The Paper Daughters of Chinatown - Heather B. Moore Page 0,147
about to be performed on the house, giving the girls warning (Wilson, Chinatown Quest, 19).
There is some discrepancy in the accounts of how Kum Quai arrived at 920 Sacramento Street. Author Carol Wilson said that she came of her own accord, escaped from her master (Chinatown Quest, 19). Author Mildred Martin, who called her Kum Qui, said that she was rescued from Baker Alley and rushed to the mission home through a heckling crowd (Chinatown’s Angry Angel, 55).
Chapter Eleven
Epigraph citation: Women’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Presbyterian Church, Annual Report, 1902, 38.
Few of the Chinese women smuggled into San Francisco could read or write, which meant they signed their contracts with their slave owners with an X or a thumbprint. The typical contract included the money owed for passage across the ocean, the number of years to be worked (four to six), and a stipulation that if the woman was sick for more than ten days, she had to make up an extra month of work (Yung, Unbound Feet, 27). These contracts were often extended indefinitely because days not worked due to menstrual cycles, illnesses, or pregnancy were counted against the women. As Judy Yung pointed out, “Most Chinese prostitutes were subjected to such physical and mental abuse that few could outlive their contract terms of four to six years” (Unbound Feet, 28).
Chapter Twelve
Epigraph citation: San Francisco Chronicle, April 3, 1900 (as quoted by Wilson in Chinatown Quest, 22).
When Kum Quai calls Donaldina “Lo Mo,” it’s meant as an affectionate term that bonds two women together, or a child to her mother. Although the technical translation is “old mama” or “old mother,” in Donaldina’s case, it was adopted with love throughout Chinatown (Martin, Chinatown’s Angry Angel, 61).
Chapter Thirteen
Epigraph citation: San Francisco Call, 1898 (quoted in Asbury, Barbary Coast, 181).
Judy Yung writes, “Whereas the majority of white prostitutes came to San Francisco as independent professionals and worked for wages in brothels, Chinese prostitutes were almost always kidnapped, lured, or purchased from poor parents by procurers in China for as little as $50 and then resold in America for as much as $1,000 in the 1870s” (Unbound Feet, 27). By the 1920s, the price reached from $6,000 to $10,000 in gold (Martin, Chinatown’s Angry Angel, 239).
Chapter Fourteen
Epigraph citation: “Palo Alto Resolution,” San Francisco Chronicle, April 3, 1900.
Attorney Henry E. Monroe spent over thirty years working in behalf of the mission home. And no matter where his career took him, he continued to donate countless hours to legal work that benefited the mission home residents. He led an honorable career and earned a high reputation (Wilson, Chinatown Quest, 49).
When Kum Quai was abducted from the mission home in March 1900, Donaldina would not back down. These events led to the fiasco of Kum Quai and Donaldina spending the night in jail, only to have Kum Quai abducted again and tried in the middle of the night on the roadside. Public upheaval led to indictments of the justice of the peace, the deputy constable, and the two Chinese abductors Chung Bow and Wong Fong (Wilson, Chinatown Quest, 19–25; Martin, Chinatown’s Angry Angel, 55–57).
In March 1900, Chinatown was put under quarantine against the bubonic plague. The upheaval in the city was immediate, with travel restricted for those living on both sides of the barriers. Leung Kum Ching (later called Ah Ching) knocked on the mission home door when she was nine years old, crying about her dying sister. Her sister had been cast onto the street, as per pagan custom, during the bubonic plague. Since Chinatown was under quarantine, Donaldina had to go through skylights and cross rooftops in order to pass the barriers. Unfortunately, the sister died of appendicitis after the rescue (Wilson, Chinatown Quest, 29–30). Leung Kum Ching continued to live at the mission home, and when she was older she aided in more rescues (Wilson, Chinatown Quest, 38; Martin, Chinatown’s Angry Angel, 77). Many Chinese were skeptical of the inoculations against the plague, and one girl in the mission home panicked, jumped out of the second-story window, and broke her ankle, all to avoid the shot (Martin, Chinatown’s Angry Angel, 78).
Chapter Sixteen
Epigraph citation: M. G. C. Edholm, “A Stain on the Flag,” Californian Illustrated Magazine, February 1892, 162.
Not only were the paper daughters exploited for their bodies, many of them succumbed to venereal diseases. “Once hopelessly diseased, they were discarded on the street or