The Historical Importance of The Historical Importance of Chinese LaundriesChinese Laundries

TICKETS TO SURVIVAL ON GOLD TICKETS TO SURVIVAL ON GOLD MOUNTAINMOUNTAIN

John Jung

Portland Chinese Student Scholarship FoundationPortland Chinese Student Scholarship Foundation May 5, 2013

Some Early Laundries

Inside An Early Laundry

Real Meaning of Popular Laundry Names Sam Lee, Sing Lee, Wah Lee, Tai Lee Were these laundries owned by men named Lee?

NO, the surname, Lee, 李 , sounds like li, 利 (“profit” ) Chinese liked words suggesting prosperity in their laundry names.

Sing Lee and Sam Lee: two common Chinese male names 73% of Sing Lees & Sam Lees ran laundries.

(From a White laundry trade publication)

Anti-Chinese ViewsLimited

Chinese To Laundry Work

Chinese Exclusion…… and Expulsion

in late 19th century…

Used the Laundrymanas a symbol of all Chinese

Seen As Dangers to White Women

Laundrymen Self-Protection

A Picture is Worth 1,000 Words

Iowa Chinese Laundries 1910

Laundrymen Also Were Mocked

Laundrymen As Targets of Humor

Become A Chinese Laundryman…By Mail

Love the Chinese Laundryman

Ad for Mrs. Potts’ SAD Cold Handle Irons

• Now Mr. Wu was a laundry man in a shop with 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 feeling kind of Limehouse Chinese Laundry Blues.

• George Formby, popular 1930s British singer

Similar Anti-Chinese Views Over in England

Challenges for Chinese Laundrymen

Deportation Risks

Testimony For Lee Wong Hing

Inspector Judgment Against Laundryman

. 1880 San Francisco Ordinance required all laundries be built of brick.

. All Chinese, and 1 Euro-Am, laundrymen with wood buildings were fined . Yick Wo filed a case to the Calif. Supreme Court and lost

. Yick Wo won his appeal to the U. S. Supreme Court in 1886.

Unfair Laws:Landmark Case of Yick Wo vs. Hopkins

Laws Limiting Work Hours

Sanitariness of Chinese vs. White Laundries

White Laundry Rivals

White Laundry Union CampaignAgainst Chinese Laundries, 1890

Assaults and Crimes Against Laundrymen

The Hard Laundry Life

A Novice Laundryman’s Experience• When I first handled the dirty clothes, I could not take the smell. I almost

threw up. Father saw my reaction and comforted me, "Take your time. You know, picking up these clothes is even worse than moving corpses back in China.

• I never mentioned the unhealthy conditions of the laundry in my letters to China. Knowing those things would not do the family any good back home.

• Frankly, I was busy from dawn to dusk… I always wrote 'I am well and healthy here. No need to worry.' It didn't

matter whether I was well or sick. Being here, you had to endure.

• The irons weighed 8 pounds each. When the iron was hot enough, you took it off the stove where it was heated and ironed until it cooled down. Then you heated it up again.

• After ironing all day, marks would appear on your palm. Blisters would 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 laundry work… My father never wrote about his bad health to his wife back in China.

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

Physical Hardships of Laundry Work

Life of A Laundryman’s 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 later… I came here when I was 46, 48 and I have been here since then…I came to help my husband with the laundry…

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 strung across the ceiling during the work hours.

We had no heavy equipment in the store, only ironing tables and wesent all clothes out to a wet wash service for washing and most of the shirts to a shirt pressing factory for ironing/folding.

Laundryman Suicides Were Not Uncommon

Children of the Laundry

Children Worked in the Laundry

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.

Laundry Accidents The 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 mother’s right hand, leaving her hand permanently disfigured.

In another incident, I was doodling with a ballpoint pen on a movingconveyer belt when my hand got caught.

Life Of A Laundryman’s 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 maternalgrandmother, my parents shared a room with one of my brothers, and I shared a room with two other brothers.

As young children, my brothers and sisters and I started off folding small fluffy 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 customers’linen. My time was also spent reconciling the differences between the customers’ linen count against the actual count I had in front of me.

Life Of A Laundryman’s Daughter

We had no vacations, no trips to Disneyland, or any other fun events that the average family took for granted.

I remember vividly all the limitations and deprivations that we as a family had to deal with on a daily basis. 

…father opened the laundry from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., but we were required to be there well before opening, and work till long after closing.  

Some Nasty Customers “Hey, there are still wrinkles here…. and here….and, look, right there! NOT GOOD ENOUGH! I’m not going to pay for this!”

Or, another complaining customer yelling, pointing out a stain, “I told you to clean that spot! It’s still there. Take that out! I don’t want to see that spot again!”

Those interactions sting in my memory. The cranky customers caused my parents to feel humiliated in their lowly posts of running a Chinese hand laundry.

Some Customers Were Nice

A few of the laundry customers also noticed us four siblings and treated us with friendly attention. They gave us dolls and American board games. They introduced us to hobbies of stamp collecting and coin collections.

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.

One customer and neighbor around the corner from us, hired me to baby-sit on occasion. Inside her house, I saw a different lifestyle of living---furniture, kitchen, snack foods, toys spread all over, and children who openly argued and fought.

Why Chinese Laundries Declined…

…and Laundromats Replaced Laundries

Laundries Were ‘Tickets’ to Gold Mountain

Chineselaundry.wordpress.com

• e-mail from India, April 30, 2013.

I was thrilled to come across your website during a search for "Chinese laundries," and read many of your entries with great interest. I am a South African but lived in Hong Kong for almost a decade where I worked as a journalist on the South China Morning Post. Solveig Bang