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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. While development of Chinatown began on the east side of Figueroa Street and along the alley, by the mid 1880s buildings had sprung up on the west side of the street as well. By 1892, Ventura’s Chinese community was well established on Figueroa Street.7

Former resident Nellie Yee Chung, born in San Buenaventura in 1888, described the community:

There were houses there, a whole stretch of them; they’d been built by whites. That was Chinatown. In the old days the houses had about two rooms. The houses [on China Alley] were connected in the back. We built a little further out in the back, and raised some chickens and pigeons, etc. We put up a drying shed for drying clothes. At the end of the alley there was a firehouse.8

By the 1890s, in Chinatown one could find mercantile businesses, employment firms, a barbershop, gambling houses, opium establishments, residences, a kitchen, a fire company and the Bing Kong Tong, a fraternal organization. Among these crude wooden buildings Chinese settlers lived, worked, gardened, enjoyed time with their countrymen and raised families. It has been estimated that during the years of Chinatown’s existence the population numbered approximately 200 people.9

During the waning years of the nineteenth century, Figueroa Street was filled with the sights and sounds of a bustling ethnic community. Chinese settlers dressed in traditional clothing worked diligently at jobs providing services for both the Chinese and the host communities. Rough-hewn wooden buildings stood along a wooden boardwalk with signs advertising businesses in both English and Chinese. The voices of laborers, merchants, laundrymen, barbers, vegetable peddlers, women, and children echoed throughout the busy street, while salty ocean breezes carried the scent of savory Chinese cooking.

6 Roberta S. Greenwood, “Chinatown in Ventura,” Gum Saan Journal, vol. 7, no. 1 (1984): 1; Ventura Signal, 8 June 1878. 7 According to the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, blocks 47 and 48 were identified as Chinatown in San Bue- naventura. The 1892 Sanborn map shows 28 addresses in Chinatown. 8 Nellie Yee Chung Oral History, Southern California Chinese American Oral History Project, University Research Library, Special Collections, UCLA. 9 Margaret Jennings, “The Chinese of Ventura County,” Ventura County Historical Society Quarterly, vol. 29, no. 3 (Spring 1984): 6.

8 Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County Looking north on Figueroa Street, n.d. (PN 17729)

The Chinese population in San Buenaventura began to decline after 1898, when many Chinese settlers moved to Oxnard to work in the sugar beet factory. By 1902 lack of employment opportunities, the aging of the community, and restrictive laws had reduced this ethnic community to “three Chinese stores, two Chinese laundries, and approximately 100 Chinese residents.”10 In 1905 the area near the Mission was redeveloped, a process that included the sale of land on the east side of Figueroa Street. Chinese residents and businesses were suddenly forced to find new locations in which to live, work and operate. A new Chinatown was established on Main Street between Ventura Avenue and the Mission. Many of the buildings on Figueroa Street were relocated to the Avenue, and some families and businesses moved into the old adobes that lined the north side of Main Street.11 Local residents protested that Chinatown was moving to a “popular and central corner” of the town, but city trustees were powerless to stop the move.12

10 Yee Gee Immigration Case File 9900/11, 1902, Chinese Exclusion Act Case Files, Record Group 85, National Archives, San Bruno, CA. 11 Mr. Robert E. Brakey moved buildings in Ventura County during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. 12 Los Angeles Times, 6 September 1905.

Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County 9 The Chinese community continued its residency in Ventura’s Chinatown until about 1920, when the second Chinatown was disbanded and the land sold, marking the end of the era. Ventura’s Chinese residents would never again live together in a community of their own making. Chinese Exclusion Laws The first signs of anti-Chinese sentiment in California occurred with the 1852 passage of the Foreign Miners Tax in the gold fields. As nativism swept the nation, Chinese immigrants were seen as a threat to American politics, culture and the economy. As a result, Chinese settlers suffered further discriminatory restrictions such as segregation in schools, prohibition of intermarriage, and bans prohibiting testifying against Euroamericans in court.

Labor groups believed that Chinese immigrants, who provided inexpensive, unskilled labor, lowered wages for American workers. The most visible faction opposing Chinese laborers was the Workingman’s Party of California, under the direction of Denis Kearney. The widespread economic depression of the 1870s made matters worse. Nationally, unemployment soared, and Chinese settlers who competed in the low-end job market became objects of ridicule, media abuse, and violence.

By 1882, the animosity toward the Chinese reached Washington D.C. and Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. This legislation barred either unskilled or skilled Chinese laborers from entering the United States for ten years. The law exempted certified merchants, students, teachers and travelers. With the passage of this legislation, Chinese immigrants became the first ethnic group to be excluded from immigrating to the United States. Chinese exclusion was renewed in 1892 and 1902, and was finally repealed in 1943, during World War II.

The Chinese community did not tolerate this injustice, launching several legal challenges against these laws and forming organizations such as The Chinese Equal Rights League to protest. In September of 1892, after the renewal of Chinese exclusion by the Geary Act, the League held a mass meeting in New York City to protest the passage of the act. Over one thousand people, including Euroamericans, came together to hear speakers denounce the act for its unfairness and injustice. From this meeting protesters issued a denunciation of the Geary Act and an appeal to the people of the United States entitled, “The New and Monstrous Anti-Chinese Bill.” It included the following passage:

We feel keenly the disgrace unjustly and maliciously heaped upon us by a cruel Congress. That for the purpose of prohibiting Chinese immigration more than one hundred thousand honest and respectable Chinese residents should be made to wear the badge of disgrace… That they should be tagged and branded as a whole lot of cattle for the slaughter; that they should be seen upon your streets with tearful eyes and heavy hearts, objects of scorn and public ridicule.13

13 “The New and Monstrous Anti-Chinese Bill,” Ng Poon Chew Collection, Asian American Studies Library, University of California Berkeley. Quoted in Charles J. McClain, In Search of Equality The Chinese Struggle against Discrimination in Nineteenth-Century America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 206.

10 Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County The Anti-Chinese movement was also active in San Buenaventura, where the townspeople shared the sentiment of the rest of the nation. They demanded the cessation of Chinese immigration, and almost daily newspapers carried articles and editorials enumerating the perceived evils of the Chinese. Even after the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act, an 1886 Ventura newspaper wrote, “We are nothing these days if not anti-Chinese.”14 Newspaper accounts also criticized the Chinese in San Buenaventura for working for “cheap” wages:

The Chinese must go. It is a mistake to say that we have no laborers to take their place. Look at the thousands who are crowding the streets of Los Angeles and San Francisco, and the thousands who would quickly come to take their place if they should find work in the country. But they cannot work and live like the Chinamen. They cannot work cheap for two or three months in the year during bean hoeing and harvest, and then huddle together by hundreds in a filthy den and live on ten cents a week waiting for the next job.15

Other objections to Chinese residents included the impression that they would not assimilate and the belief that they carried diseases. Citizens decided to maximize and consolidate their loathing of the Chinese and formed a countywide Anti-Chinese League. The League held weekly meetings in a local hall and called for the general public to attend. Officers were elected during the meetings and participants wanted to communicate directly with the Governor of California to voice their resolve to “see proper and peaceable means used to scatter them [Chinese residents] out through the country and not permit them to huddle together in their filth and endanger the health of the entire community.”16

Some residents resorted to violence against the Chinese. Even respected merchant Ung Hing, referred to as Sing Hing here, experienced trouble and feared gang violence. As a local paper reported:

On one occasion Sing Hing went to consult some of his advisors. He had been considerably annoyed and feared for his life. He went to Frank Newby, who was the town clerk and also John Kuhlman, a Main street merchant … He asked their advice. He was told to get himself a pistol and frighten the gang away. He did this and that very night had a visit from a gang, who beat upon his door. He shouted at them to go away quick else he would shoot. That scattered the crowd. They never bothered him again. He was most grateful to Kuhlman and Newby; said they had saved his life.17

14 Ventura Free Press, 26 February 1886. 15 Ventura Free Press, 2 April 1886. 16 Ventura Free Press, 11 December 1885. 17 Ventura Star Free Press, 29 October 1927.

Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County 11 Discrimination created an extremely hostile environment, yet Chinese residents remained in San Buenaventura and endured the adversity. hhh Tom Lim Yan: Community Leader, Labor Contractor and Merchant

Tom Lim Yan was a big man in every sense of the word.18 In stature he was large and his tremendous influence in San Buenaventura’s Chinese community spanned over 30 years. His local authority was such that in 1881 the Ventura Signal referred to him as the “Boss Chinaman.”19 He contributed to the success of his community through his intelligence, his organizational skills, his ability to speak English and his understanding of American laws and legislation.

Reportedly born in China in 1848, it is unknown when Yan came to the United States. According to public records he was living in San Buenaventura by the 1870s. While living in Chinatown Yan married and fathered two daughters. Since most Chinese settlers had little time to record diaries, information about Tom Tom Lim Yan, 1894. File 13551/2, Lim Yan has been gleaned from documents relating to Chinese Partnership Files, Record Group his estate, immigration case files, public records and 85, National Archives, San Bruno, CA. letters written by others in the Chinese community.20

Yan appears to have been an intellectual and he was concerned about the education of his countrymen, so he started a school in 1878, reported by the Free Press:

In the Chinese quarter of this town there is a school in which Chinamen are being taught to read and write [the] English language. It has been in successful operation for several months and some of the students are quite proficient being able to read and write. Tom Lin Yan [sic], the proprietor of the store is one of the most intelligent and highly educated Chinamen we have ever met. He speaks and writes English fluently, and looks after the school, of which he seems to be very proud.21

18 Tom was probably a name given to him by the host community. His surname was Lim. The Chinese write and pronounce their surname first, and then their given name. 19 Ventura Signal, 19 November 1881. 20 Tom Lim Yan Probate Record P006459, 28 March 1918. Ventura County Superior Court, Ventura, California. Yee Gee Case File 99000/11, 1902, Soo Hoo Leung Collection. 21 Ventura Free Press, 19 January 1878.

