The Paper Daughters of Chinatown Read online

  Interior images by lisheng2121/Shutterstock

  © 2020 Heather B. Moore

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, Shadow Mountain®, at [email protected]. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of Shadow Mountain.

  This is a work of fiction. Characters and events in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are represented fictitiously.

  Visit us at shadowmountain.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Moore, Heather B., author.

  Title: The paper daughters of Chinatown / Heather B. Moore.

  Description: Salt Lake City : Shadow Mountain, [2020] | Summary: “A fictionalized account of the early years of Donaldina Cameron’s work with the Occidental Mission Home for Girls in San Francisco, California, which worked to rescue Chinese girls and women from slavery conditions in the late 1800s through the early 1900s”—Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020009531 | ISBN 9781629727820 (hardback) | eISBN 978-1-62973-947-2 (eBook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Cameron, Donaldina MacKenzie, 1869-1968—Fiction. | Women social reformers—California—San Francisco—Fiction. | Chinese—California—San Francisco—Fiction. | Chinatown (San Francisco, Calif.)—Fiction. | LCGFT: Biographical fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3613.05589 P37 2020 | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020009531

  Printed in the United States of America

  Lake Book Manufacturing, Inc., Melrose Park, IL

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  Cover photos: Ildiko Neer, Elisabeth Ansley/Trevillion Images

  Cover images and backgrounds: YSK1/Shutterstock

  Book design: © Shadow Mountain

  Art direction: Richard Erickson

  Design: Sheryl Dickert Smith

  For Heidi and Lisa.

  Thank you for introducing me to Donaldina Cameron.

  Author’s Note

  Character Chart

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  Discussion Questions

  Chapter Notes

  Selected Bibliography and Recommended Reading

  About the Author

  The Paper Daughters of Chinatown is not intended to be a repetition of or addition to the already wonderful books published on Donaldina Cameron and the Occidental Mission Home for Girls. In late 2018, about three days into my research, I knew that in order to create a full-bodied historical work on Donaldina Cameron’s life, I could easily write three or four volumes. Therefore, I’ve selected a period of approximately her first decade at the Occidental Mission Home to develop into a historical novel format. The intention of this work of historical fiction is to illuminate the life and service of Miss Cameron, as well as to bring attention to the continued work and diligence it takes to combat depravity and greed.

  That said, this novel begins in the year 1895 on the day of Donaldina Cameron’s arrival at 920 Sacramento Street in San Francisco, where she has agreed to teach a sewing class for one year at the Occidental Mission Home. We then follow her journey for just the next thirteen years, when, in fact, she spent the rest of her life serving, mentoring, rescuing, testifying, mothering, and loving the Chinese slave girls and many others she came in contact with.

  Her story does not begin with chapter one of this novel, nor does it end with the last page. Miss Cameron retired in 1934 but continued aiding the mission home in one capacity or another until her death. Please see my recommended reading list at the end of this book, as well as ways you can aid in moving forward the work of Donaldina Cameron—and those she served with—to end human trafficking, which still continues today in myriad forms.

  Throughout this novel, epigraphs appear at the beginnings of the chapters. Most of them are excerpts from published pieces depicting both the harsh reality of this era and the injustices that take place when human rights are either not granted, not enforced, or not respected. Our history can be a hard pill to swallow. And whether we are American, Chinese, or any other nationality, this plight is part of all our histories because we are all members of the human race.

  The research for this book was immense and sometimes emotionally taxing. As an author, a woman, and a mother, I am forever tied to this heartrending story of a woman who proudly took on the title of Fahn Quai, or the “white devil,” as slave owners and corrupt city officials called Donaldina Cameron. With her team of police officers, Chinese interpreters, and other concerned helpers, she swept into the darkest corners of Chinatown and helped to rescue the broken, the downtrodden, and the abused. They worked day and night to stop the abominable slave and prostitution trades that continued long after laws had been passed to abolish them.

  Each chapter has accompanying chapter notes found at the end of the novel. But going into a story such as this, many questions will arise, so I’ll attempt to answer a few of them here.

  After China was defeated in the Opium Wars (1839–1842; 1856–1860), 2.5 million Chinese traveled overseas in the latter half of the nineteenth century to find jobs. Due to increased taxes, the impossibility of competing against imported goods, loss of land, overpopulation, and other calamities, including devastation from rebellions and uprisings, many Chinese turned to working in the gold mines or the railroad system in California as a way to feed a destitute people.

