Hand-drawn map of Figueroa Street, depicting San Buenaventura’s original Chinatown, 1894. National Archives, San Bruno, CA. Cover: Yee Shee (Minnie Soo Hoo), c. 1900. From original glassplate negative, no. gp 364. John Calvin Brewster, photographer. Inset: Phonetic translation of “Ventura.” Traditional Chinese characters provided by Irene Sy. HiddenThe CHINESE Voices: IN VENTURA COUNTY by Linda Bentz hhh VOLUME 53 NUMBER 1 © 2011 Ventura County Historical Society; Museum of Ventura County. All rights reserved. All images, unless indicated otherwise, are from the Museum Research Library Collections and are identified by their photographic number (PN). Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County 1 Soo Hoo Chong Ti, c. 1900. Nellie Yee Chung Collection. 2 Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County hhh t was January 1895, and a new Chinese bride was coming to Chinatown. The residents of San Buenaventura’s Chinese community anxiously awaited the arrival of the young woman and the forthcoming days of celebration. Minnie Soo Hoo, a resident of the community, wrote to her sister in Los Angeles that a picture of the bride had been sent from San Francisco and was circulating among the residents of Chinatown. Minnie described the intended as “19 years old, fair skinned, and the daughter of a doctor.”1 The name of this new addition to the community was Soo Hoo Chong Ti. The bride, under heavy veils, arrived in San Buenaventura via train. Her groom had arranged for Chong Ti to travel in luxury, and engaged musicians from Los Angeles, San Francisco and Bakersfield to furnish music and song for the wedding. Her trousseau consisted of “China silks and textures of marvelous design and workmanship wrought in gold and silver [which formed] a whole that would render the average woman wild with delight.”2 The couple also received over 100 wedding gifts valued at over $2000. As Chinese custom dictated, this was an arranged marriage. Chong Ti would see her husband for the first time on their wedding day. The front page of the Ventura Free Press described the wedding as lavish and thoroughly traditional. The groom, Ung Hing, a man of wealth and influence, paid out “more ready money than has been spent on any marriage ceremony ever performed in Ventura County.”3 Heralding the marriage, elaborate feasting carried on for four days. 1 Soo Hoo Leung Collection, Chinese American Museum, Los Angeles, California. 2 Ventura Free Press, 24 January 1896. 3 Ibid. Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County 3 Ung Hing and family, n.d. Reprinted from Sarah Eliot Blanchard, Memories of a Child’s Early California Days, 1961. The couple settled into their new home behind the Sing Hing and Company store, a building on Figueroa Street where Ung Hing conducted business. He also invested in real estate and possessed holdings in Hong Kong and Santa Barbara. Within a few years of the marriage, according to the 1900 census, seven additional people lived behind the store: two partners, four boarders, and a servant who cooked for the family. Ung Hing and Soo Hoo Chong Ti lived a life of relative prosperity. The presence of Chinese women and the subject of Chinese land ownership in Ventura County may seem strange to many readers. It is commonly believed that Chinese settlers in California were bachelors and were not allowed to own land. But when the Chinese first arrived in California during the mid-nineteenth century, some settlers brought their families and many owned property. However, the liberties of Chinese pioneers fluctuated over time. Population density, marriage patterns, legal rights, occupations, and their presence in America changed. The definitive history of the Chinese in Ventura County has yet to be written. Although Chinese pioneers were instrumental in building Ventura County, their lives and accomplishments are not often recorded in history books. Due to the xenophobia of the time and the lack of first-person accounts, diaries and Chinese newspapers, the importance of the Chinese in Ventura County remains largely hidden. The stories of their lives are known only to their loved ones and a few residents of the Chinese community. 4 Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County This issue of the Journal of Ventura County History will illuminate the history of Ventura County’s Chinese community by examining the experiences of five individuals and their families: Tom Lim Yan, an early Ventura merchant, labor contractor and a leader in the Chinese community; Nellie Yee Chung, born in San Buenaventura’s Chinatown in 1888; Mrs. Soo Hoo Bock, a mother of five children who lived in Ventura from 1895 until 1913; Walton Jue, local business owner; and Bill Soo Hoo, the mayor of Oxnard, elected in 1966. CHINESE MIGRATION Most Chinese pioneers who arrived in North America during the nineteenth century came from a small region in Southeast China made up of two-dozen districts on the Pearl River Delta, in