Saving Young Girls from Chinatown

Saving Young Girls From Chinatown: White Slavery and Women Sufferage 1910-1920 Mary Ting Yi Lui - - - - - - - - Rose Livingston attacked May 1912 suffered severe facial damage - Self proclaimed missionary working with white women in Chinatown a.k.a “fallen women” - Received financial aid from 2 notable suffragettes: Harriet Burton Brown and James Lee Laidlaw - They all called for more policing of Chinatown, Mayor said no - Lead the 3 to publicize the Mayor and Livingstons longstanding beef, Livingston claims that the mayor had personally tried to halt her efforts in her anti prostitution work Livingston became known as the “Angel of Chinatown” (394) - Challenged patriarchal authority to protect female residents from sexual/physical violence - Claimed only a woman's moral influence in government would there be actual protection for women from violence “America’s anxieties with female kidnapping and coerced prostitution popularized through the ‘white slavery’ scare coincided with the last decade of dramatic mass political mobilization for womens sufferage” (395) - Public concern with racial and sexual transgressions and their role in womens suffrage 1875: Page Law: federal legislation banning Chinese immigration 1882: Chinese Exclusion Act West Coast: - Forced prostiution and immorality was focused on Chinese American communities and prostitutes East Coast: - Lack of Chinese women to blame, focused on white-working class women working and living in Chinatown/Chinese neighborhoods as prostitutes and wives of Chinese laborers Late 19th Century: National American Women Sufferage Association (NAWSA) - Middle/Upper class white women’s movement Women’s Trade Union League (WUTL) - Elite and working class women collaborated for labor reforms through empowerment of women laborers New York suffrage leaders addressed workers concerns about wages and working conditions - Informed by legislation influenced by exercising the vote Incorporation of working women into suffrage movements, leaders created an expansive platform that incorporated labor and anti-prostiution (397) - These 2 issues are connected to the exploitation of wage earning women - Livingston faced claims that she was an ex-prostitute when she emerged as a spokesperson (398) - No solid evidence (even then) to prove her background - One story claimed she was abducted by a Chinese man and abused. She escaped with the help of a Christian missionary and with their help she lost her drug habit ect. Ect. and then she converted to Christianity - - - - - - - She never proved any prostitution stories, but she did speak about how she was mistreated by corrupt police officers - While recuperating from the May 1912 attack, she refused opium as a pain alleviator, saying she would rather die than go back to it (399) Moy Gum: Chinese American Interpreter who investigated Livingstons claims of sexual slavery in Chinatown - Called her an accomplished liar with contradictory statements about her past - Questioned her motives as a “selfless reformer” - He claimed he and some others attempted to rescue 3 Chinese servants and Livingston personally stopped them - His group had been successful previously - Also claimed to know genuine suffragettes (Mary Banta) Livingstons benefactors tracked Gum down - Charles Gong knew Gum, said he may have been tricked into writing it - One other source (neighbor?) said he was a nice Christian guy They didn’t trust Gum or Gong, so they got Livingston tested for syphilis and to confirm the extent to her injuries (the author never expand on this or give the results of the test lol) to officially put any questions of her background to rest Many of Livingstons supports didn’t care to question and overlooked them Livingstons log book for July 1915 claimed many girls were living “Immoral lives,” drug addictions, promiscuity ect. - According to her she stayed by someone's deathbed as they died Many of her activities were surveilling the white population, and sometimes intervening with young prostitutes - No evidence as to whether these girls were victims of sex trafficking or not - Belief that Chinese laborers preyed upon these girls, who were victims of white slavery - She “rescued” a girl (Bessie Baker) by bringing Baker to her home. Baker insitied she return to her family. A month later Livingston went to check on Baker and found that she didn’t live with her parents. Livingston tried to convince the parents to file a complaint so that Baker would be forced into a home, but the parents refused “to have anything to do with her” (402) Livingston argued “nothing would wipe out ‘white slavery’ until women go tthe vote” (403) - Her tours/talks were apparently very successful for both women's right to vote and anti prostitution - - - - - - - - “The promotion of women’s involvement in worldly affairs, particularly through the cause of suffrage, directly attacked the Victorian bourgeois separation of the social spheres of the sexes” (405) - Image was carefully manipulated to cater to those against women’s suffrage - Livingston's Christiantity conversion, Christian salvation story - Softened the changing contemporary image of American suffrage movement, with Livingston as a martyrdom - This Christian narrative also worked to desexualize her image and distance her from her current role as social reformer and martyr from her past as sexually deiviant and deliquent sullied by her intamacies with Chinese men (407) Her physical appearance wasn’t conventionally attractive at all and press focused on this as a survivor of sexual violence and ‘white slavery’ - Splintered jaw, missing teeth, small, very skinny She also challenged the whole Christian Saint narrative the media gave her, said it was outdated Lots of bravado, which earned her respect from the press Relationship with other suffragettes was phrased in familial terms - Older suffragettes expected her to act as a “dutiful daughter” (408) - Called James Laidlaw “My precious Daddy, the dearest Daddy, the dearest Daddy under the Heaven” and referred to Harriet Laidlaw as “sweet mother” (408) All money Livingston raised went to a 3 person committee, they administered it as they saw fit - Sanderson, Chamberlain, and Laidlaw Expressions of endearment and subordination reflected strategies for tours and showcasing antiprostiution and the right to vote - Views of Livingston as uncouth, temperamental, and uneducated → easily exploitable - Tours in an attempt to make her seem more educated Her graphic depictions of police and sexual violence from Chinatown invoked ethos in her audience As she had more success on stage, she began to act out against her handlers (not taken kindly) - Interpreted her behavior as childish and disrespectful, not self determining to the middle class (412) Press reported on Chinese men's participation in the underground world (opium smoking, gambling, prostitution) - Other denominations did too, but the media focused heavily on Chinese men as extra bad and a threat to white-American culture These motives supported federal Chinese exclusion acts and called the mobility and freedom of Chinese men into question - - Chinese owned businesses (called Chop-Suey-s) became targets for criminal investigations (abduction, opium smoking, prostituition) - Gruesome murder of 19 year old Elise Sigel by her (alleged) Chinese lover (1909) spurred police and social reformers (414) Mass circulation of popularized narrative of sexual yellow peril lead to essentially another panic about child abductions Livingstons speeches depicted Chinese men as sexual threats to white womanhood