12 Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County The store mentioned by the newspaper was Kun Wo and Company, located on the east side of Figueroa Street. Yan was most likely among the first merchants in San Buenaventura’s Chinatown. While Chinese merchants and labor contractors are not listed in the 1870 Federal census, we know that Kun Wo and Company was conducting business on Figueroa Street by 1878, according to a deed record of the same year.22 The 1880 Federal census enumerated three merchants, and by 1900 the number of Chinese merchants had grown to six, while four grocers had also established businesses in the Chinese community. In many cases Chinese merchants doubled as labor contractors.

While Chinese laborers in the West worked mostly in migratory jobs, Chinese merchants had a tendency to remain in their communities, where they possessed material resources much greater than the average Chinese worker. Since merchants were exempted from the exclusion acts they could travel to China and bring their wives and families to America. This highly-coveted privilege allowed Chinese merchants to enjoy family life in the United States.

The Chinese store was a unique establishment that served many purposes for settlers in Chinese communities. Each store served as the headquarters for a family unit that hailed from a particular district in China. Services and accommodations essential for daily life could be obtained at the Chinese store. Lodging and employment were available and Chinese merchants would act as post offices, banks and pawnshops. Since Chinese laborers were generally migrant workers without fixed addresses, they could leave personal effects such as valuables and weapons at the stores for safe-keeping.

These establishments provided Chinese settlers with goods from the homeland and offered a place to socialize. Men from outlying areas would converge on the stores during the weekends to write letters to loved ones, celebrate holidays, compete in games and play music. Perhaps the most important service provided by Chinese merchants was to arrange for the return of human remains to China upon the death of their clansmen. Burial in the home village was an important aspect of Chinese culture. Essentially, the Chinese store provided a place where settlers could relax, speak their home dialect and for a short time forget about the difficulties of living in the West.

Tom Lim Yan held other positions of prominence in San Buenaventura. He was also a landowner and a labor contractor. Although Kun Wo and Company leased its land, Yan bought six lots in Montalvo with his partner Som Fong Yi in 1889. He also owned half interest in property on Figueroa Street with his partner Lim Mow Kee by 1892, and half interest in the Camarillo adobe, located on Main Street, with his partner Soo Hoo Bock by 1905. Three Chinese businesses occupied the adobe when Chinatown relocated in 1905.

Yan’s most influential role in Chinatown was his work as a labor contractor. Ventura County’s economic shift from cattle ranching to agriculture elevated the importance of the 22 Ventura County Deed Records, Book 7, p. 267, December 1878. On file, Ventura County Recorder’s Office, Ventura, California.

Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County 13 Chinese farm contractor. When agriculture was in its nascent stage, farm families provided the required labor. As the industry expanded, farmers needed larger groups of men to harvest the produce, and the acquisition of farm laborers was a challenge to growers. As fortune would have it, a large work force was living in California and they were ready, willing and able to provide the sweat and hard work required for the job. In many cases, these men hailed from agricultural areas and brought farming expertise to the occupation. Chinese laborers answered the prayers of Euroamerican growers.

One method growers used to procure Chinese farm hands was working with Chinese labor contractors. These men were important in California’s burgeoning agricultural industry because they worked as the middlemen between farm owners and laborers. Many of the contractors could speak English, establishing themselves as the primary sources of information between growers and laborers. Their countrymen trusted them to negotiate effectively with the residents of the host community. Chinese labor contractors, or “China bosses,” were considered one of the few organizing influences in a disorganized market. Through their web of acquaintances, contractors could find Chinese field hands in Chinatowns throughout California very quickly. Locally, laborers were available at family association halls, gambling establishments and stores. In some cases, contractors and laborers were related.

Contractors arranged food and housing for the men, and farmers liked these arrangements because their wives did not have to cook for the workers.23 Oral agreements were the instrument of choice between contractors and growers, and once all provisions were in place,

23 Chan, This Bitter-Sweet Soil, 344.

Chinese workers in Ventura County, n.d. (PN 27613)

14 Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County Chinese farm hands were known to work tenaciously until the job was completed, whether it took a few days or an entire harvest season.

The contracting of Chinese labor benefited all parties involved. For the grower, Chinese labor was inexpensive and convenient. For the contractor the business was lucrative, and he derived income from many sources. Since room and board was provided for Chinese laborers, contractors would collect commissions and rebates from merchants who provided supplies and food.24 If the contractor was also a merchant, providing food and supplies for the work crews generated additional profit.

Chinese laborers enjoyed many benefits through their relationship with labor contractors, including steady employment and room and board. Many of these men migrated between harvesting jobs and they did not have access to a mailbox or post office. Contractors would receive the laborers’ mail, hold their earnings, and forward remittances to the laborers’ families in China.

After living in Ventura County for over 40 years, in 1909 Tom Lim Yan set sail to fulfill his dream of living his final years in China. He died on the ship before it reached his homeland. His obituary praised him and recognized his importance to the community in Ventura County:

So, Tom Ling Yan [sic] is dead! Old timers in Ventura will remember Tom Ling Yan. He was a big fellow, with a head that might have fitted a United States Senator. And, in a large way, he was a man of affairs in his country. With his own countrymen, he was the whole thing - literally, all there was. You could not get Chinese laborers to do anything, in the days when Chinese laborers did many things here, without first going to see Tom Ling Yan. He was educated, and a gentleman - after the Chinese manner … Tom Ling Yan had his own ethical code, and lived up to it. New people, and the generation that is now just grown up, did not know him, of course. Of late years, with the passing of the Chinese labor element as a result of the enforcement of the Restriction Law, Tom Ling Yan retired from the leading place in the industrial life of the county that he once held, and became just a common merchant … But he was always a gentleman, after the Chinese manner - and he always had a pleasant greeting for old friends among the Americans who called at his place of business to see him. And now, Tom Ling Yan is gone! Peace to his ashes which will repose in the Central Flowery Kingdom to which he was returning in his feeble old age after almost a life time in this town! They did not have to carry his bones far to get them to China.25

24 Sylvia Sun Minnick, Samfow: The San Joaquin Chinese Legacy (Fresno: Panorama West Publishing, 1988), 59; Chan, This Bitter-Sweet Soil, 344. 25 Ventura Free Press, 21 September 1909.

Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County 15 hhh

N ellie Yee Chung: Chinatown through the Eyes of a Child During its early decades, San Buenaventura’s Chinatown was inhabited mostly by men. While it has been written that Chinatowns were bachelor societies, many of the men who immigrated to America were married. Their wives remained in China because, according to Chinese tradition, a new bride joined her groom’s family and cared for his parents while her husband lived and worked in the United States. One can imagine how these men in America must have yearned for their wives and families back in China, and that Chinatown must have been a lonely place.

When Yee Hay, his wife Chan Shee, and their daughter Emily arrived in San Buenaventura in 1881, their presence must have warmed the hearts of the Chinese settlers.26 Emily was the first child recorded in Chinatown. Thus began an era of family life in this ethnic enclave.

The Yees had three more surviving children while living in San Buenaventura: William, Nellie and George. Nellie Yee Chung was born in 1888 and lived in San Buenaventura’s Chinatown for seven years. In 1979, at the age of 90, she described her early life experiences while her family history was being recorded as a part of the Southern California Chinese American Oral History Project.27 Lillian Wong and Arthur Chung, Nellie’s daughter and son, interviewed their mother for this project, and they refer to Yee Hay and Chan Shee as Grandfather and Grandmother. Portions of the transcript of that interview follows.

Life in China and Voyage to America Q: Where was Grandfather born? A: In Toishan. He was a Yee from the Yee Village, Dikhoi. Q: How old was he when he came out? A: When he was very young, he went to Hong Kong to learn to work. Someone said that the States was a good place, so he came with a group of people to the States. Q: What about Grandmother? A: My mother came around the same time. [They] got married in China. Q: Did he [Yee Hay] bring his wife over with him? A: According to the immigration laws, only men could come over. They could not bring their wives. So they had to go in roundabout ways.

26 Yee Hay’s wife was known as Chan Shee. Chan was her maiden name, and the word Shee indicates that she was married. 27 Nellie Yee Chung’s oral history is part of the Southern California Chinese American Oral History Project. This project was a joint venture between the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California and the Asian American Studies Center at the University of California, Los Angeles. It is housed at the University Research Library, Special Collections, UCLA. Nellie’s interview was conducted in Cantonese on October 15, 1979.

16 Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County Yee Hay with Nellie, William and George, 1894. Nellie Yee Chung Collection.

Laws excluding Chinese women from entering the United States began with the Page Law, passed by Congress in 1875, forbidding the entry of Chinese and Japanese contract laborers, women for the purpose of prostitution, and felons. According to historian Sucheng Chan, there was a general impression that all Chinese women were prostitutes, and this attitude “colored the public perception … and action against all Chinese women for almost a century.” The intention allegedly underlying such laws was to prevent the “debasement of white manhood, health, morality, and family life.”28 The law singled out Asian prostitutes for such moral reasons, although Euroamerican prostitutes continued to conduct their trade.

The Page Law reflected a general hostility toward Chinese women, and further exclusion laws set up a class structure that favored wives of Chinese merchants. This meant that wives of laborers had to remain in China, while wives of merchants were allowed to join their husbands in the United States. Apparently, Chan Shee found a way to immigrate into the United States, and settled in San Buenaventura with her family. Her daughter describes life and work in San Buenaventura’s Chinatown:

28 Sucheng Chan, “Exclusion of Chinese Women,” in Entry Denied: Exclusion and the Chinese Community in America, 1882-1943 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991), 97, 138.

Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County 17 Farm Cook Q: Do you know why they came to Ventura? A: Because cousins lived there, and they told him to go look for work in Ventura. Q: What did Grandfather do [in Ventura]? Where did he work? A: He worked for others . . . harvesting wheat, etc. At each town, there’d be a big taxi car to pick them up, and he’d cook meals for people in the wagon. He’d get up to cook at 4 a.m. They’d eat at 5 a.m., and start work at 6 a.m., threshing and cutting wheat. There was a kitchen there on the wagon. After they finished harvesting they’d go harvest in another place. The wagon would follow them. He cooked three meals a day for others. There was also the man who contracted the work, and they also arranged for a car to provide meals. [He provided] bread, milk, coffee … things like that. He drove the provisions over. Q: Where did he live? A: He lived on the wagon, and he slept in the car. When they finished harvesting in one place they went to harvest in another. The wagon followed along the road. I heard him say that they threshed wheat, that is, harvested wheat, and picked beans. In the old days, wherever people went to work, the kitchen followed along. Q: How often did they come home? A: They worked in the summer until August or September, and then came back. They worked a few months each year, not the whole year round.

Nick Peirano, a merchant whose store was located on the corner of Main and Figueroa Streets, remembered that the Chinese were also cooks for the crews on the big ranches, and probably fed 35-40 men three meals a day. These men baked pies and cakes in the “chuck wagons,” and they were very good cooks.29

Nellie’s daughter Marie Louie recalled hearing that her grandfather was paid in gold coin. When he received his salary, he would stuff the coins in his shoes because he did not want the money to be stolen. When he returned home on the evening of payday, the children would help to pull off his boots and coins would roll over the floor. The children thought that this was great fun.30

Chinese Fire Company Q: Each time he came back [from the farms], did he do any carpentry? A: Some people might want to remodel their store or partition off a room, and they’d ask him to do it. Q: He did that himself? Or did somebody help him? A: He did it himself, and the house we lived in was built by Grandfather.

29 Nicholas Peirano Oral Interview, recorded 9 September 1986. On file, Research Library, Museum of Ventura County, Ventura, California. 30 Marie Louie, personal communication with author, 17 January 1998.

18 Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County There were houses there [in Chinatown], a whole stretch of them, they’d been built by whites … At the end of the alley there was a firehouse. Q: A firehouse? A: Yes, and Grandfather helped. Grandfather was in charge of opening the door, and as soon as there were shouts of trouble and calls to get out the fire truck, Grandfather went to open the door and let those people [the Chinese fire fighters] in to get the fire truck. When the fire broke out, all of us Chinese came. We heard that a stretch of stores and houses on Figueroa were all in the path of the fire. Mother was frightened, I was the youngest, but I was over a year old –18 months, that’s 2 years old. Mother picked out a few items of clothing. I was crying hard then, it was very frightening. There was no road out, just one side of the street. All the stores in that stretch burned down.

Nellie must have been referring to a fire allegedly caused by an overturned lamp on a gambling table on December 18, 1890. The Ventura Free Press offered the following account:

The fire alarm sounded last night at nine o’clock and in a few minutes the Hook and Ladder Company was at the scene of disaster which was discovered to be in Chinatown. Before the boys reached the spot and got their work fairly under way the fire extended to 3 buildings and 2 stores and a barber shop belonging to Sam Fong Yi and Me Chin and others, but by their prompt and efficient labor it was prevented from spreading any further …so retarded in its progress in the burning buildings themselves, that the occupants had ample time to remove their valuables and the greater part of their furniture, etc. The loss is estimated between $1000 and $1500…

There are several stories afloat as to the cause of the fire, the most plausible of which is that a number of the Chinamen were sitting around a table gambling, when they became engaged in a quarrel and in the racket upset a lamp. The fire spread rapidly to the furniture of the room…

As this is the second time this part of Chinatown has been burned, it is a matter of congratulation that the damage is no greater.31

In 1872, the township of San Buenaventura formed the Monumental Hose, Hook, Fire and Ladder Company. The Chinese community formed their own fire brigade and Chinese merchants collected funds to support the brigade.32 This unique company garnered attention from as far away as Los Angeles:

31 Ventura Free Press, 19 December 1890. 32 Ventura Democrat, 17 October 1889.

Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County 19 [The Chinese] have subscribed to a fund for the maintenance of a Chinese fire department for use in their own district. The company owns a hose carriage and a full complement of hook and ladder apparatus, manned by a band of Chinese fire ‘jakeys,’ clad in a serviceable uniform of the most fantastic design, but perfectly adapted to fighting the fire fiend on the close quarters peculiar to Chinese domiciles. A leading Chinese merchant informed the writer that in its drill the company had copied the best features of the regular department, and had added special features to meet the requirements of their settlement. The company is under orders to turn out at all alarms run in, and if the fire is outside of Chinatown to act under instructions from the chief of the regular department, if their services should be needed.33

The firemen, described as “a group of a dozen active young Chinese men,” pulled their hose cart, which included one hundred feet of hose. According to Lillian Wong, Nellie Yee Chung’s daughter, the Fire Company was formed because Euroamerican response to fires in Chinatown was too slow.34 Chinese firefighters helped extinguish fires outside of Chinatown, and they were greatly appreciated in the whole community.

Family and Education Q: How did Grandfather call you? What name did he call you? A: “Youngest girl, oldest girl,” like that. Q: “Oldest girl” was Emily? A: I was “Youngest girl.” My mother had many children then, but they didn’t survive, so they weren’t named. So we were called “Oldest girl, youngest girl,” like that. Q: Oh, Ah George was called Ah Gow (Dog)? A: Yes, Ah Gow. Q: What was Ah Bill called? A: Ah Gee (Pig)? Q: Oh, Piggy, Doggy? A: Yes Piggy, Doggy.

Boys were highly prized in Chinese culture. Parents often feared evil spirits would take their sons away, and so they referred to their sons by insignificant names, such as dog and pig, to confuse the spirits. This was true in the Yee family as well. Later in life the boys used their given names.

Q: Tell us about Auntie Eva? A: I had an older sister. When she was born, my mother was ill, so she gave the baby sister to a Yee family that had no children.

33 Los Angeles Times, 27 July 1895. 34 Lillian Wong, personal communication with author, 10 September 1993.

20 Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County Eva was born in San Francisco, and a member of the Yee family from San Francisco adopted her and raised her in China. This was a common Chinese practice, especially among cousins. Eva returned to the United States and learned that she was adopted. In 1915, Nellie visited Eva and the Yee family continued regular visits, maintaining a relationship until Eva died many years later.35

Q: Where did you go to school? Did you go to school in Ventura? A: I didn’t go to school when I was young. A teacher came to our house and taught me ABCs. Q: Oh, you weren’t in school? A: No Chinese children went to white schools. Q: Oh, you weren’t allowed to go? A: I don’t know if they didn’t allow us or if we wouldn’t go. The other children didn’t go either. The teacher came to our house to teach us ABCs. Q: The teacher was a white woman? A: A white. Q: She taught you alone? A: She taught me and my sister. Q: Oh. What about your father and mother? A: My mother didn’t know English. My father knew a few words. He had to work. Q: How long did you study? A: Not very long.

The teachers Nellie refers to probably worked for the Congregational Mission, established in 1889 through the American Home Missionary Society, one of many organized attempts to Christianize the Chinese in Southern California and the United States. These important efforts helped the host community and the Chinese better understand each other. Missionaries were instrumental in limited acculturation, and they provided a voice for the Chinese when the Anti-Chinese movement was at its peak.36 Moreover, most missionary efforts were established to educate, and to provide medical services along with religious teachings.

The Mission established a school in San Buenaventura somewhere near the Chinese community, but the location is unknown. In 1902, a Ventura teacher named Lillian M. Bissell reported that on average about five Chinese students attended the school. She went on to say that the students were advancing in English and some were asking for instruction in arithmetic and grammar. All the pupils at the mission school were male.

The missionaries would also go to Chinese homes to teach reading to the women and children. Mrs. Bissell spoke of missionaries’ use of the Montgomery Ward catalogue, which provided an imaginative tool when teaching the wives of the Chinese merchants. Soo Hoo

35 Marie Louie, personal communication with author, 30 January 1998. 36 Raymond Lou, “The Chinese American Community of Los Angeles, 1870-1900: A Case of Resistance, Organization, and Participation” (Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Irvine, 1983), 253.

Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County 21 Chong Ti, wife of Ung Hing, the proprietor of Sing Hing and Company, benefited from this English instruction.37

Chinese settlers who came to America practiced an ancient Chinese folk religion. In traditional Chinese religious practice, Chinese people and their religious leaders display a pragmatic and adaptive attitude toward religious and secular matters. This has been seen in their practice of syncretism, where individuals attend rites and celebrations of many religions. For example, ideas of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism have been incorporated into one belief over time, yet each of these belief systems can be found individually in China. From Confucianism, reverence to ancestors is a priority. This includes a hierarchic system where females defer to males, younger people defer to elders, and subjects defer to rulers. Taoism has many ceremonies, including ones to produce health, long life, and security. Buddhism emphasizes many gods and ceremonies, and strongly values mutual aid and community solidarity.

An important element of Chinese belief is ancestor worship. This philosophy originated with the works of Confucius, who lived in China between 551-479 B.C.E. One of the main elements of his teachings was filial piety, which consisted of obedience, respect and loyalty to one’s parents, and continuity of the family lineage. Once a parent or ancestor died, descendants believed their spirits lived on and they had a continued and beneficial interest in the living. Efforts were made to please and honor the ancestors through daily and seasonal rituals and practices. Pictures of the dead were featured in family altars where candles or incense were lit and prayers offered daily. Additional altars or shrines were found at ancestral halls and gravesites. Chinese families feared that if they failed to properly honor the spirit of their ancestor, calamity and misfortune could occur.

The local cemetery held great significance for Chinese settlers who practiced ancestor worship. In San Buenaventura the Chinese were buried in St. Mary’s Cemetery, currently known as Community Memorial Park, located on the south side of Poli Street. Twice a year, at Ching Ming (Pure Brightness) in April and Chung Yeun (Hungry Ghosts) in August, Chinese residents visited and paid respect to their deceased ancestors. They placed roasted meats on the graves and burned firecrackers and ritual papers. Afterwards the offerings were taken back to town and eaten.

