chinese laundries: tickets to survival on gold mountain, john jung, chinese historical society of...

8/9/2019 Chinese Laundries: Tickets to Survival on Gold Mountain, John Jung, Chinese Historical Society of Southern California, Feb., 2010

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The Historical ImportanceThe Historical Importance

of Chinese Laundriesof Chinese Laundries

John Jung

California State University, Long Beach

February 3, 2010


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In Reality


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Before Chinese Laundries

(Women, not Men, did the laundry)


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A Sample of Chinese Laundries --->


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Some Early Laundries


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Laundries As Tickets to Gold Mountain


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Meaning of Laundry NamesWhy did many Chinese laundries have Lee as part of their names?:

Sam Lee, Sing Lee, Wah Lee, Tai Lee

Lee is the most common Chinese surname.

Were these laundries owned by men named Lee?

NO, the surname, Lee,, sounds like li,, which refers to profit. Owners often

used words suggesting prosperity as part of their laundry names.

Sing Lee and Sam Lee: two of the most common Chinese male names. The1910 Census lists

280 Chinese men named Sing Lee

(182 with the reverse name, Lee Sing)

234 named Sam Lee

Most (73%) of the Sing Lees and Sam Lees ran laundries.


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3 Sam Lee Laundries


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Iowa Chinese Laundries 1910


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San Diego


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How Chinese Laundrymen Were Viewed


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Ridicule


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As Dangers

to White Women


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Chinese Exclusion

and ExpulsionGroups

usedthe Laundryman

as a symbol of

Chinese


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Inside and Outside

ofA Holyoke, Mass. Laundry


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Testimony Favoring Lee Wong Hing


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Chinese Inspector JudgmentAgainst Laundryman


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An Olympia, Wa. Laundry Case


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1. In 1886,therewere 310 laundries builtofwoodin San Francisco;

240 owned by Chineseand 70 owned by European Americans.

2. San Franciscopassedanordinancethatalllaundriesmust be builtofbrickduetofirehazard.

3. All Chinese,andonlyone European Americanmalelaundryowner,

withlaundriesinwood buildingswerearrested,tried,convicted,andfined.

4.Yick Wo, oneoftheconvictedlaundryowners,hadoperatedhislaundryin San Franciscofor22yearsandarguedthe judgmentwasracistandunfair.

5. The California Supreme Courtupheldthe San Franciscocourtdecision.

Yick Woappealedtothe United States Supreme Courtwhereheprevailed.

UnfairLaws:

The CaseofYick Wovs. Hopkins


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Legal and PoliticalB

iases


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White Laundry Rivals


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Contesting Health Safety of Laundries


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Pranks and Crimes

Against Laundrymen


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A Novice Laundrymans Experience

When I first handled the dirty clothes, I could not take thesmell. I almost threw up. Father saw my reaction andcomforted me, "Take your time. You know, picking upthese clothes is even worse than moving corpses back inChina. I never mentioned the unhealthy conditions of the

laundry in my letters to China. Knowing those thingswould not do the family any good back home.

Frankly, I was busy from dawn to dusk. How could I findtime to write about all these things? I always wrote 'I amwell and healthy here. No need to worry.' It didn't matterwhether I was well or sick. Being here, you had to endure.


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The irons weighed eight pounds each. When the iron was hot enough,you took it off the stove where it was heated and ironed until it cooleddown. Then you heated it up again.

After ironing all day, marks would appear on your palm. Blisterswould turn to calluses so thick that even if you cut them open with a

knife would not bleed

Many Chinese had health problems after only three years of laundrywork. My father never wrote about his bad health to his wife backin China.

Laundry work was a difficult life but the Chinese endured it becausethey wanted to send money back to their homeland.

Physical HardshipsofLaundry Work


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Life ofA Laundrymans Wife

My husband was 20 years old when we were married. We were

introduced by matchmakers. He was 27 years old when he came

here We saw each other again when I came over, ten years

laterI came here when I was 46, 48and I have been here sincethenI came to help my husband with the laundry I had to be

careful because if we damaged any of the garments, we had to

pay for them. I washed everything myself, huge baskets full of

clothes. I washed as many as 50shirts.


