A New and Enriched Life: Community Organizations for Chinese-American Women in NYC, 1920-1945

Chinese immigration to the United States first began in the 19th century, with the earliest arrivals to New York City being sailors in the 1830s.^¹ Most Chinese immigrants came to the United States in search of work, leaving behind the poor economic conditions that grew out of natural disasters, such as flooding and droughts, and the levying of high land taxes following the Opium Wars that caused many farmers to lose their land.^¹ New York City’s Chinese population was entirely comprised of male immigrants for decades; an 1855 city census recorded a population of 38 Chinese males, while the first female immigrant did not arrive until 1879.^¹ 

Immigration of Asian women to the United States, especially Chinese women, was heavily scrutinized in the 19th century, as there was an assumption that they were being imported to the country for the purpose of prostitution.^¹ This pervasive stereotype led to the passage of the Page Act of 1875, the first restrictive federal immigration law. The Page Act aimed to prevent immigration from East Asian countries as a whole, with Section 3 specifically banning immigration of women for “lewd and immoral purposes.” The law gave American immigration officers complete discretion to determine which women were immigrating under such circumstances.^¹

The limitations imposed on Chinese immigration continued with the implementation of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. The Act suspended the immigration of Chinese laborers to the United States for ten years, with exceptions made only for teachers, students, merchants, or travelers.^¹ This was motivated by ethnic discrimination and white nationalist stereotypes that painted Chinese immigrants as immoral and a danger to American society. There was also a strong element of economic resentment that blamed Chinese immigrants for “taking” the jobs of laborers, which often led to outbreaks of racially motivated mob violence.^¹ The Chinese Exclusion Act was renewed by Congress in 1892 and later, extended indefinitely.^¹ Anyone of Chinese descent had to carry certificates of identity issued by the government to prove their right to be in the United States — even if they were citizens by birth.^¹

In the early 20th century, the New York City population began to see an increase of female immigrants. Census data records the presence of 58 Chinese women in 1900 and 303 in 1920, all taking residence within eight blocks in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, the location of present-day Manhattan Chinatown.^¹ The Chinese women arriving in New York City at this time came for diverse reasons. Some were wives or daughters of merchants and clergymen, while others were working-class women from Canton (a port city on China’s southern coast) or young women seeking out higher education. This resulted in widely varied social statuses and literacy levels within the small Chinatown community.^¹ Additionally, by the 1920s, the second generation of American-born daughters were coming of age, further diversifying the lived experiences of women living in Chinatown. 

In an oral history about her life and work, Theodora Chan Wang, who was deeply involved with Chinese women’s organizations, spoke about her journey immigrating to the United States and settling in New York City during this time period. She immigrated to San Francisco in October 1914 at the age of 10, traveling with her mother on a steamer ship to join her father, who was a minister.^¹ Theodora attended University of California, Berkeley from 1916-1920, then moved to New York to attend Teachers College at Columbia University and pursue her master’s degree in educational psychology.^¹ Although Theodora had planned to only stay in New York for one year before fulfilling her promise to her father to return to China to teach, she ended up settling in the city and becoming deeply involved with the growing community of women in Chinatown. 

For many immigrants like Theodora, New York City (and the United States at large) presented them with an expansion of opportunities for work and education. For women in particular, the United States was — to some extent — an improvement on the oppressive societal expectations placed upon women in China. Misogyny permeated Chinese culture, in part due to the widely held values promoted by Confucian philosophy. Confucianism stratified society into ranked classes to organize society into social classes and promote harmony through adherence to that class.^¹ Women were defined as a social class different and lower than men, with daughters expected to be subservient to their fathers, wives to their husbands, and widows to their sons. They were relegated to the private sphere, to focus on household management and domestic skills, while men were able to engage with the public sphere, able to obtain education and engage in public service.^¹ 

Due to the limitations placed on women by society, the desirability of sons was significant, a preference that continues into more recent history.^¹ Family and filial piety is an essential value in Chinese culture, with patrilineage being the only method of tracing ancestry: once married, women were fully integrated into their husband’s family.^¹ The focus upon patrilineage made it greatly preferred to have male children who could preserve their family lineage in name, as well as inherit family land and property upon their parents’ death, whereas daughters were a burden to raise.^¹

The view of women as lesser contributed to the popularization of practices like foot binding, which first began in the 12th century. It was formally banned in 1912, but continued until the mid-20th century in rural areas of China. It is estimated that in the 19th century, between 40 and 50 percent of all Chinese women and almost all upper-class women had bound feet.^¹ Foot binding was done in hopes of achieving the upper-class status symbol of a “lily foot,” a 3-inch arch-shaped foot achieved by breaking and binding the bones of a five-year-old girl’s foot so that the four smallest toes folded under the sole.^¹ The lotus foot was popularized because men found it desirable; “In ancient China, men preferred women with small feet, and in a male-dominated society^¹ where the best a woman could do was marry well, the reality was that what men wanted, men got,” stated Yang Yang, an author from rural Liuyi whose late mother was part of the last generation of women to have bound feet. Although footbinding was not directly connected to Confucian philosophy in its origin, it represented a commitment to the Confucian values of obedience, chastity, and diligence through the pain and limitations it enacted on women.^¹ Women were obedient to the desires of men, to the daily practice of binding, and to the physical limitations it placed on their daily movement.