  Chinese men mostly immigrated alone. Those who were married sent money home to their families, since the conditions of labor camps were harsh, and nicer accommodations were too expensive. In the 1850s, Chinese women made up less than five percent of the total Chinese population in America. Traditionally, Chinese women remained at home, caring for the household and children as well as aging parents, in order to adhere to the Confucian teaching: “A woman’s duty is to care for the household, and she should have no desire to go abroad” (Yung, Unbound Feet, 20). Thus, the men arrived in America without their wives, creating a void in which women were not part of the fiber of the Chinatown culture in San Francisco. An opportunity was presented with this void, and organizations formed, such as the criminal tong, to provide women for the men—in the form of paid prostitution.

  This played into the patriarchal culture of the Chinese, in which marriages were arranged and women “had no right to divorce or remarry
,” while men were “permitted to commit adultery, divorce, remarry, practice polygyny, and discipline their spouses as they saw fit” (Yung, Unbound Feet, 19).

  Chinese women were up against anti-immigration laws from both sides of the Pacific. Chinese law forbade the emigration of women until 1911, and the 1852 Foreign Miners’ Tax affected Chinese miners, along with taxes “levied on Chinese fishermen, laundry men, and brothel owners” (Yung, Unbound Feet, 21), making it even more expensive to support a family. Besides passing punitive ordinances aimed specifically at the Chinese, the California legislature denied them basic civil rights, including immigration rights, employment in public works, intermarriage with whites, ability to give testimony in court, and the right to own land.

  Then came the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, in which Congress suspended Chinese laborers from immigrating for ten years. The Act was renewed in 1892, then again in 1904, and so on, until it was finally repealed in 1943. “In the interest of diplomatic and trade relations between China and the United States, Chinese officials, students, teachers, merchants, and travelers were exempted by treaty provisions—and therein lay the loophole through which Chinese, including women, were able to continue coming after 1882” (Yung, Unbound Feet, 22).

  This was the open door that allowed slave owners or members of the criminal tong to bring Chinese women into the country under false identities supported by forged paperwork. By virtue of this forged paperwork system, in which the Chinese woman would memorize her new family’s heritage and claim to be married or otherwise related to a Chinese man already living and working in California, the paper daughter was allowed into the country. “Upon arrival in San Francisco many such Chinese women, usually between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five, were taken to a barracoon, where they were either turned over to their owners or stripped for inspection and sold to the highest bidder” (Yung, Unbound Feet, 27).

  It wasn’t until the early 1870s that women’s missionary societies discovered the need to provide a safe place for Chinese women fleeing slavery. Despite facing opposition herself for helping the Chinese women, Mrs. Samantha Condit, wife of a Presbyterian missionary assigned to Chinatown, advocated for their cause until she established the California branch of the Women’s Foreign Missionary Society. Not only was she up against a myriad of anti-Chinese city ordinances, but finding donors proved to be difficult, with many refusing to donate to a cause that supported supposedly depraved women (New Era Magazine, 137).

  Condit prevailed. In 1874, she and her board rented a small apartment just below Nob Hill in San Francisco, officially founding the Occidental Mission Home for Girls. This was the beginning of establishing a place of refuge, healing, education, and Christian religious instruction for the destitute women of Chinatown. Although Bible study and attending church on Sundays were part of the curriculum at the mission home, Donaldina Cameron and her staff incorporated the girls’ heritage and culture as well throughout their education. The mission home didn’t necessarily expect the girls to convert to Christianity, but some of them did (Martin, Chinatown’s Angry Angel, 153). By the time Donaldina Cameron retired as the mission home’s superintendent in 1934, the number of slaves she and her staff had rescued had reached three thousand.

  1869: Donaldina Cameron is born in Clydevale on the Molyneux, New Zealand.

  1872: The Cameron family moves to California, arriving in San Francisco.

  1873: The California Branch of the Women’s Foreign Mission Society is formed.

  1874: The Women’s Foreign Mission Society opens the Occidental Mission Home for Girls.

  1882: The Chinese Exclusion Act is approved by Congress.

  1894: The Occidental Mission Home relocates to 920 Sacramento Street.

  1894: Tien Fu Wu is rescued and brought to the mission home.

  1895: Donaldina Cameron takes train to San Francisco in April, arrives at mission home to teach sewing classes.

  1897: Mission home superintendent, Margaret Culbertson, dies. Mary H. Field becomes new superintendent.

  1900: Mary H. Field resigns, and Donaldina Cameron accepts the position as superintendent.

  1900: Chinatown is scoured because of bubonic plague.

  1906: An enormous earthquake devastates San Francisco.

  1907: Cornerstone for new mission home is laid at 920 Sacramento Street.

  1908: Miss Cameron and girls return to 920 Sacramento Street.

  1908: The newly built mission home is dedicated.

  1910: The Angel Island Immigration Station opens.

  1912: Women are allowed to vote in San Francisco.

  1934: Donaldina Cameron retires.

  1935: Trafficked women testify in the Broken Blossoms court case.

  1942: The mission home is renamed the “Cameron House.”