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Life ofA Laundrymans Wife (cont)

We just worked in the laundry ourselves. I did the washing, my

husband did the ironingIt was very hard money to make.

There were no set working hours. When there was more work,

we had to stay up and do it. We would work laterat night

sometimes to eleven oclock at night. My husband knew a little

English. The law-fan (whites) harassed us all the timeThey

used to scream, Chinitown. Chinitown! whenever we would say

anythingWhere we worked, there were children who were

very badthey would throw snow at our clothes lines, where theclothes were hung to dry


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Laundry Interiors


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Family At Work and At Rest


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LunchB

reak


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Making Fun of Chinese Laundries


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British Chinese Laundry Humor

Chinese Laundry Blues

Now Mr. Wu was a laundry man in a shopwith an old green door.

He'll iron all day your linen away, he really

makes me sore. He's lost his heart to a Chinese girl and his

laundry's all gone wrong.

All day he'll flirt and scorch your shirt,that's why I'm singing this song.

Oh Mr. Wu, what shall I do, I'm feelingkind of Limehouse Chinese Laundry Blues. George Formby, popular 1930sBritish singer


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Becoming A Chinese Laundryman

By Mail


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"No one knows laundrybetter than the Chinese.

Theyve even perfected thebag.

The real thing, these sturdy100% cotton twill Chineselaundry bags have a mystic,

irresistible appeal.

No fortune cookie included,though."

Mocking the Chinese Laundry


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Ads Portrayed Laundrymen As

Cleverly Simple OR Simply Dumb


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Children of the Laundry


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Children Worked in the LaundryI was the lucky one to help grease bearings in tough-to-reach locations.My father would routinely have me crawl into the inner cavity burner of

the mangle where the flame ports need to be unplugged with a small poker.

This was done to prevent uneven heating of the massive round cylinder.

I had to twist my body into Houdini-like contortions in order to gain

access into the inferno chamber. With a flashlight in my left hand and the

small poker in my right hand, my father would issue instructions from

outside the inferno cavity:

Okay, Elwin, now move over to the next row.

Keep going until you get to the very end.

When youre done, well make a laundry delivery to a caf and get somefree eats.


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Injuries To ChildrenA Chinese laundry is not a very safe place for small children to play, and I was

living proof of that. When I was only four, my hand got locked for just seconds

inside the red-hot machine that flattened collars and cuffs on a shirt with the

press of a button. The common folklore at the time was to put butter on a burn.I remember the butter melting so fast it seemed to vaporize. I must have been

screaming my four-year-old head off, but all can recall is seeing a wad of

butter turn to liquid

It was a long and painful recuperation from a third degree burn. The graftrequired tissue from my stomach so I could not wear pants or underwear. Air

conditioning was unaffordable, so naked made a lot of sense. The heat from

the laundry was great in the winter and was hell in the summer. I suspect the

devil may have been in the laundry business before the Chinese.


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LaundryA

ccidentsThe laundry was not a safe place to grow up.

Nelson, my eldest brother, was horsing around the hydraulic shirt

presses while our mother was pressing collars.

With his hands on each of the two ON levers, which were spaced

apart for safety reasons, he sent the hot 24 x 36 iron clamp down onto

our mothers right hand, leaving her hand permanently disfigured.

In another incident, I was doodling with a ballpoint pen on a moving

conveyer belt when my hand got caught.I was able to extract my hand before the ambulance arrived.


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The Laundry PremisesThe building that held the laundry was a converted horse barn about a

hundred years old and we lived in very cramped space in the back

with no clear separation of the work areas from the living quarters.

My bedroom was the space where we dried clothes from lines strungacross the ceiling during the work hours.

We had no heavy equipment in the store, only ironing tables and we

sent all clothes out to a wet wash service for washing and most of the

shirts to a shirt pressing factory for ironing/folding.