About 25 Chinamen went out to the graveyard last Sunday to perform a religious ceremony. The ceremony consisted in placing goat, pork and chicken, oranges, rice, cereal, candles etc. about the graves of two Chinamen, recently deceased. A celestial explained to us that after a Chinaman died he went to China and then came back to the place of his burial. He further informed us that the deceased Chinamen had returned and for several nights had caused considerable trouble in Chinatown, but

37 Lillian M. Bissell, “Report of Ventura Chinese Mission for 1901.” Submitted to the Annual Meeting of the Congregational Church in 1902. Congregational Church Archive, Research Library, Museum of Ventura County, Ventura, California.

22 Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County that their wrath and hunger had been appeased by going through the above “ceremony” and all is serene in the wilds of Chinatown once more.38

For most Chinese Americans, burial in California was considered temporary, as settlers dreamed of China as their final resting place. In some communities, it was the responsibility of huiguan, or family associations, to ensure that remains of their countrymen were returned to the homeland.39 Some time between two and ten years after death, the bones of the deceased were exhumed, cleaned, packaged, and returned to China. Olen Adams, a local resident, witnessed an exhumation and described this process at the Chinese section of the cemetery in Ventura:

The Chinese would dig up their [dead] and send them back to China, and they’d spread them out on the paper to see if they had all the bones … and they would feed him, they’d have quite a feed there as they would pick him up to put him in a box … the hair and everything.40

Great care was taken to ensure that every bone was present for reburial. Remains were placed into a white cotton bag, and the bags set into a metal urn. Once the remains arrived in China, the skeletons would be wired in a fixed position, sealed in earthenware jars, and placed in family tombs.41

This practice was so prevalent it has been estimated that ten thousand boxes of bones left the United States for China in 1913 alone.42 A permit was required to disinter the remains after the passage of a state law entitled “An Act to Protect Public Health from Infection Caused by Exhumation and Removal of the Remains of Deceased Persons,” passed in 1878.43 While practices varied, commonly the bones of women, children and victims of violence or suicide were not reburied in China. A shipment of human remains in Ventura garnered attention in 1901:

Wells Fargo Co. received many curious packages for shipment. One of them received Wednesday at the local office was a box containing the bones of a Chinaman, that have been buried here for the past 2½ years. According to their custom the bones of deceased Chinese must sooner or later be transported to the Celestial Empire for more decent interment. Wing Tai Yuen, the merchant of the local Chinatown, made the shipment. The last funeral was an expensive one, as the charges to San Francisco were $25, two first

38 Ventura Free Press, 5 April 1884. 39 Roberta S. Greenwood, “Old Rituals in New Lands: Bringing the Ancestors to America,” in Sue Fawn Chung and Priscilla Wegars, eds., Chinese American Death Rituals: Respecting the Ancestors (Lanham, Mass.: Alta Mira Press, 2005), 244. 40 Olen Adams Oral Interview, recorded 1982. On file, Research Library, Museum of Ventura County, Ventura, California. 41 Greenwood, 245. 42 Ibid. 43 Greenwood, 247.

Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County 23 class passenger fares. No letters, labels or other marks were allowed to be placed on the box.44

Lunar New Year The most thrilling time of year for Ventura’s Chinese community was during Chinese Lunar New Year. This holiday, occuring in January or February, has been celebrated in China for thousands of years and was a festive time for residents of the Chinese community. Families gathered to welcome the New Year with feasts prepared for family and friends. Holiday gifts of money, wrapped in red paper called lai see, were given to children and unmarried individuals for good luck. Colorful lion dances helped to bring in the New Year and firecrackers exploded to frighten away evil spirits that might threaten the upcoming year. Daisy Sem Jue, of Oxnard, had fond memories of New Year celebrations:

I remember on New Year’s Eve at midnight, mother would wake us all up and we would all participate in meatless meal; on the first day of New Year, it was meatless. [We gave] the fowl, the animals, a day of peace. We don’t eat meat; we just have vegetables and tofu and rice.45

Lunar New Year was a time when Euroamericans would venture into Chinatown to enjoy the festivities. Ventura merchant Nick Peirano reminisced about the Chinese New Year:

On Chinese New Year my dad and mother would get all gussied up and they’d go up and take a little gift to each and every one of them [Chinese residents] in their little places. Then, on Christmas Eve they’d all come down to the house and bring my mother and dad [gifts] - we had some of their trays;… they had china sections in them, the teakwood sections, and they were filled with lychee nuts and ginger and things of that type.46

A Change of Residence Chan Shee died in 1895 and was buried at St. Mary’s Cemetery in Ventura. Being the eldest child, Emily cared for her siblings after her mother’s death. In 1897, she married and moved to Los Angeles, taking Nellie and Bill with her to live in her new home.

Q: Your mother died when you were young? A: Yes. I was 7 years old. Eldest Auntie [Emily] was 16, Ah George was 13, and Ah Bill was 3 or 4. I think. So my sister got married, my older sister married. Then my father brought me over to live with my sister. Q: You were 9 in 1897.

In 1910, after living in Los Angeles for a little over a decade, Nellie married Dr. Chung Hong. He was forty-two years old and she was twenty-two. He was a widower and had

44 Ventura Free Press, 4 October 1901. 45 Interview with Daisy Sem Jue, recorded 20 August 2003, Oxnard, California. 46 Nicholas Peirano Oral Interview.

24 Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County Emily Yee Lum, 1900. Nellie Yee Chung, 1908. Nellie Yee Chung Collection. Nellie Yee Chung Collection. three sons by his previous marriage. Dr. Chung was also considered among the “foremost of the Chinese physicians in the United States and [held] a high standing in his native land.”47 Together Nellie and Dr. Chung had four children: Lillian, Arthur, Marian, and Marie. Nellie Yee Chung experienced good health until late in life. She attributed her vitality to fresh vegetables, freshly killed chickens, and fresh milk. Nellie lived into old age, and died on November 21, 1984 at the age of 96.

After Chan Shee’s burial in 1895, a road near the cemetery was widened and her grave was lost. Yee Hay died on June 20, 1916, and was buried in a potter’s cemetery adjacent to Evergreen Cemetery in Boyle Heights, where many other Chinese settlers are buried. Every Memorial Day, Nellie and her brother William (Bill) took fresh flowers to Yee Hay’s grave. In 1960 Nellie and Bill found that a portion of the Chinese section of the cemetery had been paved over, and both their father’s grave and his headstone were missing. After an extensive search of the records, cemetery staff told Nellie and Bill that the remains had been removed but they could not say where. Moreover, they found no record of anyone by that name. It was as if he had never existed.48

47 Los Angeles Examiner, 3 June 1910. 48 Arthur Chung, Bitter Roots: A Gum Saan Odyssey (Palos Verdes: Pacific Heritage Books, 2006), 155.

Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County 25 William Yee, Emily Yee, Eva Yee Young and Nellie Yee Chung, 1930. Nellie Yee Chung Collection.

26 Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County In June 2005, during excavation for the Gold Metro Line extension from Union Station to East Los Angeles by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), the skeletal remains of 132 people and Chinese artifacts were unearthed in an area adjacent to the Evergreen Cemetery in Boyle Heights. Analysis of the remains determined that some of the skeletons were of Chinese ancestry. While Yee Hay’s descendants feel confident that he was not among the disturbed remains, they are actively searching for the exact location of his grave so they may honor and pay respect to their ancestor.

Yee Hay, 1913. Nellie Yee Chung Collection. hhh Mrs. Soo Hoo Bock: A Chinese Wife and Mother After living in the United States for some time, in 1895 a Chinese merchant in San Buenaventura named Soo Hoo Bock decided to marry. Although Chinese women in California were scarce, he did not have to look very far for his bride. A beautiful young woman of marriage age lived in Santa Barbara.

Yee Heaung was born in Santa Barbara on July 5, 1878 to Yee Sing and Chin Shee. She and her sister, Yee Oi, were educated by missionaries in Santa Barbara, and these teachers gave the girls American names. Heaung was known as Minnie and Oi was known as Annie. The sisters could read, write, and speak English, and they frequently wrote letters to friends and family.

Reflecting her place of importance in Santa Barbara’s Chinese community, Heaung’s marriage was announced in the Los Angeles Times in 1895:

Miss Ah Heaung, eldest daughter of Yee Sing, a retired merchant of Santa Barbara, departed by carriage this morning for Ventura, with the object of being united in marriage to Soo Hoo Bock, a merchant of Ventura. The high social standing of Miss Heaung makes this marriage an important event in Chinese circles.49

The same year, Heaung’s sister Oi married a merchant named Soo Hoo Leung in Los Angeles. Both sisters married men from the Soo Hoo clan.

49 Los Angeles Times, 9 August 1895.

Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County 27 The Yee sisters were among the few Chinese women living in California during the nineteenth century. Exclusionary laws severely limited the migration of women from China. Consequently, male Chinese settlers in the West had few options when it came to finding brides. In some cases, they could travel to China and return with a wife, although this privilege was accorded only to Chinese merchants and American-born Chinese.

Male Chinese settlers could also marry former prostitutes or native-born Chinese women. Christian missions in San Francisco were places where Chinese men could find Chinese women of marriageable age. The Presbyterian Church started the Occidental Mission Home for Girls in San Francisco in 1874. Later it became the Cameron House. This mission rescued Chinese girls from abusive circumstances; many of its girls were prostitutes, abused wives, and slaves, some as young as ten years old. Girls from good families were also sent to the home to get a quality education. Once at the home, the girls were placed on a strict schedule and taught Christian values and domestic skills. Residents at the home received gentlemen callers who came to hear them sing, play and recite; workers at Cameron House screened the suitors to determine if they were fit for marriage.

