Fun Fai Lo Laundries 3.24.2006 Aaas Atlanta

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1 Presented at Association of Asian American Studies, Atlanta, April, 2006 Fun Fai Lo’s 19 Chinese Laundries of the Deep South John Jung California State University, Long Beach Although my great-great grandfather Fun Fai Lo nevcr set foot in the U.S. himsclf. at least 19 of his male descendants did. Starting about 1900, these immigrants from lloiping bcgan to operate laundrics in the Deep South, a rcgion fabled for its hospjtality, but not to people who were not white. Documenting the story of their lives is important to me on a pcrsonal level, but also as a small contribution to the history of Chinese in America because the circumstances under which thcse isolated men and their families lived were markcdly different from the conditions for Chinese immigrants in or near ethnic enclaves in large cities likc San Francisco, New York, or Chicago. What I will present here is a plausible, even if it cannot be cntirely corroborated account based on personal experience, observation and archival research. I try to identify the sequence of events, describe conditions under which the laundrymen and their families lived, and explain how they dealt with social and cultural isolation in a land where they often faced racial hostility. They survived, sent money home to support their parents, wives and children back in China, and raised their childrcn in Amcrica, many who achieved succcss far bcyond their immigranl parents' wildcst dreams. Their story is onc of a rcmarkable struggle through quiet courage. hard work, and persistent detemination.

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In the U. S., as in other parts of the world, Chinese laundries were a major source of employment for Chinese after the boom in railroad construction declined in the U. S. following the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869. These laundries existed throughout the United States starting from about 1850, growing to a peak during the early decades of the 20th century and then steadily declining until after mid century very few survived. Home washing machines and new fabrics reduced the customer base and the children of the laundry families had higher aspirations and opportunities than continuing the operation of their laundries. However, during the period when laundries were a viable way for Chinese immigrants to earn a living, at least 19 of the male descendants of my great great grandfather, Fun Fai Lo, a farmer who never set foot in the U. S. himself, earned their living from hand laundries. Around 1900, scattered in several towns and cities of the American South, they worked in and bought laundries that continued until they began to disappear in the middle of the past century. Figure 1 shows these descendants of Fun Fai Lo and the location of their laundries in Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee in towns that were no more than 100 to 150 miles from another one with a laundry run by a relative.

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Figure 1 Map of Southern locations of the laundries

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Figure 2 The 19 Chinese Laundries of the Deep South of Fun Fai Lo

The chain migration method employed by Chinese immigrants from the Taishan villages in the 19th century created the familial network of hand laundries shown in Fig.2 that kin of my father operated in the South. Many details of how the clan relatives managed to help each other come to the South are not known, but there is enough information to suggest an outline of the process. This document describes a plausible sequence of events, the conditions under which these laundrymen and their families lived, and how they dealt with their social and cultural isolation in a land where they were not welcome and faced racial hostility. Their history is a story of a remarkable struggle

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through quiet courage, persistent determination, and hard work for survival so they could send money to their parents, and in many cases, wives and children back in China. These men all came from rural villages near Guangdong that for generations had fostered strong cooperation and loyalty among clan or family members. Decisions to immigrate were group, rather than individual, choices.1 Successful adjustment to a new country was greatly dependent on the aid of huigans, mutual aid organizations such as the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, created by immigrants who came from districts that shared a regional dialect.2 Time and space will not allow detailed descriptions of the lives of all 19 laundrymen. Although these individual stories are different in many details, some commonalities existed.

I will present evidence about five of these immigrant

laundrymen, and their circumstances, as somewhat representative of the entire set. We must remember several important commonalities among these men: 1. All left their poverty-stricken Chinese villages to seek work on Gold Mountain.. 2. All planned to send money back to their families and eventually return to China. 3. Most had little knowledge of English language and American ways. 4. Due to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, they had to use the paper son method to seek entry 5. All faced racial discrimination, and some violence, and were not allowed to own

1

Haiming Lui (2002) “The social origins of early Chinese immigrants.” In Suie L. Cassel (Ed). The Chinese in America: A history from Gold Moutain to the new millennium. Walnut Creek, Ca.: Alta Mira Press, 21-36 2

Him Mark Lai (2004) Becoming Chinese American: A history of communities and institutions. Walnut Creek, Ca.: Alta Mira Press, 40-48.

