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The Experiences of a Chinese
Immigrant, 1880-1903
How did the early Chinese immigrants to the United States make a living? How did they get along with
the Americans? This story gives us a vivid description of the life of the early Chinese immigrants,
one full of bitter experiences as well as joys.
1.
My father gave me $100, and I went to Hong Kong with five other boys from our place and we got
steerage passage on a steamer, paying $50 each. Everything was new to me. All my life I had been used
to sleeping on a board bed with a wooden pillow, and I found the steamer¡¯s bunk very uncomfortable,
because it was so soft. The food was different from that which I had been used to, and I did not like it at all.
I was afraid of the stews, for the thought of what they might be made of by the wicked wizards of the ship made
me ill. Of the great power of these people I saw many signs.
The engines that moved the ship were wonderful monsters, strong enough to lift mountains. When I got to San Francisco, which was before the passage of the Exclusion Act, I was half starved, because I was afraid to eat the provisions of the barbarians, but a few days¡¯ living in the Chinese quarter made me happy again. A man got me work as a house servant in an American family, and my start was the same as that of almost all the Chinese in this country.
2.
The Chinese laundryman does not learn his trade in China; there are no laundries in China. The women there do the washing in tubs and have no washboards or flat irons. All the Chinese laundrymen here were taught in the first place by American women just as I was taught.
3.
When I went to work for that American family I could not speak a word of English, and I did not know anything about housework. The family consisted of husband, wife and two children. They were very good to me and paid me $3.50 a week, of which I could save $3.
4.
I did not know how to do anything, and I did not understand what the lady said to me, but she showed me how to cook, wash, iron, sweep, dust, make beds, wash dishes, clean windows, and polish the knives and forks, etc., by dong the things herself and then overseeing my efforts to imitate her. She would take my hands and show them how to do things. She and her husband and children laughed at me a great deal, but it was all good natured¡
5.
In six months I had learned how to do the work of our house quite well, and I was getting $5 a week and board,
and putting away about $4.25 a week. I had also learned some English, and by going to a Sunday school I learned
more English and something about Jesus, who was a great Sage, and whose precepts are like those of Kong-footsze.
6.
It was twenty years ago when I came to this country, and I worked for two years as a servant, getting at the last $35 a month. I sent money home to comfort my parents, but though I dressed well and lived well and had pleasure, going quite often to the Chinese theater and to dinner parties in Chinatown, I saved $50 in the first six months, $90 in the second, $120 in the third and $150 in the fourth. So I had $410 at the end of two years, and I was now ready to start in business.
7.
When I first opened a laundry it was in company with a partner, who had been in the business for some years.
We went to a town about 500 miles inland, where a railroad was being built. We got a board shanty and worked
for the men employed by the railroads. Our rent cost us $10 a month and food nearly $5 a week each, for all
food was dear and we wanted the best of everything¡ªwe lived principally on rice, chickens, ducks and pork,
and did our own cooking. The Chinese take naturally to cooking.
It cost us about $50 for our furniture and apparatus, and we made close upon $60 a week, which we divided between us.
We had to put up with many insults and some frauds, as men would come in and claim parcels that did not belong to them,
saying they had lost their tickets, and would fight if they did not get what they asked for. Sometimes we were taken
before Magistrates and fined for losing shirts that we had never seen.
On the other hand, we were making money, and even after sending home $3 a week I was able to save about $15.
When the railroad construction gang moved on we went with them. The men were rough and prejudiced against us, but no more so than in the big Eastern cities. It is only lately in New York that the Chinese have been able to discontinue putting wire screens in front of their windows, and at the present time the street boys are still breaking the windows of Chinese laundries all over the city, while the police seem to think it a joke.
8.
We were three years with the railroad, and then went to the mines, where we made plenty of money in gold dust,
but had a hard time, for many of the miners were wild men who carried revolvers and after drinking would come
into our place to shoot and steal shirts, for which we had to pay. One of these men hit his head hard against
a flat iron and all the miners came and broke up our laundry, chasing us out of town. They were going to hang
us. We lost all our property and $365 in money, which members of the mob must have found¡
9.
I have found out, during my residence in this country, that much of the Chinese prejudice against Americans is unfounded, and I no longer put faith in the wild tales that were told about them in our village, tho some of the Chinese, who have been here twenty years and who are learned men, still believe that there is no marriage in this country, that the land is infested with demons and that all the people are given over to general wickedness. 10. I know better. Americans are not all bad, nor are they wicked wizards. Still, they have their faults, and their treatment of us is outrageous.
10.
I know better. Americans are not all bad, nor are they wicked wizards. Still, they have their faults, and their treatment of us is outrageous.
11.
The reason why so many Chinese go into the laundry business in this country is because it requires little
capital and is one of the few opportunities that are open. Men of other nationalities who are jealous of the
Chinese, because he is a more faithful worker than one of their people, have raised such a great outcry about
Chinese cheap labor that they have shut him out of working on farms or in factories or building railroads or
making streets or digging sewers. He cannot practice any trade, and his opportunities to do business are limited
to his own countrymen. So he opens a laundry when he quits domestic service.
12.
The treatment of the Chinese in this country is all wrong and mean. It is persisted in merely because China is not
a fighting nation. The Americans would not dare to treat Germans, English, Italians or even Japanese as they treat
the Chinese, because if they did there would be a war.
13.
There is no reason for the prejudice against the Chinese. The cheap labor cry was always a falsehood. Their labor was never cheap, and is not cheap now. It has always commanded the highest market price. But the trouble is that the Chinese are such excellent and faithful workers that bosses will have no others when they can get them. If you look at men working on the street you will find an overseer for every four or five of them. That watching is not necessary for Chinese. They work as well when left to themselves as they do when some one is looking at them.
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