After their wedding in 1895, Heaung and Bock resided in San Buenaventura’s Chinatown on Figueroa Street, most likely behind Soo Hoo Bock’s store. Although Heaung was born in Santa Barbara and was therefore an American citizen, Minnie Soo Hoo and daughters Nellie and Jennie, c. 1908. she forfeited her citizenship when Courtesy of Pamela Lindell. she married a Chinese national.50 Soo Hoo Bock was born in China in July 1853, and came to the United States in 1874. Local sources suggest that Soo Hoo Bock, also known as Charlie Bock, arrived in San Buenaventura around 1877, where he became very influential in the Chinese community. In 1900, census takers listed his occupation as merchant and reported that he could read, write, and speak English.

Bock was a landowner and partner in the Wing Tai Yuen and Company store located on the east side of Figueroa Street. The firm engaged in selling goods, contracting labor, and conducted

50 The Expatriation Act of 1907 declared that any woman who married an alien ineligible for citizenship would, herself, cease to be a citizen of the United States.

28 Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County a very personal service for their countrymen, sending human remains back to China for reburial in home villages.51 In 1905, Wing Tai Yuen and Company relocated when Soo Hoo Bock and Tom Lim Yan bought property at the corner of Main Street and Ventura Avenue. This location became the new Chinatown.

Chinese wives in Ventura seldom ventured out in public. They would be seen at Chinese New Year celebrations, after the birth of their first child, at weddings and at funerals. Since women in the Chinese community rarely left their homes, missionaries would come to their houses to teach English and discuss Christianity. Another service missionaries offered was shopping for cloth, as Chinese wives did beautiful sewing and embroidery. We know that Heaung was visited by Mrs. Bissell, the teacher for the Congregational Chinese Mission in Ventura, who reported, “Chinese women have been reached in their homes … Mrs. Bock appreciates the friendly call and occasional shopping conferred till the teacher feels sure of an honest welcome at all times.”52

Between 1895 and 1905, Heaung and her sister Oi wrote letters to each other, in English, describing their married lives, families, friends, community events, gifts, and even hairstyles. Since many Chinese settlers could not speak English, nor had leisure time enough to record their lives and thoughts, such personal and candid communication is rarely found in Chinese American history. The following provides a sample of one of their letters, in which Heaung attempts to cheer her sister in Los Angeles, who had been married less than a week. The letter is transcribed as written.

October 6, 1895

Dear Sister, Mrs. S H Leung I was very glad to received your kind and welcome letter yesterday afternoon and were very glad to hear from you both well. …I think your husband is very kind to you, every body say he is very pretty nicely men. …Mrs. Lun Fong told me they said your new home is very beautiful. …You must write a little paper to let me see your home see how nice. Mrs. Lun Fong she tell me she say you got nice soft bed and beautiful bureau. …I and Mrs. Yee Hee and Miss Emily and Yee S. Moi, Yee Gow, Yee Gee [Yee family in Ventura] we all sends best love to you and your husband and wish you be very happy in your new home you not be sorry now, be a big women you very kind to your husband he is very good to you too. You must write to me often I will say good bye to you.

Your Loving Sister Minnie53

51 Ventura Free Press, 4 October 1901. 52 Bissell, “Report of Ventura Chinese Mission for 1901.” 53 Soo Hoo Leung Collection.

Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County 29 Bock and Heaung had six children, but their third child, a girl, died in an accident. The names of their surviving children and their birth dates were: Soo Hoo Toy or Soo Hoo Toy On (Henry), born 1895; Soo Hoo Toy Bow (Harry), born 1898; Soo Hoo Fook (Bennie), born 1900; Soo Hoo Gue (Jennie), born 1901; and Soo Hoo Moy (Nellie), born 1904. Somewhere along the way, all the members of Soo Hoo Bock’s family became known by the name of Bock, and thus lost their true surname. All of the children were born in San Buenaventura’s Chinatown, where Euroamerican doctors attended Heaung. When their youngest child Nellie was born in 1905, her arrival was announced in the local newspaper:

Stork in Chinatown There was a happy occurrence in Chinatown last week . . . For the stork hovered over Chinatown and brought to Mrs. Soo Hoo Bock a pretty Chinese baby girl. There was a time when the Chinese parent did not hail with so much pleasure the advent of a girl in the family but girls are wanted now. The young Chinaman can not go home to China to get married and return here, and there are not many girls in this country. Consequently when one does arrive there is much happiness.54

Nellie was named after Nellie Yee Chung, a dear family friend.

Soo Hoo Bock realized his dreams of success, prosperity, and family life, but he would not live long to enjoy them. He passed away in Los Angeles, at the home of Yee Hay, in 1907. His obituary claimed that he was well-to-do, a member of the Bing Kong Tong, and because of his standing in the organization was accorded special honors at his funeral. He left behind property and an “insurance policy in the Equitable for a large sum.”55 In Soo Hoo Bock’s will the property he owned with Tom Lim Yan on Main Street was bequeathed to his wife and minor children. His estate did not exceed $1000.56 Heaung’s family inherited a large portion of the new Chinatown, and she was left with five small children to care for in Ventura’s diminishing Chinese community. In 1907, the Soo Hoo family was living on Main Street behind the Wing Tai Yuen and Company store. Heaung’s ownership and participation in the store is noted in an oral history from Mary J. Huning, a local resident:

[D]own on the corner of the Avenue and Main Street there was a Mrs. Bock that had a little store down there. A general store with all these Chinese things. I’d go there with my father as a child, and she’d always give me some China nuts. One day she gave me two glass bracelets … And the first thing I did was drop one. I can remember crying for days about that.57

54 Ventura Free Press, 9 June 1905. 55 Ventura Free Press, 24 May 1907. 56 Will of Soo Hoo Bock. Ventura County Deed Records, Book 104, p. 106. Research Library, Museum of Ventura County, Ventura, California. 57 Mary J. Huning Oral Interview, recorded 23 August 1978. On file, Research Library, Museum of Ventura County, Ventura, California.

30 Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County Soo Hoo Chong Ti and Minnie Soo Hoo (Mrs. Soo Hoo Bock), n.d. Courtesy of Pamela Lindell.

Soo Hoo Toy On (Henry Soo Hoo), c. 1896. Courtesy of Pamela Lindell.

Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County 31 Contemporary accounts report that Heaung’s children went to public schools. We know that Henry and Harry Soo Hoo attended Hill Street School in Ventura where Henry was one grade ahead of Harry. Harry continued his education until the seventh grade. Nellie and Jenny also went to Hill Street School and were playmates with Euroamerican children. Ben went on to receive his high school diploma in 1917. He was the first child of Chinese heritage to graduate from high school in Ventura and his accomplishment was reported in the Los Angeles Times.58

In 1910, Henry Soo Hoo moved to Los Angeles to work in a restaurant, and may have lived with his aunt Oi and her family. He made frequent trips to Ventura to visit his family, and later in life he lived part- time in both Los Angeles and Ventura. In 1930, he was a partner in the Chop Suey Cafe located at 222 East Main Street in Ventura.

In 1913, Heaung testified on behalf of Soo Hoo Fong, who was attempting to get Ben Soo Hoo, n.d. Courtesy of Pamela Lindell. permission to visit China and return to the United States, and stated that she borrowed money from Fong for business expenses and for an operation she had in Los Angeles. On November 16, 1913, Heaung passed away at the age of 35 years old:

Chinese Mother Dies Mrs. Bock, a Chinese woman, died Sunday morning at her late home on West Main Street, of tuberculosis. Her husband, who was a prominent member of the once flourishing Chinese colony in this city, died several years ago. Five young children survive her. The remains were buried yesterday afternoon in the Chinese plot in the city cemetery.59

After Heaung’s death, Henry, Harry, Ben, Jennie and Nellie retained ownership of the family property on Main Street, and in 1919 Harry Soo Hoo petitioned the court to become administrator of his mother’s estate. In 1920 the petition was granted and Harry assigned all

58 Los Angeles Times, 17 June 1917. 59 Ventura Daily Democrat, 18 November 1913.

32 Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County proceeds from the property, valued at $300, to his sister Nellie.60 The land on Main Street where the second Chinese community was located was sold, and the final demise of Chinatown was complete. Seven years to the day after Heaung’s death, her sister Oi died in Los Angeles.

hhh

W alton Jue: The Next Generation of Chinese Americans

The first few decades of the twentieth century saw the Chinese American population in the United State change from one composed primarily of immigrants to one increasingly composed of native-born Chinese Americans. In 1900, only 10% of America’s Chinese population was born in the United States. By 1940 slightly over half of all Chinese in the United States were American-born.

These native-born Chinese Americans represented a generational shift in their communi- ties, and in many ways differed substantially from their parents’ generation. Born and raised in the United States, many in this generation took pride in their American citizenship, viewing themselves as Americans of Chinese decent, distinct from Chinese overseas. In the eyes of the law they were entitled to the full and equal protection of the United States Constitution. The Walton Jue family, among the second wave of Chinese who came to live in Ventura, embodies both the traditional beliefs of the first generation of Chinese Americans and the westernization and acculturation of the second generation.

A small village in Hoiping, China, was home to many members of the Jue family who eventually settled in Ventura. The 1927 arrival of the first members of the Jue clan, Walton and Bob Jue, heralded the beginning of a family dynasty in Ventura that remains vibrant today. During their eight decades as residents in Ventura County, the clan has achieved great success in business and education. This is the story of Walton Jue and his family.

The agricultural industry in Ventura was in full swing when Walton Jue arrived in town. Dorothy Jue, Walton’s daughter, describes the town and its people during the early decades of the twentieth century:

We were kind of one happy family, and Ventura was a small community at that time. Not all the roads were paved and this was mostly agriculture and lots of people helped each other… Many people knew us from the market because everyone had to buy groceries… so we just became close friends with all of our neighbors and customers and we’re certainly grateful to our customers because they provided a life for us, and our customers are like family to us.61

60 Yee Heaung Bock Probate Record, P007082, 8 September 1919. Ventura County Superior Court, Ventura, California. 61 Interview with Dorothy Jue, recorded 12 January 2002, Oxnard, California.

Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County 33 Walton Quong Jue was born August 4, 1904 in the village of Nam Hin Lay in the area of Mao Gong in Hoiping, China. Traveling with an uncle, Walton immigrated to America in 1922 and settled in Fresno. He attended a technical high school and worked at a market in town. One day a cousin from Palo Alto, David Jue, told Walton and his cousin Bob that Ventura had a pleasant climate, so the two men hopped in their pick up truck and traveled south.

When they arrived in town they spoke to Mrs. Van Winkle, who owned the property across the street from the Mission on Main Street, and the Jue cousins asked her if there were any vacancies, as they wanted to open a market. She told them that property was not available, but she would write to them if Walton Jue, c. 1955. Courtesy of Dorothy Jue. a vacancy occurred. So, back to Fresno they went, but a year later Mrs. Van Winkle, true to her word, wrote to say she had space available.

Returning to Ventura in 1927 with another cousin named Warner Wai Jue, Walton and Bob Jue opened the National Market on East Main Street where the Museum of Ventura County is currently located. News of this pleasant community traveled overseas and drew Jue relatives to join their clansmen in California. Soon more cousins came to California and worked at the market or opened their own stores and restaurants. Members of the Jue family rented land in Hueneme and raised crops such as cucumbers, celery, tomatoes, and string beans. These vegetables were sold in the National Market. Walton later bought a lima bean field in East Ventura.

Walton lived in America for eleven years while his wife remained in China. Due to restrictive exclusion laws, and Chinese custom, he was unable to bring his wife Mary to America. She remained in the home village and cared for Walton’s family. According to tradition Chinese women were expected to comply with the “Three Obediences,” an element of Confucianism requiring them to obey their father, their husbands when married, and as widows their eldest sons.

Yearning for the companionship of his wife, Walton asked his father if Mary could join him in the West. His father gave his daughter-in-law Mary permission to come to America for two years. So, in 1933, Walton went to China to bring Mary home to Ventura. During this trip to China Walton and some of his cousins from Ventura paid to have a school built in the home village. Building a school or hospital with money earned in the United States was common among immigrants from Chinese villages. Also during the visit Walton built a four- story brick home for his father’s eightieth birthday.

34 Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County When Mary arrived in Ventura, she and Walton lived upstairs over the National Market. In a second apartment over the store lived unmarried Jue cousins who in their leisure time sang and played traditional Chinese stringed instruments. The market had a plain storefront with a wine-colored sign that read “National Market.” The sign was printed in raised gold letters, much like the sign at nearby Peirano’s Grocery Store, also on Main Street. Nick Peirano spoke about the Jue family market:

There was no competitive spirit [between the business owners]. We always got along beautifully. I’d go down and buy stuff from him when we ran out, and if he ran out of something, he’d come to us. We took care of each other. Mr. Jue was a very fine neighbor. He was always polite and very decent. And he ran a nice, clean store.62

Soon children were born to Mary and Walton, and they too lived in the apartment over the National Market. Their first American-born child, Dorothy, joined the family in 1934. Four other children were later born to the Jue family: Allen (1936); Daisy (1937); Edward (1938) and Jeanne (1940). Although Mary had been instructed to return to China after a two-year visit, once she and Walton had five children together she remained in Ventura for the rest of her life.

The growing family later moved to a house located half a block from the store, on Colombo Street. Walton increased his real estate holdings by adding additional houses to the property. Because the Alien Land Laws, passed in 1913, prohibited aliens ineligible for citizenship from buying land in California, Walton bought the land in the name of his son Allen Jue, a United States citizen.

Many activities kept the children occupied. There was a fishpond and a big swing in the front yard, and Walton, who loved birds, built an aviary to house parakeets and canaries. Dorothy remembers playing games such as “kick-the-can” and hitting a tennis ball against the wall of the Union Ice Company, located on Colombo Street. Her parents did not speak English fluently, but Dorothy learned to speak English in kindergarten. Walton took Dorothy with him whenever he would venture out, and she would help her mother by going downtown to buy shoes for her brothers and sisters.63

In 1946, Walton Jue opened Jue’s Market at 1947 East Main Street in Ventura. Dorothy Jue reminisced about the new store,

We started the store after World War II in 1946 and opened on September 12. It was a Thursday. A long time ago, when stores opened, they had the grand opening on a Friday. But it was going to be Friday the 13th, so my father decided to open on Thursday and that was when I entered Ventura Junior High School 7th grade, so I came home after school to bag groceries and I’ve been bagging groceries there after school ever since. … It was a

62 Margaret Jennings, “The Chinese of Ventura County,” 3-31. 63 Interview with Dorothy Jue, Tortilla Flats Mural Project, 24 December 1994.

Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County 35 Walton Jue in front of his market in the 1950s. Courtesy of Dorothy Jue.

wonderful training place for lots of children who were able to have little jobs there. It teaches them responsibility and really a lot of mathematics … it was fun to work in the grocery store and when my brothers and sisters would work in the evenings, we’d have races to see who could put up the most cans, and my brothers always won.64

Walton and Mary were Christians. Walton began to practice the faith while living in China when missionaries came to his home village. Both Walton and his father were baptized Presbyterians, so they were Christians when they immigrated to America, unusual for the time. The Jue children attended the Baptist Church in Ventura on Laurel Street and they were all baptized when they were young.

Walton and Mary’s children have all had successful and prosperous lives. Two Jue sons, born in China, joined the family when it was evident Mary would remain in the United States. Tony Jue came at the outset of World War II and served in the United States Army.

64 Ibid.

36 Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County He and his wife May raised five children, all of whom are university graduates. Gene Jue came with his wife in the 1960s, and he and his wife Judy had three boys and one daughter, who also attended university.

Dorothy Jue attended the University of California at Berkeley when she was only 17 years old. After she completed her studies in business she studied education. Dorothy taught in Ventura County for 37 years in every grade from kindergarten to sixth. She was an assistant to the principal and a vice-principal. She served on the State Board of Education for both Governor Deukmejian and Governor Wilson, working in this capacity in Sacramento for six years. Dorothy has one son, Roderic William Lee, who attended Brooks Institute and graduated with a degree in Fine Arts. He became a Marine and has shown great valor and dedication to his country while serving at Edwards Air Force Base and in the Reserves. Dorothy is now retired from education.

Allen Jue became a banker when Walton Jue, along with nine partners, started the American Commercial Bank. Allen served as one of the directors, and eventually became Chairman of the Board. Allen is now retired.

Daisy Jue attended May Henning School, Washington Elementary School, Ventura Junior High School and Ventura High School. She went to the University of Southern California and became a teacher. Daisy met C.K. Yang, a member of the Olympic track team from Taiwan, while he was attending University of California at Los Angeles. They were married and their son was born during the Olympics in Rome. C.K. Yang received the silver medal for the decathlon during the 1960 Olympics.

Ed Jue also attended University of California at Berkeley. After university he joined the Army and returned to Ventura as a First Lieutenant. He joined the family business and worked at Jue’s Market. Jeanne Jue attended University of California at Berkeley and then received her bachelor’s degree from University of Southern California. She also became a teacher and taught for the Los Angeles Unified School District for 37 years. Walton and Mary’s children all have university educations; at one point four of the children attended college simultaneously. Jue family members have made important contributions to Ventura County, the State of California, and the nation.

The extended Jue clan has grown and changed over time. Mary Jue passed away in 1960, and Walton remarried a woman named Betty Lee. Relying on their entrepreneurial spirit, many senior members of the Jue clan have established businesses in the grocery and food services industry. Several Jue children did not want to follow in their parents’ footsteps; instead they have attended universities and become architects, lawyers, and dentists.

Walton Jue loved his adopted country and considered the United States the land where dreams came true.65 Upon the celebration of his eightieth birthday, his children gave him the gift of a 40-day tour of China. He had not visited his homeland for over 50 years,

65 Walton Q. Jue, Obituaries and Memorials, Ventura Star Free Press, 8 May 1994.

Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County 37 and when he returned to Ventura from the vacation he reported, “The people are a lot better off than before. Everybody can go to school and have enough to eat now. They modernized and planted shade trees all over China. But there is no place like America. China was beautiful, but just to visit.”66

A well-deserved mark of respect was bestowed on Walton Jue when he passed away in 1994. The California State Legislature adjourned in his honor and his memory. His daughter Dorothy Jue praised the gesture, saying, “That was just a wonderful tribute to a man who was not a great person or a flamboyant person, but he was just a hard-working good citizen.”67

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Bill Soo Hoo: Mayor of Oxnard

Oxnard was known as a “Soo Hoo town,” so it was no surprise that Soo Hoo Yee Tom moved his small family to the Chinese community there in 1920. Four years later his son William, known as Bill, was born. During his life Bill Soo Hoo achieved extraordinary political and professional success. In 1966 Bill was elected mayor of the City of Oxnard, and his elevation to public office marked several milestones. Bill was the first mayor of Oxnard who had been born in the town, the first man of Chinese heritage elected mayor in California, and likely the first mayor of Chinese descent in the United States. Bill’s success is even more remarkable in light of the fact that just a half-century before, Chinese were widely despised and excluded from immigrating to the United States.

The rural town of Oxnard sprang up from fertile plains nestled between New Jerusalem and Hueneme. Originally referred to as La Colonia, this area possessed lush soil that produced barley in abundance. Before the end of the nineteenth century, only a few farmhouses dotted the landscape. In 1897, three local notables — Albert C. Maulhardt, Johannes Borchard, and Thomas Bard — approached the Oxnard brothers to build a beet sugar factory in La Colonia. The Oxnard brothers had established factories in Barbados, Louisiana and Chino, California, and Maulhardt, Borchard and Bard convinced them that Ventura County would be an ideal location for their next business venture.

The Oxnard Brothers agreed, and a new industry began when the American Beet Sugar Company purchased acres of land on the east side of Saviers Road and constructed a factory, completed by 1899. A spur of the Southern Pacific Railroad was built to Oxnard to ship the sugar to market.