the Guangdong Province. Guangzhou, formerly Canton, is the capital of the province. During this period China experienced great unrest from factors such as overpopulation, Opium Wars, rebellions, and natural disasters. The resulting chaos brought widespread poverty, hunger and death for the people of the Guangdong Province. Thousands of Chinese men sought relief from hardship by emigrating to foreign countries. The international ports of Hong Kong and Macao were situated near the Guangdong Province, exposing citizens and workers to western practices and technologies. From these ports, Chinese migrants ventured to places such as Australia, South America, Philippines, Sing Hing and Co., 1902. File 13551/1, Chinese Partnership Files, Record Group 85, National Archives, San Bruno, CA. Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County 5 Sing Hing and Co., rear. File 13551/1, Chinese Partnership Files, Record Group 85, National Archives, San Bruno, CA. Sing Hing and Co., interior. Ung Hing seated, right. File 13551/1, Chinese Partnership Files, Record Group 85, National Archives, San Bruno, CA. 6 Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County and Mexico seeking employment and economic survival. After the discovery of gold in 1848, thousands of Chinese men came to California, known as gum saan or “Gold Mountain,” in pursuit of wealth and opportunity. Initially, the gold mines of California welcomed the Chinese, along with miners from all over the world, but this reception did not last long. Anti-Chinese hostility took hold and Chinese miners were taxed, robbed and driven from their claims. The legislature passed a discriminatory Foreign Miners Tax in 1852, initially set at twenty dollars a month and intended to drive Mexicans and Chileans from the mines. Eventually the tax was reduced and imposed only on Chinese miners. It has been estimated that “receipts from this tax provided over half of the total revenue for the mining counties in the 1850s.”4 S AN BUENAVENTURA’S CHINESE COMMUNITY The mission town of San Buenaventura, originally contained within one square mile, was incorporated on March 10, 1866, the first in present-day Ventura County. The Board of Trustees, as indicated by the notes of their proceedings of 1866-1877, were concerned with issues such as property taxes, the building of a water ditch, the jail and its upkeep, cattle roaming the streets, the drawing of a town map, business licenses, the building of a wharf, and the prohibition of unwholesome water passing by any premises.5 Progress was in the air in San Buenaventura in the 1860s and 1870s. In 1866 a schoolhouse was built and the first teacher, Alice Brinkerhoff, taught 40 students. The Congregational Church was established in 1868 and the stagecoach came to town during the late 1860s. The area’s first newspaper, Ventura Signal, began operations in 1871. As the population of the town continued to grow, the desire for increased commerce and a steady supply of needed materials resulted in the building of a wharf, completed in 1872. In 1873 the town was designated as the county seat of the newly formed Ventura County. A courthouse was built on Santa Clara Street near Figueroa Street and the town’s first bank, Bank of Ventura, was established in 1874. This is the town that initially welcomed Chinese settlers. As news of California’s temperate climates and available land spread in China, thousands of Chinese settlers migrated to Southern California. Ventura County, a burgeoning agricultural region, needed farm labor. Since many Chinese settlers hailed from agrarian regions in China they brought farming knowledge and skills to the area. These men naturally became involved in the booming agricultural industry. Thomas Bard, the first to record the Chinese in San Buenaventura, described in a letter of February 15, 1866, a small group of “Tartars” present at the previous year’s Fourth of July celebration near the Mission. When Chinese pioneers first arrived in San Buenaventura 4 Ping Chiu quoted in Sucheng Chan, This Bitter-Sweet Soil: The Chinese in California Agriculture, 1860-1910 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 58. 5 David W. Hall, “Early Records of Town Government in San Buenaventura, 1866 to 1871.” Compiled August 1991. On file, Research Library, Museum of Ventura County, Ventura, California. Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County 7 they engaged in domestic service, the laundry business, and construction work. In 1871 Chinese laborers built a canal that brought water to San Buenaventura, for which they were paid $1.50 per day. In 1873 a man named Wing ran a harness and repair shop on Main Street, and in 1878 Chinese laborers were employed on the Casitas Pass road.6 The first Chinese community established in San Buenaventura was located on Figueroa Street between Main and Santa Clara Streets. An alley ran perpendicular to the east side of Figueroa Street, and residents called this area China Alley.