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6 land, become citizens, or work in many areas such as mining. 6. All owned or worked in laundries, one of the few types of work they were allowed to do 7. All depended heavily on help from one or more relatives that had immigrated earlier, and in turn, each helped one or more subsequent relatives get settled 8. Most, even those located in towns with other Chinese, were socially and culturally isolated by the absence of Chinese communities.

Earliest Pioneers Among Fun Fai Lo’s male descendents, two, Gon Heung Lo, a son, and Gan Hong Lo, a grandson, were likely to have been the first of the Lo clan to come to the United States. Both of them were instrumental in providing assistance to other relatives who came over later. Gon Heung Lo Gon Heung Lo, born around 1882, was a grandson of Fun Fai Lo, a farmer in Taishan. He came to the U. S., undoubtedly as a paper son around 1900 and must have known someone from his native village that helped him find work in the South. He operated a laundry in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where there had been as many as nine Chinese laundries listed in a city directory in the late 1890s then but by the 1930s only a handful were left.

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Figure 3 1930 Chattanooga directory separated the listing of 5 Chinese laundries from other laundries, a distinction that was not made prior to at least 1925.

It is likely that before coming to Chattanooga he may have first apprenticed with some Chinese in a laundry in Atlanta3, the city that had largest number of Chinese immigrants in the region, with about 40 laundries at its peak by 1919. He had two sons, Kuo Hay Yee and Paul (Poy) Wong who also operated laundries in Chattanooga.

It is

undocumented but he may well have helped assist two nephews, Ming Loo Lee (aka Kwok Shim), in starting a laundry in Chattanooga. His father, Gan Shim, never came to the U.S.

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Alternatively, he may have known someone who worked in the region in construction, either on the Augusta canal started in 1873 or on the construction of Alabama & Chattanooga railroad, who stayed in the South when that work was completed and opened a laundry in Chattanooga.

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Figure 4 The role of Gan Heung Lo on other relatives coming to the United States.

Gan Lion Lo Gon Lion4, another of Fun Fai Lo’s grandsons came over from Taishan at age 18 about 1906, leaving his new wife behind so he could earn money to send back. He entered the U.S. from Mexico about the time of the San Francisco fire caused by the earthquake. He had no papers for identity, but took advantage and claimed that he had one that was destroyed by the 1906 S. F. earthquake and fire. He then took a train from San Francisco to seek his older brother Gan Heung in Chattanooga for assistance in getting work. However, he became dehydrated traveling across the country because he was afraid to drink the water and was hospitalized in Atlanta. His brother who was

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Based on interview 10/16/05 with Young Quan in Birmingham (b. 1925)

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summoned came to visit him in the hospital chastised him for coming to America and did not offer much assistance. Gan Lion learned of an opportunity to work for an older Chinese in a laundry in Macon, Georgia. Work was long and hard, and his employer was very demanding, and expected Gan Lion to prepare midnight snacks for him. Eventually he saved enough to buy the laundry, which he later sold when he returned for a visit to China somewhere around 1910. After the birth of his first two sons in China, he returned to the U. S. in 1922 with his wife who insisted on coming with him. They were headed back to Georgia to buy another laundry but they stopped in Birmingham, where Gan Lion had relatives who ran the Joy Young restaurant, which was not doing well. They decided to stay there, living above the restaurant, and eventually they opened one of several laundries, one on 20th St, named Joe Chung Laundry and later renamed as Quan You Laundry.

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Figure 5 Gan Lion Lo’s Laundry Influences

One store was run by his mother who led a very solitary life, raising her family, and working in the laundry. They lived in the laundry, which had a very small 12 to 15foot storefront, near the business district of town. The laundry hired several black women workers. It was a hand laundry, as many whites would not sell steam laundry equipment to Chinese, but eventually it did become a steam laundry. Three sons were all

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involved at some point in the laundry business. The oldest, Joe Non, born in China in 1913, went on to real estate, while Young, and Kahn, born in Birmingham in the mid 1920s attended college before opening their own laundry and dry cleaning establishments in Birmingham. Although Gan Lion had been refused help from his older brother Gan Heung, a more receptive response was given to his nephew Kwok Fui when he arrived in 1921 and he also gave help to a distant relative, Mun Kow Cheung around 1932. Gan Hong Lo Gan Hong5 was the older of the twin sons born sometime in the 1880s to Fun Fai Lo’s sixth son, Fun Mun Lo. Gan Hong immigrated to the United States about 1900 using a diplomat’s visa, leaving his wife and 5 children behind in China.

