SFCityGuides.org - It was started by the SF Public Library by a librarian to give tours to visiting dignitaries of the City Hall building. 2 cool things about them, the Tours are free, and the organization is almost complete staffed by Volunteers, they have 2 paid employees, who basically co-ordinate the happenings. some 300+ volunteers give some 80+ tours, 365 days a year, rain or shine. The organization is now a non-profit, with offices on the 6th Floor of the Main Public Library in the Civic Center. The organization does get money from the City, for the Hotel Tax, and has corporate sponsor such as the Omni and Palace Hotels among others, (there are tours of these 2 historic hotels, BTW.)
Today I went on a really informative, name rich tour, Chinatown, Family Associations, Tongs and Gangs
http://sfcityguides.org/... given by SF City Guide Harry Rabbins. As always the tour started with the "white man" centric, Euro-centric history of San Francisco Bay, as always starting with the "discovering" of the bay by the european-orgin white man in the 1770's, and founding of the Presidio of San Francisco in 1776, as always the estimated 35,000-40,000 Ohlone People's
http://en.wikipedia.org/... that inhabited the area for thousands of years before the Europeans "discovered" the Bay were totally overlooked or ignored, I am never sure which! Also totally overlooked or ignored were the Russians who had been i the area some 100+ years before the Europeans "discovered the bay". The Russians had a well established Fort, Fort Ross, about 50 miles north of San Francisco, and were trappers and hunters and traded with the Ohlone Peoples in San Francisco. They say that history is written by the victors, and in San Francisco it is being re-written by the San Francisco Public Library, with a white/european centric point of view!!
Harry started the tour by defining for us what a Tong/Tang, Family Association, and Gang were. http://en.wikipedia.org/..._(organization) He explained to us that Tongs were somewhat like political parties. And he showed us a drawing of the Tong Chinese Symbol.
After that Harry told us about what life was like for the 17-22 year old white Chinese males that lived in the area in 1849-1850, all 4,000 of them. (NOTE: I found reference to the fact that while there were some 4,000+ Chinese men in San Francisco in 1850, there were only 7 Chinese Women in the city! http://www.dartmouth.edu/... )
As always, the tour was very, very information rich, but this one was even more so with lots and lots of names, and stories about rises to power. murder and mayhem. I am not even going to try and recall all the names that Harry tossed at us, I didn't take notes and I don't want to have to fact check myself on such things, instead I will just give you a feeling of what this tours is like, so you will be encouraged to take this tour! And you can hear the stories of power struggles, murder and mayhem, first hand!
PORTSMOUTH SQUARE http://en.wikipedia.org/...
The tour started in Chinatown's Living-room, or Portsmouth Square. While the history of this park was not really part of the tour, it should be noted that most of the apartments in this area are single room affairs, with a history dating back to 1850's when Chinatown was were the young 17-22 year-olds that could not afford the Foreigner Tax which was required before they could head up to the Gold Fields outside Sacramento and the Sierra Foothills so they settled in the Chinatown area. Since they were all single, young men, they did not need living-room's or Parlors for entertaining, or evening kitchens, so most of the apartments were built with just one large room. So Portsmouth Square became Chinatown's livingroom, with lots of young Chinese hanging out there. Today it is still a popular park to hang out in, but now with the older crowd who come here to sit, visit, and even gamble!
FROM WHERE THEY CAME
I was interested to learn that most of the Chinese in the 1850's came from the Canton http://en.wikipedia.org/... Province. The Family Associations helped the new arrivals find a place to stay, learn the area, and such. The family associations were more than just for a family, but also were for areas or villages back in Canton. The family assc. were not only the local WelcomeWagon, they served as the area's Government till the late 1880's. The area sported drug dens' opium parlors, houses of prostitution, and even gambling till way into the 20th century. (THe guide said these things no longer exist in Chinatown, but I happen to know Gambling is still everywhere, especially in Portsmouth Square, I have "heard" there are still underground opium den's, fireworks are easy to get, and prostitution is still readily available, so I am not sure where the Guide get's his information from, unless it is the PR department of the SFPD!)