Initially no one intended to build a town around the sugar beet plant, but such a large factory required workers and accommodations. Lumber was expensive so houses were moved from Hueneme, Saticoy, El Rio and Ventura, and the town rapidly sprang up around

66 Jennings, “The Chinese in Ventura County,” 29-30. 67 Interview with Dorothy Jue.

38 Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County the factory. The Colonia Improvement Company was formed and the community was laid out in numbered and lettered streets that surrounded a plaza. Homes were built and schools, churches, and businesses were quickly established. In 1903 the City of Oxnard was incorporated.

While Chinese populations in other cities in Ventura County were declining due to anti-Chinese discrimination and a lack of jobs, Chinese laborers were drawn to the Oxnard Plain seeking new employment. Local farmers were contracted to provide beets for the factory, which in turn processed the vegetable into sugar. Chinese, Japanese and Mexican workers were among the men who labored in the beet fields.

Observing the employment of Chinese laborers in the beet fields and the beginning of the Chinese community in Oxnard, an 1899 article in the Oxnard Courier reassured anxious readers:

To show that the resort to Chinese and Japanese labor is looked upon by the company and others as simply only temporary is the important fact that Oxnard has no Chinatown as is known Soo Hoo Yee Tom, seated, with in other places. No Chinaman owns a foot of Irene and Bill Soo Hoo, c. 1926. Oxnard realty. Two Chinamen have leases to Both children were born in Oxnard. lots upon which they have buildings. Those Courtesy of Angela Soo Hoo. leases run only for a year.68

Yet even though local residents opposed the establishment of a Chinatown in Oxnard, the Chinese community took hold. The Courier advertised that a building was available for rent in the new Chinatown in 1902.69 The ethnic enclave was well-established in Oxnard before the city was incorporated in 1903.

Even as the townsfolk and factory management protested the presence of Chinese in Oxnard, residents of Oxnard’s Chinese community praised the American Beet Sugar Company and its operations. Nora Soo Hoo lived across the street from the factory and her home did not have a yard. She and her family would go to the factory for recreation. Mrs. Soo Hoo spoke fondly of the facility, saying “Everything was so clean. It was so nice when the sun was shining on the factory.”70 As a child, Bill Soo Hoo recalled the hauling of the beets around town:

I can remember the… 20-mule-train-wagon loads of beets being hauled in. They also had rail service. At the same time they had these teams of

68 Oxnard Courier, 20 May 1899. 69 Oxnard Courier, 13 December 1902. 70 Interview with Nora Soo Hoo, 20 June 2003.

Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County 39 mules pulling double wagonloads of beets from the fields… we always liked to run out and watch them go by.71

Oxnard’s Chinese community was initially located on Saviers Road (currently Oxnard Boulevard) between 5th and 6th Streets. In 1903, seven Chinese businesses relocated to another site on Saviers Road, between 7th and 8th Streets, bounded by A Street. The proprietors, previously conducting business on rental property, wanted more permanence in the community and so purchased their own land. They had their buildings physically moved to their new land between 7th and 8th Streets and created a new Chinatown.72

The Chinese community was located on one square block of wooden buildings, with an alley running through the center. Local residents named the area “China Alley.” Businesses such as grocers, general mercantile stores, labor contractors, and restaurants provided goods and services to Chinese settlers and the host community of Oxnard. A Chinese Fire Brigade was established around 1900, and the hose cart was housed on the alley. The Bing Kong Tong dedicated a new chapter in Oxnard in 1904.73

By the 1920s, Oxnard’s China Alley consisted of two restaurants, a Chinese saloon, a barbershop, poolroom, grocery stores, and the Chinese Fire Brigade. “Houses of ill- repute” were located on A Street. According to local residents, the female tenants of these houses were not Chinese, but due to their presence there Oxnard’s Chinese community became known as a “red light district.” Games of chance were also available in Chinatown, and newspaper accounts detailing arrests at gambling establishments were printed in the Los Angeles Times:

Sherriff Bob Clark led a raid on a Chinese gambling house here last night that resulted in the arrest of seven Chinese and the confiscation of approximately $300 in cash, sixteen gambling tables and a collection of gambling paraphernalia.74

According to Daisy Sem Jue, an early resident in the Chinese community, “Oxnard was known as a Soo Hoo town. Yes, it seemed that every other adult was a Soo Hoo, but we got along very well, everybody was friendly and neighborly.”75 Many of the Chinese men were bachelors or quasi-bachelors. They were married, but their wives remained in China, thus creating a community in Oxnard with few Chinese families.

Soo Hoo Yee Tom, his wife Soo Hoo Jung Hall, and their young daughters Dorothy and Rose, arrived in this bustling Chinese community in the early 1920s. Yee Tom was born in China around 1852, and before coming west, worked as a junk captain on the

71 Bill and Angela Soo Hoo Oral Interview, recorded October 1982. On file, Research Library, Museum of Ventura County, Ventura, California. 66 Oxnard Courier, 7 August 1903. 67 Los Angeles Times, 5 September 1904. 74 Los Angeles Times, 14 July 1929. 75 Interview with Daisy Sem Jue.

40 Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County Oxnard’s China Alley, 1926. Digitally modified image. See PN 34068, Coroner’s Record Book.

South China Sea. According to family stories, he sailed to America in his junk and left his wife and family behind in China. It is unclear when he arrived in the United States, but it was probably some time during the last decades of the nineteenth century.

Bill’s mother, Jung Hall, also known as Mama Soo Hoo, was born around 1889 and came to the United States to marry Yee Tom, a man 37 years her senior, in 1909. The couple settled in San Luis Obispo, California, where they had a farm. However, they struggled and lost money for about four years. During World War I, the Soo Hoos finally profited, and after the war they sold their farm and opened a general store in Guadalupe, California.

The family moved to Oxnard and established their small mercantile store in 1920. Their general store was called Wing Chen Lung Company and was located on China Alley.76 Although the store sold provisions, Mama Soo Hoo cooked for residents of Chinatown, and her reputation as an exceptional cook grew over time. The store remained in business in Oxnard for seven years, and then the family opened a restaurant on China Alley in an area referred to as the “Old Duck Pond.” Bill Soo Hoo, describing the family business, recalled, “There was a long boardwalk, and many of the old-timers in this area remember that old boardwalk. When we took over the business we changed it [the name] from the Duck Pond to the Oriental Inn.”77 The restaurant remained at that location until it was torn down in 1948.

76 Ventura County Directory (Los Angeles: Los Angeles Directory Co., 1929). On file, Research Library, Museum of Ventura County, Ventura, California. 77 Bill and Angela Soo Hoo Interview.

Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County 41 Irene Soo Hoo was born after the family settled in Oxnard, and Bill was born in 1924, when his father was 72 years old. Being one of the few Chinese boys in Oxnard, Bill garnered a lot of attention from the residents in Chinatown. By 1929, two more boys were born to the Soo Hoo family, Bartley and Edward. As Bartley later remarked of his siblings birth order, “We were gentlemen, because we let them come first, ladies first.”78

The Soo Hoo children - Dorothy, Rose, Irene, Bill, Bartley and Edward - had a typical American upbringing. They attended local public schools, and played hide and seek, tag, and kick-the-can. They flew kites and played baseball and football. They roller-skated in front of the brothels, and later Bartley recalled one of Mama Soo Hoo in her kitchen, n.d. Cathy Soo the madams coming out to admonish the Hoo Tom Collection. children, yelling, “Keep quiet, my girls are asleep!”79

The family celebrated both Chinese and American holidays. Bartley and Irene Soo Hoo remembered Chinese New Year celebrations. The family would enjoy a big dinner the night before the holiday, and on New Year’s Day there were family gatherings and banquets at the restaurant. Bartley spoke about his mother’s belief that New Year’s Day was to be a day of inactivity. “If anything happened on Chinese New Year it would happen for the rest of the year, so my mother was never open for business on that day,” he recalled. “She believed that if you were going to spend money during that year, why you had to spend it on that day, so she always went shopping on that day.”80

Soo Hoo Yee Tom passed away in 1936, leaving Mama Soo Hoo a widow at 43 years old, left with the family business and six children to support in Chinatown. Irene Soo Hoo Lai later spoke about her mother: “When my father died, [my mother] paid all of his bills. She was not church-going but taught integrity and values, and she taught the Golden Rule.”81

Bill entered the armed forces on January 7, 1943 to serve during World War II. The army sent him to Stanford University to learn Chinese, much to his mother’s delight. He

78 Interview with Bartley Soo Hoo, recorded 23 August 2003, Oxnard, California. 79 Interview with Angela Soo Hoo, recorded 12 January 2002, Oxnard, California. 80 Interview with Bartley Soo Hoo. 81 Interview with Irene Soo Hoo Lai, recorded 8 May 2003, San Pedro, California.

42 Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County later served in Europe and worked with the occupation army in Germany, and while overseas he earned two battle stars. He returned to Oxnard in 1946 to find three new military bases and a population explosion. The town had grown from 8,000 residents to 13,000 residents while he was overseas.

In 1949, the Soo Mama Soo Hoo’s Orient, Oxnard, n.d. Irene Lai Collection. Hoo family opened a new restaurant on Oxnard Boulevard called Mama Soo Hoo’s Orient. The business was located downstairs, the living quarters were upstairs, and the Soo Hoo family lived and worked together. Genny Essa, a family friend, had warm memories of Mama Soo Hoo’s Orient:

Mama Soo Hoo continued to cook when she was in her seventies. … I helped out when Rose or her husband Gene were gone. I would eat with the family, and they ate differently than the food served at the restaurant. They had the traditional Chinese food. I would say to Bill, “You couldn’t get me to eat that Bird’s Nest Soup!” One day they had soup and Bill asked me how I liked the soup, and he told me it was Bird’s Nest Soup. Genny replied, “I thought I saw a feather in there.82

Mama Soo Hoo conducted both her business and her family with an iron fist, so much so that her children called her “the General.” She was highly regarded in her community and greatly loved by her family, who rewarded her with hard work and dedication. She did not live long enough to see her son elected mayor of Oxnard, passing away October 8, 1965.