He first

worked in New York (exact year unknown) in a laundry. He went back to China (to visit family?) around 1920? Gon Hong sent for his son, Heung Sec, in 1921 to help him in his laundry in N.Y. before they both moved to the Deep South to run laundries briefly in Darlington, S. C. and for many years in Augusta, Georgia. Later he sponsored an older son, Kai Wak.

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Information about Gan Hong comes primarily from an interview with his daughter, Kim Sheung, August 25, 2004 and secondarily from correspondence with a granddaughter, Grace Lo over 2004-2005.

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Figure 6 Gan Hong Lo’s Laundry Influences

He helped bring Kwok Fui, eldest son of his twin brother Gan Yu, to the U. S. who worked first in Chattanooga and then in Augusta to apprentice for several years between 1924 and 1927 before moving on to open his own laundry in Macon, Georgia. In 1936 he brought a paper to help another nephew, Kwok Shui, come over first to Macon to apprentice with his brother briefly before opening his own laundry in Atlanta.

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Figure 7 Kwok Fui Lo’s Journey (Gon Hong family Version)

However, this account conflicts with the version Kwok Fui told his children. He reportedly first went to Chattanooga in 1921 to work briefly with his grand uncle, Gan Heung, the 4th son of Fun Fai Loo. Then, he went to Rome, Georgia for several years to work in a laundry followed by a move to Augusta where he worked with his uncle, Gan Lo for several years before returning to China in 1927 for a few months to marry before returning to start his own laundry in Macon in 1928.

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Figure 8 Kwok Fui's Journey (His Version)

Establishing what happened many years ago from personal memories is difficult as the recall is often distorted. In some instances, two different relatives recalled different information about who, when, what, why, and how ancestors came over. Sometimes, there is no way to know which account is more valid, but sometimes, circumstantial evidence and documented facts can help us determine which account fits more facts. The documented facts seem to favor Kwok Fui’s version as being more accurate. Regardless of which relative was his benefactor, Kwok Fui had to satisfy immigration officers in 1921 that he was Jung Ben (his paper name) and that his Jung Lim, his paper father, was a merchant and hence entitled to bring a son to this country.

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Figure 9 Inspector Verifies Kwok Fui’s Paper Father, Jung Lim, is a merchant

After working with his uncle Gon Hong in his Augusta laundry from 1924 to 1927. Kwok Fui established a Merchant status by purchasing a partnership in a business there. He claimed he was a salesmen in the Jung Ben Company located at 1740 Milledgeville Road so he would be allowed to bring over a wife after he returned to China to get married. Returning in 1928, he had to file the affidavit below proving his own merchant status so he could bring his wife, Quan Shee, with him to Macon, Georgia, to open his own laundry which he operated until he retired in 1956.

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Figure 10 Affidavit filed by Kwok Fui in 1928 allowing him as a merchant to bring his wife to U. S.

It is possible that both versions have some truth, since Kwok Fui did work in both Chattanooga and Augusta even if the details of the two accounts may be in error. Then Gon Hong returned to China and came back about 1925, bringing his

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youngest son, Heung Sec, age 16 to Augusta, Georgia to assist him in his laundry. In Augusta, Gan Hong became a community leader and co-founder of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association in 1927, of which his son was an active member.

Figure 11 Gon Hong to right of center and his son, Heung Sec, far left in second row, at the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, 1927

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Figure 11 Heung Sec Loo’s Journey

After helping his son and nephew enter the laundry business, Gon Hong Lo brought his oldest son, Kai Wen, and a nephew Kwok Shun (his twin brother’s second son) to the South.

Gan Hong found a laundry in Atlanta for his oldest son, Kai Wen, (Wock?) to

operate together with Kwok Shun (Jew Shui Dun). Eventually, Kai Wen moved to Birmingham where he operated a restaurant. .

At the Angel Island Immigration Station, Jew Shui Dun faced a grueling cross

examination and the inspectors concluded he was an imposter because he could not accurately answer many questions about Hong Kong, the place where his paper identity stated he had lived all of his life. There were numerous discrepancies between his testimony about family members of that of his two paper brothers who lived in Texas.

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Fortunately, his appeal was upheld despite strong evidence that his identity was false and after four months of detention on Angel Island, he was admitted.

f Figure 12 Denial of Entry for Jew Shui Dunn, 1936, which was reversed after an appeal.

