Organizer and Chair: Wayne Patterson, St. Norbert College
Discussants: Franklin C. L. Ng, California State University at Fresno; F. Hilary
Conroy, University of Pennsylvania
Most scholars prefer to work with archival documents when doing their research, and those who study first generation East Asian immigration to the United States are no exception. The purpose of this panel is to demonstrate that oral history sources can serve as a valuable supplement to traditional research by illuminating subtle nuances and exposing different angles which might otherwise be missed by those employing documentary sources alone. In addition to demonstrating the utility of oral history, the panel attempts to provide the audience with new insights on East Asian immigration as a result of recent research undertaken by the paper presenters. The three papers represent, respectively, new research on first generation Chinese, Japanese and Korean immigration and immigrants to the United States. And because the first generation immigrants are products of East Asian societies, using language and employing cultural predispositions which are primarily East Asian rather than western in orientation, this topic is rightfully located in a conference of Asian specialists.
Reconstructing the Lives of Chinese Nevadans: A Case of Documents Versus a Case
of Oral Interviews
Sue Fawn Chung, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
The lives of two first generation Chinese immigrants are seen: one through archival documents and the other through oral interviews. William Chung Ford (b. 1850s, d. 1930s?) immigrated to the United States in 1865, married American-born Loy in the 1890s, and cooked for a mining company in Tonopah, Nevada from 1900-1910s. His six children, all with American names, were born and raised in Tonopah. As the most "Americanized Chinese" in Tonopah, he served as the "interpreter" between the Chinese and Euro-American community during the anti-Chinese riot of 1903 and subsequently became a friend of U.S. Senator Key Pittman (1913-1940). Through newspaper articles, land deeds, census records, school records, and other documents, his life has been reconstructed. Gue Gim "Missy" Wah (1900-1988) immigrated to the United States in 1912 and married Tom Wah (1871-1933) of Prince and Caselton, Nevada in 1916. When Tom died, she took over his boarding house and cooked for such notables as former President Herbert Hoover. People from as far away as Las Vegas, 175 miles to the south, dined in her "ghost town" cafe. In 1980 she was honored as the first Asian American to serve as Marshal of the Nevada Day Parade. Her life has been revealed in three sets of oral interviews in English and Cantonese, supplemented by archival documents. The lives of these two Chinese immigrants who were married to American-born Chinese illustrate the process of increasing assimilation and interaction with the Euro-American community.
Why Did I Come to America? Voices of Immigrant Japanese Women
Linda Tamura, Willamette University
Young Japanese brides who arrived in the United States near the turn of the century had gradiose expectations about their new lives in this land of opportunity. Workers were in demand, salaries were high and success stories were abundant. Between 1900 and 1920, the number of married Japanese women in this country increased 54 times, from 410 to more than 22,000. Yet once they settled, these immigrant Japanese (Issei) women were sorely disappointed with the realities of their new lives in America. Here they faced miserable living conditions, arduous physical labor, language barriers and difficulties adjusting to contrasting lifestyles. Once transplanted in this country, many disillusioned Issei women found themselves questioning their decisions and asking themselves, "Why did I come to America?" This paper will address the perseverance (shinbo) with which rural Issei women met unexpected challenges in this new country. It will focus on their reasons for coming to America, including arranged and picture bride marriages; disappointments they faced once they arrived; and their adjustments as they assumed multiple roles as wives, mothers and laborers. It will also examine the roots of Issei women's submissive behavior in Confucian "laws of obedience" learned early in Japan, and their awe in recognizing inequities in male-female roles once they arrived in America. The immigration of Japanese women was, according to scholars, a foremost factor in the permanent settlement and community development of the Issei in America. Compelled to work from dawn to dusk for their families' survival, Issei women found little time to socialize or to relax. Yet, in the manner of their traditional upbringing, they persisted-with fortitude and modesty.
How Oral History of the First Koreans to America Advances Archival Research
Daisy Chun Rhodes, Eckerd College
When an immigration window opened in 1903 for Koreans to come to Hawai'i to work in an expanding sugar industry, seven thousand men came to the islands. Archival materials were written in English by American missionaries and thus knowledge was gained about the conversion of Koreans to Christianity before arriving in Hawai'i, and newspaper accounts of ship arrivals provided documentation. Most of what we know of these immigrants and their early lives in America is in statistical reports from the Hawai'i Territorial Government and the U.S. Department of Labor agricultural production reports. Archival information about the Koreans advanced when a University of Hawai'i master's thesis written by Bernice Kim was published in the early 1930s. The Korean men soon sent pictures of themselves to their homeland for picture brides. Thus began the formation of communities and families. The children of these marriages are today in their seventies, eighties and nineties, or are already dead. The children of "picture brides" and laborer fathers form the sources of oral history interviews. For the first time, these stories cast a very personal light on the lives of the men and their "picture brides" as these families moved outward and upward into the Hawai'ian economy and society seeking the American dream. These oral histories help to advance archival research by opening unexplored avenues of sociological study supporting and corroborating other historical documentation. Oral histories fill the gap between archival Korean studies and the often seen mute photographs of Koreans in America. They personalize history and archival research.