  1943: The Chinese Exclusion Act is repealed.

  1968: Donaldina Cameron dies, with Tien Fu Wu by her side.

  “From a woman, and she a pretty, fair-spoken Scotch maiden, this slave trade took its hardest blow—playing her desperate lone hand, she reduced the traffic by about one-half.”

  —Will Irvin, San Francisco Chronicle, 1907

  April 1895

  Donaldina Cameron leaned her head against the cool glass of the window as the train slowed to a stop, its whistle mimicking the call of a mournful dove—deep and melancholy—a fitting echo of her life over the past few years. With no husband, no employment, and no parents to watch over, she felt as stagnant as a warm pond on a lazy summer day.

  Death and loss had been a repeated pattern, and she’d been forced to piece together quilt squares of her life that didn’t quite match. Since the death of her father, and then her failed engagement to George Sargent, Donaldina—or Dolly, as most people called her—didn’t fit in with life at her family’s ranch. Not anymore, not with her siblings all marrying, raising children, and moving on with their lives.

  And now, here she sat, the lone passenger in a train compartment.

  She refocused her gaze outside the series of square windows as the landscape came into view. Gone were the curved green hills and budding trees of her home in the San Gabriel Valley, now replaced by the ghostly outlines of buildings as the San Francisco fog clung to its final moments before giving way to the midday sun.

  Donaldina tucked her stitching sampler into the small carpetbag next to her on the velvet-covered bench, then smoothed her hands over her black voile skirt. She was ready. Perhaps she could do this. Maybe.

  She had agreed to teach for one year at a Presbyterian mission home, and she was not a woman to go back on her word, especially after what Mrs. Mary Ann Browne had shared with her. Mrs. Browne, the mother of one of Dolly’s dear school friends, Evelyn, served as the president of the board of the mission home. Dolly and Evelyn had lost touch the past couple of years, but Mrs. Browne had unexpectedly visited the Cameron family that month. She’d described in great detail her life in San Francisco as she and Dolly rode together in a buggy from church to the Cameron ranch.

  Dolly hadn’t admitted her desperation to do something, to be someone, at the time. Instead, her curiosity only grew. What did she want to do with her life? At twenty-five years old, Donaldina Mackenzie Cameron had passable talents, enjoyed her family, and loved the peaceful life on the ranch where she’d been raised. But she couldn’t very well live on charity with one of her married sisters. So where was her place in the world?

  Mrs. Browne told Dolly about a woman named Margaret Culbertson who worked at the mission home, teaching and caring for young Chinese girls who had been rescued.

  “Rescued?” Dolly had questioned.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Browne said, lowering her voice, although only the birds and sunshine were within earshot, “from the brothels of Chinatown.”

  The words sent a rash of bumps across Dolly’s arms, as if she’d stepped into an underground cellar. Of
course, she knew that women of the night existed—not that she’d seen any, in her recollection, but she wasn’t completely naive. Still, she tried not to look so shocked at the subject matter. “And . . . Miss Culbertson helps these women? How?”

  “Women and girls,” Mrs. Browne corrected. “Some of the girls are as young as eight or nine. They’re brought over from China by highbinders, promised a good life and marriage in America, yet the promises are lies. These young girls are sold as domestic slaves or forced into prostitution.”

  Dolly held very still, her mind trying to process what Mrs. Browne was saying. The warm sun and fragrance of apple blossoms seemed incongruent with the woman’s words.

  “When the girls are brought to the mission home, they’re often sick and afraid,” Mrs. Browne continued, seemingly oblivious to Dolly’s mounting dismay. “They come with scars and bruises, and they know little of kindness. They cower at sudden noises or swift movements. But they are hungry to learn. Miss Culbertson teaches them English, along with how to cook, how to sew, how to pray, and how to hope.”

  “Hope,” Dolly echoed in a whisper.

  Mrs. Browne’s nod was emphatic. “I saw the beautiful cushions you embroidered, Dolly. You’re a natural seamstress. And you are outgoing, friendly, resourceful . . . come to San Francisco. Teach sewing to the Chinese girls in the mission home. We desperately need help from capable women like you.”

  Would Dolly be successful in teaching? Could she truly make a difference in the lives of motherless girls? Her gaze shifted to the soft gray outside the train window as they pulled into the station. Dolly’s mother had died before she had turned six, and her childhood memories had long since faded. Raised by her older sisters—Annie, Jessie, Katherine, and Helen—Dolly hadn’t lacked love and affection in her life. Yet . . . she missed her mother—not with tangible memories, but with something deeper, as if her mother’s death had left a hollow spot in her heart.

  The passengers already outside the train collected their luggage and greeted family members. Dolly felt removed from the warm welcomes. Her welcome would be of a different sort. Once she stepped off this train, her life would never be the same.