According to his son, Hoi Lam Kwan, Jew Shui Dun first went to Macon to work

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for a while with his older brother, Kwok Fui, before going to Atlanta to run the Loo Ling Laundry on 189 Georgia Ave. For a while, Jew Shui Dun had two laundries at the same time, 40 Georgia Ave, now renumbered as 56, where the present laundry is and a store at 644 Capitol Ave. that closed when the baseball stadium was built in 196?.

Figure 13 Jew Shui Dun's Journey Returning to China, Gon Hong next tried to bring Lo Bing Wan, his second son and Dock Sook, (his twin brother’s third son) but he did not pass the immigration interrogation so he had to return to China and then decided to study in Japan. Heung Sec Loo (Kam Lee)

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21 Gan Hong, as noted earlier, brought over his youngest son, Heung Sec, when he

was 16 to help in his New York Chinatown laundry. He entered with a paper name of Quan You. Later they moved when Gan Hong bought a laundry in Augusta, Georgia. Kam Lee (his American name) owned the Kam Lee Laundry located downtown on 200 block of 7th St. It was the only Chinese laundry in middle of downtown during this era. About 1934, Heung Sec Loo returned to China to marry in an arranged match. His wife preferred not to leave China, so he left his wife and two children behind and returned to Augusta around 1937 just before the Japan-China escalated. His wife died early from kidney problems and his son also died young from a medical problem. Their daughter, Kim Sheng, had the necessary papers to immigrate but was unable to exit during the war years. After World War II, Heung Sec was able to return to China to visit his daughter and while he was there, he met and married June Loo in 1950. Heung Sec returned to Augusta with his new bride June who helped operate the laundry downtown at 220 Seventh St. His daughter from his first marriage, Kim Sheng, moved to Augusta later in the early 1960s. Heung Sec and June had a son, Grant, in 1954. They also moved around the corner to Ellis Street when they expanded with more equipment, washers, etc so they needed a larger store. They had as many as 12 employees, black women, working two shifts. They lived about 10 min walk away on 5th St. It was sold to a white owner when they retired, and it continued for about 10-15 years before closing.

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Figure 14 Heung Sec Loo

Even though there were estimated to be 400 Chinese in Augusta during the 1950s?, they lived in different parts of town and there was no ‘Chinatown’ or residential area with a heavy concentration of Chinese. Most Chinese immigrants ran small grocery stores and restaurants such as the Joy Young Restaurant, which also contained a meat market, on 9th St. in black neighborhoods. Like other Chinese, Heung Sec kept ties with Chinese culture by reading a Chinese paper from New York and purchasing Chinese food ingredients from SF and NY by phone. After many years of traveling back and forth between Augusta and Hong Kong to help his kin come to the American South, as summarized below, Gan Hong finally retired in China at age 60 years of age where he lived to be 95.

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Figure 15 Overview of the role that Gan Hong Lo played in bringing relatives to the U.S.

Loo Sang Mun Kow (aka Loo Sang)6 b.1895, was a great grandson of the 7th son of Fun Fai Lo. He had a laundry in Atlanta. His grandfather and my father’s grandfather were cousins. Small in statue, he was very energetic, adventuresome, and outgoing. Like so many other young men during this time when there was little work and hard times in his Taishan village, he went to the Philipines at age 15 where he learned carpentry skills and

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Information based on interviews with his oldest son, Harry Cheung 10/20/05 and ??/04

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worked on boat building. He became a cabin boy on ship traveling to Europe and the east Coast of U. S. where he jumped ship in New York. He found work in Albany, N. Y., earning 20 cents a day. Later he got to Chattanooga where he worked at the “Oriental Restaurant.” He eventually worked his way west all the way to California, where he got hired on a ship to go back to China. Before returning to China, in 1927 he established a

$550 investment or partnership in a Chinese store with 3 other Chinese in Oxnard, California, a necessary step to permit him to return later with a wife. There he married Ng Shee in an arranged match as was the tradition in that era. In 1930 at the age of 35, he entered the U.S. using a paper son identity with his wife. He worked in Oxnard for about a year until after his first child, Harry, was born. Then, the family moved to the South, probably working with Gon Heung in Chattanooga, before then running a laundry in Rome, Ga., and then starting another one in Atlanta, Ga.