Cooper Alley
At the end of this narrow, dark alley is where the "Hospital" was for the young asian woman "slaves" sold in San Francisco in the late 1800's. The hospital was really a glorified "killing" center, where the young woman were locked in a small room with a bowl of rice and a candle, they came back and removed the body a few days later. I love how things come full circle, I learned about the practice of buying young Asian women in the Naught and Bawdy tour, and here the information surfaces again! (MY COMMENT: I have climbed around under Chinatown, in the labyrinth of tunnels and passages ways that exist there. And some of them now make sense. I now understand after this tour the magnitude of violence that happened in the Chinatown area, the murder rate was astonishing! I now gather that many of the tunnels under Chinatown exist JUST to get dead bodies out, and not draw attention to all the deaths! And interesting fact is that almost all the tunnels under Chinatown lead to the Bay, perfect place for dumping bodies!)
SLAVE AUCTIONS
http://www.sfmuseum.org/...
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
We were shown where the slave auction was held, and briefly informed about the practice of buying and selling young Asian women. Once again cultural sensitivity was over looked, and when asked why the Chinese families would sell their young girls into slavery, the devaluation of women in the Chinese Culture was overlooked, and the easy answer of poverty was thrown out. This would have been a perfect opportunity to educate this 100% elderly white crowd about what is STILL a problem in China, about the genocide of female babies in China. http://www.gendercide.org/...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/...
This will probably be recorded in history about China as the WOMENLESS GENERATION, already there are some reported 30 million more men than women in China, as the communist restriction of one child per family and the existing Chinese preference for male children has caused million, if not billions of young female babies to be "un-born"!
WHY CHINATOWN
To cut right to the bone of the matter, Chinatown existed because of self-segregation, and discrimination. Chinese men of the time were different that American men, they had long braided ponytails which were a sign of status and manliness, they were considered heathens (practicing Confucius-ism or Buddhism), and they dressed different. Basically because of language and cultural differences they self segregated and lived in Chinatown, but the truth of the matter is they just weren't welcome in any other part of San Francisco. There was little to no entertainment in the area, so life here was boring and dull, and the highlight of any day was probably hanging out in Portsmouth Park! To make it worse, the SFPD and the SF population at large took a hands off approach to Chinatown, and the Chinese were basically left to govern themselves, and the Chinese really could not leave Chinatown. This power vacuum allowed the Family Associations to govern Chinatown. Gambling, Prostitution, and Opium Dens were common.
CHINESE DISCRIMINATION CODIFIED
By 1880s the discrimination of the Chinese had become codified, and Congress passed the Exclusion Act http://en.wikipedia.org/... which halted immigration of Chinese, and stopped them from being able to become citizens. This was eventually repealed by the Magnuson Act on December 17, 1943.
DOWN FALL OF FAMILY ASSC. RISE OF THE TONGS.
The down fall of the Family Assc. in Chinatown was
the requirement that Chinese people become registered, (The Geary Act, 1892 http://en.wikipedia.org/... ) and carry registration cards. The Family Assc. of Chinatown felt this requirement was un-constitutional and advised against registration. The act went to the supreme court and was found Constitutional, and the Chinese living in Chinatown lost faith in the Family Assc. The Tongs started to produce counterfeit registration cards and quickly won favor with the young Chinese men living in the Chinatown area.
ROSS ALLEY
This Alley, which now hosts the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory, a MOST STOP AT PLACE, BTW, was once the home of most of the Gambling dens in the Chinatown area.
WAVERLY ALLEY
This little alley is the home of a bunch of Tongs, and some of the best Chinese Architecture the city has to offer.
VISTAS AND VIEWS
Here's a photoroll of the sites and views I saw along the way of the tour.
2:13 PM PT: In doing more research on Asian American discrimination and violence, I found some interesting facts. While murder rates and violence against the Asian American community might be down in San Francisco, this is not true nation wide. In an article published in Asian Week is says:
""Asians and Asian Americans have always been subject to hate crimes, going back to the lynchings in the 1870s and Chinese being run out of towns in the West, the history of the Chinese Exclusion Act [of 1882], and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II," said Hwang, an attorney for the state of Michigan. "The progress has been in organizing and networking. The incidents still occur."
In fact, the number of hate crimes against APAs is on a steady rise, with violent hate crimes against APAs up 11 percent in 1995 compared with the 1994 rate, according to the 1995 Audit of Violence Against Asian Pacific Americans compiled by the Washington-based National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium (NAPALC). The most recent report from the consortium, which is scheduled to be released within the next few months, showed a similar rise in overall hate crimes in 1996."
http://asianweek.com/...
2:17 PM PT: Another Good resource about Hate Crimes and Discrimination against Asian Americans http://modelminority.com/...