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(excerpt)
As we looked around at our friends in Los Angeles, we could see the progress our people had made since 1906. The only work available for men at that time had been farm work, eight to ten hours a day at ten to fifteen cents an hour, depending on the good nature and kindness of the employer. It was several years before women were allowed to do housework in American homes. Although not being able to speak English was a big problem, after long hours of hard labor, no one had the time or energy to study English.
As their children grew up and helped them with their language problems, Orientals were able to try something else. Some families started small grocery stores, tobacco shops, chop suey joints, dry-cleaning and pressing shops, or laundries. Those enterprises were the first step up toward a better way of life. Fruit and vegetable stands became very popular with Americans, which helped in many ways to break down the barriers between people.
Our black friends, who had lived here longer, were in the same situation as Orientals. They spoke English, but that did not help them in their struggle for a better life. My black girl friend cried as she related all the hardships of her people. “Why did God make me black to be hated and ignored by white people?” she asked. She told me I was lucky not to be black. I replied that her color did not seem to be the problem, that we were all in the same situation. The Mexican people were here first, but they were in the same hopeless state. Due to our mutual problems, all minorities felt a sympathetic bond with one another. We patronized one another’s stores, to help out. The first generation laid the foundation for the future by teaching their children to be honest—never to steal or do anything that might cause ill feeling towards our people. We felt that was the only way we could prove to Americans that we are also human beings.
Our daily relations with Americans were improving, but once in a while something happened to remind us of the past. When my oldest son Henry was in the fifth grade, he came home one afternoon in high spirits because his class had had a spelling match, the guys against the girls, and he had won. The teacher had told them that the real match would be the next day, and there would be a prize for the winner. I felt like saying something, but decided to wait and sec. He returned home the next day, feeling very angry and disgusted with school. He said that though he had won the match, “old lady Stone” had given the prize to the girl. I told him what my father had told me a long time ago, when the same thing had happened to me. “It doesn’t matter who got the prize as long as you know the correct answer. The person who won so easily, without knowing the correct answer, has not learned anything. Just be sure that you know it and don’t forget it. The knowledge you have in your brain can never be taken away by anyone.”
A few days later, a young lady about twenty years old came to our roadside stand on Leffingwell Road. She said she was Henry’s teacher. I asked, “Are you ‘old lady Stone’?” “That’s what the children call me,” she replied. “I wanted to explain why I didn’t give Henry the prize the other day. The girl’s mother is the president of the PTA. I knew she would have me fired if I gave Henry the prize. I am very sorry and want to apologize. I am trying to earn enough money to go to college and get my teacher’s certificate. It’s very difficult to find a job these days. That’s why I was forced to give the prize to the girl.” I was so surprised by her unexpected thoughtfulness and courage in speaking to me like that. It reminded me of what my father told us long ago—that there are good people everywhere, but we just had not met them yet. Times were getting better.
Once an American lady friend asked me if I was going to vote that day. I said I was too busy and couldn’t get away. She started to give me a lecture about my civic duty. I looked at her in wonder. She considered herself well educated and thought she knew everything. Yet she didn’t know that the reason I didn’t vote was that Orientals were not allowed to be citizens, so we didn’t have the right to vote. She became very angry and said, “That’s not so! Everyone in America has equal rights.” But she came back a few days later and said a lawyer friend had told her that I was right. We remained good friends, anyway.
In the 1950s, most of the “For Whites Only” signs on public restrooms, swimming pools, and so forth, were removed. But although there were no signs on barber shops, theaters, and churches, Orientals were told at the door that they were not welcome. In northern California, some gas stations and towns had signs on the highway stating: “Japs are not wanted here.”
Young Korean students who were just starting their careers with high hopes found themselves caught in the fury of this anti-Oriental sentiment. We had a young friend who had graduated from medical college with honors and was serving his internship at the Stanford University Hospital. One evening a man from a prominent family was badly injured in an automobile accident, lost a lot of blood, and needed an immediate blood transfusion. No one present would volunteer his blood, so our friend offered his to save the man’s life. The family refused it, saying they didn’t want “dirty Jap blood” put into the man’s body. So the man died. The incident broke the spirit and ambition of our friend. He was too young and naive to realize what our world was like. Years later, our black friends laughed when the doctors told them that their blood was acceptable for the blood bank.
As the Japanese families were being taken to concentration camps, their sons of military age volunteered or were drafted for army duty. They proved their courage and loyalty to America by joining the famous Japanese battalion that was sent to Europe. The battalion won more medals than any other unit of its size in the army. Many men were killed. One captain in that battalion later became Senator Daniel Inuoye from Hawaii. He was wounded and had one arm in a sling when he landed in San Francisco after the war. He thought he should get a haircut and make himself presentable before joining his family in Hawaii. He was wearing his captain’s uniform as he entered the barber shop. The barber took one look at him and said, “I don’t serve Japs in my shop.” His uniform didn’t mean a thing to the barber.
In Los Angeles in 1950 we found many minority women working in sewing factories making garments of every sort for fifty cents an hour, eight hours a day. After several years, the wage went up to one dollar an hour. The sewing rooms were dirty and very dusty, with lint and dust filling the air like fog. The rooms had no air conditioning and no windows. The dust settling on the heads of the women made their hair look gray by the end of the day. The loud power-driven sewing machines working at full speed all at once made a thundering noise that deafened the ear. It was a frightful thing to listen to for eight hours every weekday. I tried it once for several months; the experience made me admire all those women who endured it for years in order to send their children to colleges and universities. I have seen those children return home as doctors, lawyers, and engineers, thus rewarding their parents for their sacrifices. Those pioneers took the first step toward raising the standard of living for the second and third generations of Orientals here.
There is a good example among Koreans which makes me feel proud of what people can accomplish despite hardship. Mr. and Mrs. Lee (no relation to us) had a son named Sammy. The first time I saw him, he was only eleven months old. I watched his progress all the way through the University of Southern California School of Medicine, where he became a doctor, specializing in ear, nose, and throat ailments. He was always playing in the swimming pools and became interested in high diving. The coach at USC took an interest in him and helped him to develop into an expert high-platform diver. Sammy Lee won the Olympic Gold Medal for high-platform diving in 1948 and successfully defended his title in 1952. In 1953 he became the first non-Caucasian to win the James E. Sullivan Memorial Trophy. His parents helped with all his expenses by working in their chop suey restaurant for many years.
Orientals were not the only ones who suffered from discrimination. A neighbor told me her family had to move to Los Angeles because her son was not accepted in most universities back East because he was Jewish. There was discrimination of every kind in those days, and it has not disappeared completely. As recently as 1982 a Chinese man was killed by two white men. They had been laid off their jobs at an automobile plant because of all the Japanese cars coming into America. Without knowing or even thinking that there are many Orientals who are not Japanese, they vented their rage on the first Oriental man they saw. He was savagely beaten with a baseball bat. The local police were reluctant to do anything about it until the Chinese community rose up in sorrow and anger and complained to the federal government. The two men were convicted, but their sentences were light, considering the crime they had committed.*
*Mrs. Lee is referring to the Vincent Chin case, in which a Chinese American was clubbed to death by two unemployed white autoworkers in Detroit. One of them was acquitted and the other, though convicted and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison, never served time, because his conviction was overturned on a technicality. Editor.