Figure 17 Loo Sang's Journey (Based on information from his children)

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However, the official record for Mon Kow is different from this version. According to the Immigration records, Mon Kow first arrived in 1911 in San Francisco on the Siberia as a one year old baby with his mother, a laborer, who according to law was not permitted to bring a child in. In a rare act of compassion, the Immigration Inspector requested an exception, which was granted. Later immigration records show that Mon Kow subsequently returned to China and reentered the U. S. in December, 1930, newly married, with his bride, Ng Shee.

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Figure 18 Version of Loo Sang's Journey Based on U. S. Immigration Records

It is possible that there were two “Mon Kow Cheungs” the baby who came in 1911 and the newly married man who came in 1930. The first Mon Kow Cheung may have returned to China and sold his identity card sometime before 1927 to Loo Sang or the second Mon Kow Cheung. Thus, there are two accounts of events prior to 1930 but after that date it is clear that Loo Sang entered at San Pedro, California with his new wife, Ng Shee, and they spent at least a year in Oxnard where their first son was born. Moving to Georgia within

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a year or two, he may have obtained laundry work in Rome with the aid of his relative, Gan Heung Lo in Chattanooga. Then he moved to Atlanta where he operated a laundry on Ivie St. before opening the Loo Sang Laundry at 476 Ponce de Leon Ave near the old Atlanta Crackers AA baseball team stadium. The front counter had protective bars (like old bank teller windows) for security purposes, as Chinese laundrymen had been known to have been robbed or attacked by customers. He has several shirt pressing machines and washing machines in the back of the laundry. The family members all helped in the laundry in addition to hiring 5 or 6 black women to do some of the pressing. In addition, he operated a shoe repair shop (was it in same location or down the street?) In 1945, he sold the Loo Sang Laundry and moved to Gadsten, Ala., where with a friend, he planned to open a department store. This venture did not work out, so he returned his family to Atlanta and opened another laundry on Willow St.

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thereafter he was able to repurchase his Ponce de Leon laundry as the new owner was unable to operate it successfully. The family lived in the back of the laundry initially. As the family increased in size to five children, three sons and two daughters, he purchased a nearby apartment building with 6 units nearby for a residence. During this period in the 1940s there were about 5 Chinese laundries left in Atlanta, although there had been about 40 around 1920. (He also had a relative in Alabama. Sho Ngo? who had a laundry there) Although there were several Chinese laundries with families in town, there was not much socializing among them, because of distance between them and lack of time, as everyone worked 6 days a week so in effect the Cheung family was as isolated from other Chinese as we were in Macon.

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28 Mon Kow was active as a leader of the Chinese in Atlanta, serving as President of

the On Leong Association, which had a meeting hall on the second floor of a building downtown, not far from the train station. Some Chinese men would come from out of town as well as from Atlanta to socialize and gamble on Sundays, the only day off for most of them. He was also involved with (owning?) one of the first Atlanta Chinese restaurants, Ding Ho, located probably on what used to be Cain Street and may later have been relocated to Luckie St. As their children grew up, Mun Kow and his wife, Ng Shee, considered moving away from the South but it was not feasible as the children were still in school and resistant to moving away. After he retired, he went to New York and helped (?) a friend? Or a relative? Operate a laundry there?? What Life Was Like For Chinese in the South Unlike those Chinese immigrants who lived in ethnic enclaves, which provided some cultural foundation and social outlets, the Chinese in the South were denied these contacts by the isolated existence they had.

Aside from Atlanta and Augusta, the

descendants of Fun Fai Lo settled in small southern communities where they were either the only or one of a very few Chinese living there. Racial prejudice was prevalent, and often blatant, against blacks during the years when most of these men lived. Chinese were not treated as badly as blacks, and in fact were afforded many white privileges such as access to white schools and theaters. Still, they were not fairly treated by whites in many respects and they also received some prejudice from blacks as well. Few social outlets existed for Chinese because they were so few in number. Furthermore, they had no common interests with either blacks or whites. Besides,

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running a laundry involved 6 and sometimes 7 days of work every week of the year. Even though closed on Sundays, the laundrymen often had to spend that day in repair and maintenance of equipment. Neither they nor their families could afford to take vacation trips. The city with the largest Chinese population was Augusta, which included more families and involvement with a Chinese church. Most of the Chinese operated small neighborhood grocery stores in mostly black neighborhoods rather than laundries. Under these conditions in Augusta, there were more opportunities to socialize with other Chinese than in other southern cities. This isolation had it negative impact especially on the women. Whereas men in or near Atlanta had the opportunity to gather at the association meeting hall downtown on Sundays to socialize and even gamble, their wives were isolated at home raising their children. Some Chinese men did commit suicide, but the circumstances are conjectural. Cases were reported in Macon and Atlanta, for example, and other towns such as Moblie Alabama and Hawkinsville, Georgia, but no exact numbers are available.