Bill’s journey into politics began when he experienced institutionalized discrimina- tion. Returning from the war, Bill wanted to build a house on a lot available on Deodor Street in Oxnard. Bill purchased the lot, and later recalled:

[The land owner] called me up two days later and he says, “Bill, you can still buy this but I just found out you can’t live there.” I said, “What do

82 Interview with Genevieve Essa, recorded 12 March 2006, Oxnard, California.

Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County 43 you mean I can’t live there?” He said, “there’s a clause in here that says ‘Caucasians only,’ but there’s no law against you buying it, but you can’t live there.” … I said, “What you’re telling me is I’m good enough to go out and fight for my country, and possibly die for my country, but not good enough to live in it.”83

This episode was the catalyst for Bill’s drive to make changes in Oxnard.

Bill began his public life by serving on a Grand Jury in 1956, the first man of Asian heritage to serve in that capacity. Bill then began his political career, aiming for the Oxnard City Council in 1960, running among a field of twelve candidates. He placed third, but only two seats were available. Undeterred, in 1962 Bill ran again for City Council, this time successfully.

In 1966 Bill became “Oxnard’s Native Son Mayor.” With only sixty people of Chinese ancestry in the City, perhaps only ten of whom were registered voters, Bill appealed to the greater population of Oxnard. His election made big news and he was catapulted into worldwide fame. Chinese newspapers in the United States carried news of the election, and Bill made headlines in Canada and Japan. Television and wire services clamored for more information about the new mayor, and Bob Lagomarsino, a state senator, authored a resolution passed by the Senate commemorating Bill’s ascent to the office.

When he was elected mayor, William Du Chun Soo Hoo was forty-two years old and his future in public office was bright. One of his goals was to bring new industries to Oxnard that would promote opportunities for the growing community. As the owner and manager of Mama Soo Hoo’s Orient, Bill’s knowledge of business was an asset to the city. He wanted to work closely with the Division of Highways and improve relations between the cities of Oxnard, Port Hueneme and Camarillo. Looking back at his accomplishments during his tenure as the Mayor of Oxnard, Bill was the most proud of the development that took place in the city, including the building of the inland harbor, additional fire departments and the Cultural Arts Center.

Bill loved politics and aspired to higher public offices. After he fulfilled his term of Mayor of Oxnard in 1970 he ran unsuccessfully as the Democratic candidate against Republican Representative Charles Teague for Teague’s seat in Congress.

During Bill’s tenure in the mayor’s office he realized that the time had come to get married. He found his match in Angela Lee, of San Francisco, who at the time was working at Stanford University as a researcher. Bill and Angela met at a party in San Francisco, where Angela was asked to turn pages in a book of music while her friend sang. Bill approached Angela and asked her when she was going to sing. She stated that she was only there to help her friend turn pages.

83 Bill and Angela Soo Hoo Oral Interview.

44 Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County Newly-elected Mayor Bill Soo Hoo, 1966. Los Angeles Times.

Apparently Angela made quite an impression on Bill, because he diligently tracked her down and called her a few weeks later. Angela recalled telling him,

Oh, you know, I don’t really remember who you are. But after he explained himself by saying, “I’m the mayor of Oxnard, you know, and I also own my own Chinese restaurant.” Well, owning a Chinese restaurant, I believe. A mayor of Oxnard, I thought, “yeah and I’m the Queen of Sheba.” [Later I] found out that he really was the mayor. It put another light to the whole thing.84

After a courtship, to the delight of both families, Bill and Angela were married in 1968 at Stanford Chapel. He was forty-five and she was thirty-five. Many people came to the wedding from Oxnard, and Greyhound buses filled with friends and family arrived from

84 Interview with Angela Soo Hoo.

Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County 45 San Francisco. After a short honeymoon, the bride and groom returned to Oxnard where Angela was instantly heralded as the First Lady of the City. Their only child, Brian, was born in 1969.

After leaving office Bill heard a visiting official from Washington D.C. say that Port Hueneme needed a customs house brokerage. So Bill and Angela decided to open Soo Hoo Customs House Brokerage to serve Oxnard Harbor District, and they also opened an office in the Los Angeles Chinatown, where they serve Chinese importers and exporters. Their office was the first Chinese customs house broker in Los Angeles.

Bill Soo Hoo experienced heart troubles beginning in 1973. In October 1990 he suffered a heart attack and died suddenly at age 66, leaving Angela alone to continue the family business. Their son Brian attended University of Southern California and married Linda Szeto of Thousand Oaks in 1992. Linda and Brian have four children: one son named Brandon and triplet daughters named Ashley, Melody and Neomy. Today Brian and Angela operate Soo Hoo Customs Brokerage together. Angela is active in many organizations, including the Ventura County Chinese American Historical Society, and she travels often. Her grandchildren are the greatest delight of her life.

The story of the Soo Hoo family is one of struggle, determination and success. Yee Tom and Jung Hall Soo Hoo worked hard to establish a business to support their large family. They bore six children, hailing from Chinese parentage, yet Americans through and through. A few of the children married Chinese spouses while others married outside of their ethnicity. The Soo Hoos experienced their share of tragedy, beginning with the death of Yee Tom when the children were young. Sadly, many of the Soo Hoo children died before their time.

Bill skyrocketed in the public arena. When asked about his incredible rise to public office, Bill attributed much of his success to his mother. “What I am today,” he stated, “I owe to my mother and the fine reputation she established in this community.”85 It was Mama Soo Hoo’s philosophy that to be of service to anyone you must be strong in mind, and Bill embodied this conviction. He loved the City of Oxnard and he worked hard to make significant contributions. While the lives of most Chinese pioneers in America are hidden, Bill Soo Hoo’s life and accomplishments are well known and he stands as a symbol of success for his family, his city, and his countrymen.

Today the Chinese Community in Ventura County is strong. In 2003 the United States Census Bureau estimated that 10,391 Chinese residents lived in Ventura County.86 Thousand Oaks has the county’s largest Chinese population, due in part to the tech industry dominant in that city. The county’s Chinese community has come a long way from their origins as hard working merchants, laborers, and cooks who struggled to survive on one city block.

85 Ibid. 86 American Community Survey 2003 Data Profile, United States Census Bureau. The population estimate for Chinese residents excludes residents from Taiwan.

46 Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County Chinese pioneers are indelibly linked to the history of Ventura County. They helped to build the infrastructure of the emerging county and labored in the nascent agricultural industry. Their lives are intermingled with the host community and they brought character and diversity to frontier towns in Ventura County. Their contributions cannot be denied. After living in Ventura County for over 145 years, the hidden voices of the Chinese in Ventura County are just beginning to be heard.

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Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County 47 2010 — 2011 Board of directors

Jeffrey P. Smith...... Chair John B. Lamb...... Treasurer Suzy Melonas...... Secretary John C. Orr...... Past Chair

Michael Bradbury Andrea H. Pfister Susan Brown Richard Pidduck Eloise Cohen Lori Sanchez Bobbi Dufau Melissa Sayer Toni Gardiner Sylvia Muñoz Schnopp Carol Lamb Pamela Small Kevin McAtee Nancy South Laura Peck Patty Velthoen Esther Wachtell

ex-officio members

Glenda Cardona...... Recording Secretary Patricia Masterson...... Docent Volunteer / Council President Jim Monahan...... Ventura City Council George S. Stuart...... Curator Emeritus Tim Schiffer...... Executive Director

48 Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County Ex-Officio Members Ventura County Community College District Board of Trustees

Stephen P. Blum...... Chair Arturo D. Hernandez...... Vice-Chair Dianne McKay...... Trustee Larry O. Miller...... Trustee Bernardo M. Perez...... Trustee James M. Meznek...... Chancellor/Secretary to the Board

Moorpark College

Pam Eddinger...... President Ed Knudson...... Executive Vice-President Lori Bennett...... Dean of Social Sciences

Journal Editorial Committee

James McGowan...... Editor Charles Johnson...... Committee Chair Kathryn Adams Ynez Haase Powell Greenland Judy Triem Kristine Gunnell

Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County 49 The origins of the Museum of Ventura County can be traced back to the incorpora- tion of The Society of Ventura County Pioneers on September 19, 1891. Published by the Museum of Ventura County, the Quarterly was continuously issued by the Ventura County Historical Society since November 1955. From 2007, the Quarterly became the Journal of Ventura County History and is now produced under the auspices of the Museum and Moorpark College, under the direction of the Journal Editorial Committee.

An index to articles included in the Quarterly through 1985 has been compiled by Yetive Hendricks and Jean McAlary in the Index to the Ventura County Historical Society Quar- terly: Volumes 1-30 (1955-1985). This subject index has been revised and reformatted by Merle Oberg, and is available on the Museum’s web page at

www.venturamuseum.org

Interested persons may become members of the Museum of Ventura County by do- nating to the Annual Fund at a level of $45 or more; businesses, $150. The Society is a California non-profit corporation[ 501(c)(3)]. For further details regarding benefits, please contact the Museum at their new phone number (805) 653-0323.

Information for Contributors: The Journal of Ventura County History is a journal dedi- cated to the publication of articles concerning the history and life of Ventura County. Contributors from all sectors of the community are welcome. Authors whose articles are accepted for publication receive ten copies of the Journal containing their contribu- tion. Additional copies are available to the author at cost.

Questions concerning matters of style should be resolved by referring to the University of Chicago Press Manual of Style (15th edition). Although articles in any form or style may be considered for publication, the Journal Editorial Committee reserves the right to return accepted manuscripts for necessary changes. Please send electronic manuscripts via email to the editor at [email protected].

Spring 2011

The Museum of Ventura County assumes no responsibility for statements or opinions expressed by the author in this issue of the Journal.

ISSN 0042-3491

50 Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County 53 54 Hidden Voices: The Chinese in Ventura County