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Life OfA Laundrymans Son

Our living quarters were located on the second floor above the laundry.

There were three bedrooms: my two sisters shared a room with our maternal

grandmother, my parents shared a room with one of my brothers, and I

shared a room with two otherbrothers.

As young children, my brothers and sisters and I started off folding smallfluffy items such as towels. As we got older, we were assigned more difficult

jobs, such as feeding damp linen into the mangle, a massive flat iron for

pressing bed sheets and tablecloths.

I spent the bulk of my boyhood folding, packaging, and organizing

customerslinen. My time was also spent reconciling the differences

between the customers linen count against the actual count I had in

front of me.


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Life Of A Laundry Family

All of us wor ed in t e laundry, wit our responsi ilitiesvarying wit age. e older ildren waited on customers

who dropped off or picked up laundry, folded socks, and

operated equipment like the mangle. As thefamily increased

in numbers, she had less time to work in the laundry. Dad had

her do the mending and sewing. e ate only Chinese meals

so she was in charge of all the food preparations for the

family and also provided lunch for the workers. Dad usually

had 2 to 4 Chinese employees andfivefemale ironers, usually

white women, to hand-finish the shirts.


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Kids Laundry PlayWe would have to be inventive to amuse ourselves at the laundry store.

We had an old iron stove that warmed the basement. As the youngest

grandchild, I, would go around with the water squirt bottle grandfather

used to moisten clothes before ironing them, and being mischievous,

as many little boys tend to be, would wet the wings of insects so they could

not fly away so I could catch them and throw them into the burning stove!

The actual machinery and parts of the laundry were kid toys. About when I

learned to walk, I played with a box of plumbing parts that were removed

From the huge boiler needed to keep the shirt presses hot. It seems that

nothing, even these spent parts, ever got thrown out. So my toy collection

just kept growing.


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Some Nasty CustomersThe customer is handed his package; he rips open the package to examine

the ironed shirts. He shakes one out---

Hey, there are still wrinkles here.

and here.and, look, right there! NOT GOOD ENOUGH!

Im not going to pay for this!

My fatherbowing, taking back the shirt.

oh, so solee. We do it again.no chargee. come back tomorrow.

Or, another complaining customer yelling, pointing out a stain,

I told you to clean that spot! Its still there. Take that out!

I dont want to see that spot again!

Those interactions sting in my memory.

The cranky customers caused my parents to gripe afterwards

andfeel humiliated in their lowly posts of running a

Chinese hand laundry.


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Some Nice CustomersA few of the laundry customers also noticed us four siblings and treatedus with friendly attention. They gave us dolls andAmerican board games.

They introduced us to hobbies of stamp collecting and coin collections,

which then motivated us to sort through the daily cash box to find pennies,

nickels, dimes and quarters minted by year to place in the coin books.

A few customers brought in hand-me-down clothing for my older sister

and jewelry for my mom. For Christmas, we received a few fruit baskets

and fruitcakes.

Mrs. Greer, a customer and neighbor around the corner from us,hired me to baby-sit on occasion. There inside her house, I saw a

different lifestyle ofAmerican living---furniture, kitchen, snack foods, toys

spread all over, and children who openly argued and fought.


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Sunday Trips to ChinatownOne parent would keep the car moving while the other one shopped.

It is impossible to park in Chinatown, so the ritual was constant circling

or standing until the police said moveConstant gridlock made traffic

lights irrelevant, and the city acknowledged that fact by installing traffic

signals with only two lights, instead of three

Through the auto glass I watched whole roast pigs emerging from

basement smokehouses to be chopped and hung in grocery windows,

and saw endless rows ofjuicy roast ducks hanging by their necks.

Runners with crates of vegetables or trays of cooked foods held highin the air would navigate crowds to restock a store.

I saw lots of people who looked like me but were, as Mr. Miyagi said,

same but different.


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At The End of The Day


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A Picture is orth 1, ords


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My Tribute to Chinese Laundrymen

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