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Depression from being isolated, lack of family life, and economic failures could have been contributing factors.7

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Madeline Y. Hsu (2000) Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home: Transnationalism and

Migration between the United States and South China, 1882–1943. Stanford University

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31 A frugal life was led by the laundrymen, living in the back, above, or close by their

laundries. This arrangement saved money and time. Some did not even have telephones, not so much as to save money, but because there was no one to call. Long distance calls were prohibitively expensive and used only for urgent matters. Chinese had to rely on the mail when they usually communicated with Chinese in other cities. They lived within their needs and well within their means, always paying cash, and never borrowing on credit except for real estate. Although they rarely, if ever, splurged on themselves, they did indulge their children and grandchildren. They were not poor, just abstemious, because many of them accumulated sizeable financial assets. Most of them did not have automobiles, since they lived near or in their laundries, and living in small towns, they could walk to most places they wanted to go to. They had only one day off, so long distance traveling was not feasible. Radio and movie as sources of entertainment and recreation were not of interest to many of them because of language and cultural barriers and television, not available until the 1950s, would have the same problems to some extent. How Did They Manage to Overcome, or At least Endure Despite their hardships of economic struggle, racial discrimination, social isolation, and lack of opportunities for experiencing cultural traditions, these laundrymen endured for many years. To some extent, this inner strength may have been facilitated by the

Press. Some laundrymen worried about loss of face if relatives in China learned how poorly they lived and what they actually did for a living. These relatives thought the laundrymen or Gold Mountain guests were wealthy clothing businessmen

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strong commitment to help their kin in China who were suffering economically even more than they were. Cultural Ties in America Whenever possible, they made visits to other Chinese in the region. However, this activity was limited to cities with larger numbers of Chinese such as Atlanta and Augusta. Subscriptions to Chinese newspapers were available from both San Francisco and New York, providing some way of learning about world developments and issues pertaining to China. This was the only means of keeping in touch with China for many of the Chinese living in small Southern towns. Although most of these men were not highly educated, they could read and write at a basic level. They were able to use printed materials and books written in Chinese to help them deal with important topics. For example, medical information and guidance about sex was available in Chinese from books like the Ladies Handbook of Household Medicine and the guide to sexual hygiene shown below.

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Figure 19 A Chinese text medical guide

Figure 20 A Chinese guide to Sexual Hygiene

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34 One testament to the strength of identification with their Chinese origins is that

some of those who died in the South before they could return to China were buried in a Chinese section of Greenwood cemetery in Atlanta. Even though they had died in other towns as far away as Chattanooga or Macon, they wanted to be buried in Atlanta near deceased Chinese relatives and friends. Ties to China Those who left families behind in China send regular remittances to assist them financially. Many made return visits to see their families every few years before the war prevented them. During World War II, many contributed to patriotic causes to support Chiang Kai Shek’s fight against the invading Japanese armies. Many talked about returning to China after they made enough money or retired. Outlook on Life Many held a stoical and fatalistic attitude about life that enabled them to continue to work despite hardships. They were obsessed with security, both physical and financial, faced with risk of robbery and racist violence as well as fear of not earning enough money to survive or send back to China. Hardly surprising, given that they were excluded and had entered as paper sons illegally, they feared deportation, held a basic distrust of American government, and doubted that Chinese could receive legal justice. At the same time, Chinese held an attitude of moral superiority over whites. Whites, termed as wak goey (white ghosts), were seen as often drunk and violent, untrustworthy, and unfair. Pride in Children’s Achievements

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35 Those men who were fortunate enough to have their families with them in the

South wanted their children to have the education that would enable them to escape the laundry and obtain more prestigious and prosperous occupations and professions. They urged their children to excel in school and were willing to support them throughout their education. Their investment paid off, as their children have grown up and succeeded in many fields ranging from engineering to medicine to science including several professors, an astrophysicist, an architect, an oncologist, and several pharmacists.