A Chinese American Describes Going to School in Chinatown (with text supports)
Immigration and Migration
San Francisco's first public school for Chinese immigrants, known first as the Chinese School and then as the Oriental School, began operating in 1859. The school was designed to segregate (separate) Chinese children from white children in the city's public schools. In 1924, after years of protest by Chinese residents who found the name "Oriental School" offensive, it was renamed the Commodore Stockton School. The first excerpt is from an oral history interview with Thomas Chinn, who attended the school; the second is from an 1896 issue of the San Francisco magazine The Wave, which comments more generally on Chinatown's children.
Ruth Teiser/Thomas W. Chinn, "A Historian's Reflections on Chinese-American Life in San Francisco,
1919-1991: Oral History transcript/Thomas Chinn" Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University
of California, Berkeley, 1993, from <em>Calisphere</em>,
http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=hb5779n97v&query=&brand=calisphere. "Child Life in Chinatown: The
Wiles and Ways of the Youthful Celestials," <em>The Wave</em> v. 15, Jan. - Dec. 1896; from Library of Congress, <em>The
Chinese in California, 1850-1925</em>, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award99/cubhtml/cichome.html
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1993
Used by permission of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
973, 1495, 1493
English
Industrialization and Expansion (1877-1913)
Anti-Chinese Prejudice and the "Six Companies" (with text supports)
Immigration and Migration
The Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association of San Francisco (commonly known as "the Six Companies") was an organization of regional- and family-based self-help societies in Chinatown. They helped to get new immigrants housing, food, and jobs. In 1876, its leaders petitioned President Ulysses S. Grant and challenged the growing political movement to limit Chinese immigration. In the first excerpt below, from the petition, the Six Companies also tried to speak out against stereotypes about their own activities. The second excerpt, from an 1898 book, shows the kinds of stereotypes people had about Chinatown.
Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association
Rev. O. Gibson, <em>The Chinese in America</em> (Cincinnati: Hitchcock & Walden, 1877), 315-323. George
Warrington Steevens, <em>The Land of the Dollar</em> (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1898), 247.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1898
1149, 1495, 1493
English
Industrialization and Expansion (1877-1913)
The Theater Draws Immigrants and Tourists to Chinatown (with text supports)
Immigration and Migration
During the 1870s and 1880s, San Francisco's Chinatown included as many as four theater companies that regularly performed Chinese operas and other entertainment. Tickets to evening performances usually cost 20-25 cents for Chinese (50 cents for non-Chinese); shows sometimes lasted until four the next morning. The actors were usually all men, but the audience included different classes of Chinese men, women, and even children, along with non-Chinese visitors. The theater connected Chinese immigrants to cultural and historical traditions from home, as well as giving them a chance to relax and socialize with other immigrants. Non-Chinese visitors, however, mostly commented on the strange, loud music and impossible to understand plot.
Yong Chen; Pacific Bank; Mary H. Wills
Yong Chen, <em>Chinese San Francisco, 1850-1943: A Trans-Pacific Community</em> (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 90-91; <em>Pacific Bank Handbook of California: San Francisco, California</em>, (San Francisco: Pacific Bank, 1888), 90; Mary H. Wills, <em>A Winter in California</em> (Norristown, PA: Morgan R. Wills, 1889), 111-113.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1888 - 1889
608, 1495, 1493
English
Industrialization and Expansion (1877-1913)
Diners Describe the first Chinese Restaurants in America (with text supports)
Immigration and Migration
The first Chinese restaurants in America sprang up in 1850s California and catered to Cantonese miners and railroad laborers. Known as "chow chows" (Chinese slang for anything edible), they were identified by yellow triangle signs. By the 1880s San Francisco's Chinatown community supported several high-class Chinese dining establishments. Reviews from non-Chinese diners were mixed. Some enjoyed the food, which was usually an Americanized version of traditional Chinese cooking, while others found the strange smells and textures distasteful. In the first excerpt, Chinese immigrant Lee Chew gives a Chinese perspective on Chinese food. In the second two excerpts, non-Chinese diners describe eating in Chinese restaurants.
Lee Chew; Charles M. Taylor; Mary H. Wills
Lee Chew, "The Biography of a Chinaman," Independent, 15 (19 February 1903), 417-423; Charles M. Taylor, Vacation Days in Hawaii and Japan (Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs, 1898), 27-28; Mary H. Wills, A Winter in California (Norristown, PA: Morgan R. Wills, 1889), 113-114.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1889 - 1903
623, 1495, 1493
English
Industrialization and Expansion (1877-1913)
Background Essay on San Francisco's Chinatown (short version, with text supports)
Immigration and Migration
This essay describes the origins of San Francisco's Chinatown, as well as some of its major economic, political, and social features. The essay also describes the challenges San Francisco's Chinese community faced from the city's white politicians and residents.
Bancroft Library
Adapted by American Social History Project from “San Francisco Chinatown,†The Regents of the University of California, 2005, http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/collections/chineseinca/sfchinatown.html.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
2011
527
English
Industrialization and Expansion (1877-1913)
Let's Make an Immigration Deal cards
Slavery and Abolition
Immigration and Migration
Race and Ethnicity
These cards are used in the game "Let's Make an Immigration Deal."
American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning
American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning, 2011.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
2011
Copyright American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning
<div><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/"><img style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/3.0/88x31.png" alt="Creative Commons License" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License</a>.</div>
1880
English
Let's Make an Immigration Deal
Immigration and Migration
Slavery and Abolition
In this game, students are assigned different immigrant identities and advance based on their access to economic opportunity and religious, political, and social liberties at different times in U.S. history.
American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning
American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning, 2011.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
2011
Copyright American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning
English
A Country within a Country writing prompt
This writing prompt serves as an assessment for the activity A Country within a Country: Understanding San Francisco's Chinatown.
American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning
American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning, 2011.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
2011
Copyright American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning
<div><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/" rel="license"><img style="border-width: 0;" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/3.0/88x31.png" alt="Creative Commons License" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License</a>.</div>
1493
English
Industrialization and Expansion (1877-1913)
A Country within a Country gallery walk worksheet
This worksheet is used by students to gather evidence from a gallery walk in the activity A Country within a Country
American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning
American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning, 2011.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
2011
Copyright American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/" rel="license"><img style="border-width: 0;" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/3.0/88x31.png" alt="Creative Commons License" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/" rel="license">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License</a>.
1493
English
Industrialization and Expansion (1877-1913)
<em>An English-Chinese Phrasebook</em> (Short Version)
Immigration and Migration
This phrase book was published in 1875 and distributed at Wells Fargo bank offices throughout the West, in cities and towns where Chinese immigrants lived and worked. Modeled on the traditional Chinese method of memorizing and reciting “sets” of information, the excerpts below reflect the challenges that Chinese immigrants faced in a new and often hostile society.
Wong Sam and Assistants
Wong Sam and Assistants, An English-Chinese Phrase Book (San Francisco: Cubery & Co., 1875); in Jeffery Paul Chan, Frank Chin, Lawson Fusao Inada, and Shawn Wong, eds., <em>The Big Aiiieeeee!: An Anthology of Chinese American and Japanese American Literature</em> (New York: Meridian Books, 1991), 94-110.
American Social History Project / Center for Media and Learning
1875
1603, 597
English
Industrialization and Expansion (1877-1913)