughout their education. The mission home didn’t necessarily expect the girls to convert to Christianity, but some of them did (Martin, Chinatown’s Angry Angel, 153). By the time Donaldina Cameron retired as the mission home’s superintendent in 1934, the number of slaves she and her staff had rescued had reached three thousand.

1869: Donaldina Cameron is born in Clydevale on the Molyneux, New Zealand.

1872: The Cameron family moves to California, arriving in San Francisco.

1873: The California Branch of the Women’s Foreign Mission Society is formed.

1874: The Women’s Foreign Mission Society opens the Occidental Mission Home for Girls.

1882: The Chinese Exclusion Act is approved by Congress.

1894: The Occidental Mission Home relocates to 920 Sacramento Street.

1894: Tien Fu Wu is rescued and brought to the mission home.

1895: Donaldina Cameron takes train to San Francisco in April, arrives at mission home to teach sewing classes.

1897: Mission home superintendent, Margaret Culbertson, dies. Mary H. Field becomes new superintendent.

1900: Mary H. Field resigns, and Donaldina Cameron accepts the position as superintendent.

1900: Chinatown is scoured because of bubonic plague.

1906: An enormous earthquake devastates San Francisco.

1907: Cornerstone for new mission home is laid at 920 Sacramento Street.

1908: Miss Cameron and girls return to 920 Sacramento Street.

1908: The newly built mission home is dedicated.

1910: The Angel Island Immigration Station opens.

1912: Women are allowed to vote in San Francisco.

1934: Donaldina Cameron retires.

1935: Trafficked women testify in the Broken Blossoms court case.

1942: The mission home is renamed the “Cameron House.”

1943: The Chinese Exclusion Act is repealed.

1968: Donaldina Cameron dies, with Tien Fu Wu by her side.

“From a woman, and she a pretty, fair-spoken Scotch maiden, this slave trade took its hardest

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