Chinese America: History and Perspectives articles from January 1 2008

Chinese America: History and Perspectives archives from January 1 2008

Introduction.
January 1, 2008... The long history of Chinese immigrant and Chinese American workers organizing in guilds and labor unions--in California, from the Gold Rush to the building of the transcontinental railroad and onwards--has been obscured in the decades following...

Guilds, unions, and garment factories: notes on Chinese in the apparel industry.(Industry overview)
January 1, 2008... This volume of Chinese America: History & Perspectives includes several essays on Chinese labor guilds, labor unions, and the apparel industry. The following write-up is intended to provide relevant background information to better help the...

Scenes from the garment industry, late 1800s-early 1900s: beyond San Francisco.(Era overview)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... Although their numbers were smaller than in San Francisco, Chinese also worked in the garment industry in other California cities such as Los Angeles and Sacramento. Some garment workers, like Fong See, labored in the industry only for a...

Chinese labor unions in America.
January 1, 2008... Chinese traditionist organizations were formed based on having one of the following criteria in common: locality of origin, clan identity, fraternal bonds, or common economic interests. The last included organizations formed by merchants, small...

Chinese guilds in the apparel industry of San Francisco.
January 1, 2008... The following descriptions of guild organizations and operations in the San Francisco apparel industry was based primarily on (1) the author's interviews with 75-year-old Bing Lai during the months of March through June 1967; (2) interview of...

History of Meizhou Gongyi Tongmeng Zonghui (Unionist Guild of America).(Organization overview)
January 1, 2008... This history was published in the Mar., Apr. 1924 issues (nos. 1 and 2) of Kung Sing (Voice of Labor), the news organ of the Unionist Guild. Many of the guild's leaders were influenced by anarcho-syndicalism, and the guild can be considered as...

The Chinese American garment industry.(Industry overview)
January 1, 2008... Benjamin Fee, also known as H. T. Chang, was the China-born son of a San Francisco interpreter. He immigrated to California in the early 1920s. During the 1930s he became a labor organizer on the West Coast. This piece was published in the...

Jennie Matyas and the national dollar stores factory strike in San Francisco Chinatown.(Interview)
January 1, 2008... This essay was excerpted from Jennie Matyas and the I.L.G.W.U., which was a transcript of a series of interviews with labor leader Jennie Matyas by Corinne L. Gilb in 1957 for the University of California Institute of Industrial Relations Oral...

Organizing and on strike: portraits of the Chinese Ladies Garment Workers unions Local No. 341 in 1938.(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Photos from Chinese Digest's coverage of the 1938 strike of the workers sewing for National Dollar Store factory: TWO GENERATIONS, BUT WITH ONE PURPOSE--PICKETING Among the 159 or so women garment factory...

Labor strike in Chinatown--official statements of parties involved: Chinese Digest, April 1938.
January 1, 2008... Note by the editor of Chinese Digest: The first organized, large-scale labor strike between Chinatown workers and Chinatown employers occurred here recently, a fact which is history making in the life of the Chinese in America. On the morning...

Female workers in the Chinatown garment industry, 1960s.(Era overview)
January 1, 2008... VI. WOMEN AS A LABOR FORCE A 1965 study by Frank Moncrief for the United Community Fund Research Department shows that 58 percent of all Chinese females over 14 years of age are in the labor force. Sixty percent of these are married and...

Scenes from the garment industry, 1960s-1970s: setting fashions, negotiating working conditions.(Industry overview)(Decade overview)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Chinatown designers, 1970. Designers Kaisik Wong and Patrick Lee (front) create for Profile 70, a fashion show luncheon to benefit the Chinese Hospital Auxiliary. Miss Chinatown San Francisco Linda Chinn, Paulette...

Made in Chinatown: the decline of San Francisco's garment industry.(Industry overview)
January 1, 2008... INTRODUCTION On February 23, 2004, San Francisco raised its minimum wage from $6.75 to $8.50. (2) While many workers undoubtedly celebrated this pay increase, many local industries and employers began to look for alternative business...

"The only thing I could do was sew": an interview with Li Qin Zhou.(Biography)
January 1, 2008... My name is Li Qin Zhou. I was born in 1944. I was born in Baiyun, a rural area of Guangzhou. I only had one year in middle school, and then we were farmers. We grew vegetables on the farmland from the government. It was state-owned. My life in...

Scenes from the garment industry, early 2000s: wins garment workers demand back pay, enforcement of labor laws.(Era overview)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Wins garment workers call on Department of Labor Secretary Elaine Chao during her 2001 visit to San Francisco to demand that the government enforce labor laws and support the Wins workers in getting the back wages...

"The loss of the garment industry is part of a cycle": an interview with Fei Yi Chen, community organizer for the Chinese Progressive Association.(Biography)
January 1, 2008... I came to the United States from Fu Dou, Guangdong, in December 1998, when I was 35 years old. My aunt first applied for my mother beforehand, and my mother later sponsored me. I have five brothers and sisters. Each one of them was overage to...

Scenes from a lifetime of sewing for the garment factories: Mrs. Louie Ten Wo Choi (1907-2007).(Brief biography)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Louie Ten Wo Choi in China, 1931, 1947 (center two), and 1948. In 1927, Mrs. Choi's husband of two years, Choi Man Tsue, emigrated to the United States. Because of the anti-Chinese immigration laws still continued...

Nineteenth-century Oakland Chinese businesses.(METHODS IN HISTORICAL RESEARCH)
January 1, 2008... Although Chinese Americans were integral to local and regional infrastructure development since the 1850s, researchers have given little attention to Oakland Chinatown in favor of San Francisco across the bay. This trend, however, is beginning...

English-Chinese glossary of personal names, corporate names, and garment industry terms.(Glossary)
January 1, 2008... baixushan (baak-soet-saam) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] baiyi (baak- yee) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] Baiyi Hang (Baak Yee Hong) [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] Baiyun [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] bojin (baak-gam)...