Josephine Hong was born in Boston to Chinese parents and lived there until her family returned to China in 1909. Her mother was “old fashioned” by Josephine’s description, having bound feet and her marriage arranged. She recalled that “the Chinese women know what they’re supposed to do after they’re married… they help the husband.”^¹ Despite the traditional role modeled by her mother, Josephine’s father provided her with educational opportunities that were rare for women, placing her in a boy’s school for education and then hiring a teacher for a private school when her family left the city for their ancestral village.^¹ She preferred the boys’ school due to the wide range of academic subjects that were taught, a stark contrast to the specialized homemaking skills, such as sewing, taught at girls’ schools.^¹ The ability of her father to enroll her in a boys’ school and then privately hire a teacher speaks to the way that the financial privilege of having a businessman father allowed Josephine to escape some of the limitations normally prescribed to women in China.^¹ 

Josephine never wanted to stay permanently in China, describing it as a tough life, but lived there until she was 17 while she waited for her father and brother to finish establishing their business in Chicago. Her desire to leave China was exacerbated by an incident when she was 16 years old, and people in her village wanted to match her with a man for marriage. She recalled being scared, and thinking that she was too young for marriage, and began frequently writing letters to her father asking to return to the United States. In addition to the threat of marriage, Josephine knew that there were limitations placed on her potential in life simply by being a woman in China. She recalled her father’s teachings, sharing that she believed that “when we grew up we should utilize our time how to better ourselves and help other people, serving your community as [well as] your country… In China there’s a limit to how far I can go.” The United States proved to be the place where Josephine could fully reach her potential, finding employment and serving her country through volunteer work.

The notion of Chinese women being secluded within the home persisted in American society in the early 20th century. Their appearance in public was rare enough that when it did occur, it earned mention in news reports as an anomaly. Some did advocate for the increased participation of Chinese women in American public life, like Miss Louise Van Arnam, a New Yorker of Dutch descent who was known as Mrs. Kin following her marriage to Rev. Huie Kin, a Chinese-American Presbyterian Minister.^¹ Mrs. Kin connected with the Chinese immigrant women in the community and aimed to enrich their recreational lives through social calls to their homes and organized public excursions, such as a journey to Staten Island with their children in 1901.^¹ Following the leadership of Mrs. Kin, Chinatown saw the wives of merchants or clergymen and young college-educated women bring together the women of their neighborhood in not only public-facing recreational activities, but also for social work and community support. 

In addition to growing participation in public recreational activities, Chinese immigrant women began to find employment outside the home as early as 1900.^¹ Between 1900 and 1920, women were reported to have worked as seamstresses, saleswomen, waitresses, theater usherettes, and even a dry-goods store owner, in the case of one widow who was the head of her family.^¹ The majority of Chinese immigrant women, especially those who were married, were not part of the workforce – a statistic which correlates with the overall rates of women’s labor in the United States during the early 20th century. In this period, 20 percent of all women and a meager five percent of married women were categorized as gainful workers.^¹ New opportunities for women to support themselves and their families by earning income helped form this generation into self-reliant young women who were passionate about and engaged with their community and public life.

As women participated more fully in public life, their engagement was generally limited to activities and organizations led by women, for women. Chinese men continued to enforce the view of women as subordinate to men in both the private and public spheres. One such example of the exclusion of women as community leaders can be seen in the structure of Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association (CCBA), whose New York City branch was established in 1883.^¹ The CCBA functioned as a way for Chinese immigrants to organize for social, economic, and political purposes and played the role of a “patriarchal leader” in the community,^¹ representing the interests of sixty businesses and social groups within Chinatown.^¹ 

The influence of CCBA-NY was so great that the elected president of the organization was referred to as the “mayor” of Chinatown.^¹ The elected CCBA leadership board was made up of officers who, despite supposedly representing the interests of Chinatown at large, were members of the elite merchant class.^¹ As well as excluding working-class members of the community from serving on the board or even voting in the election, women were not eligible to serve as leaders of CCBA-NY,^¹ with their participation in the group being relegated to “limited and subservient roles.”^¹ Unable to join preexisting Chinese organizations in any meaningful way, Chinese- and American-born women worked to build a variety of organizations between the 1910s and 1940s that allowed women to engage in social and volunteer work, learn from their peers, and build community within Chinatown.

In 1918, 39 Chinese-American women living in New York’s Chinatown delivered a petition to the Young Women’s Christian Association, advocating for the opening of a new Chinese YWCA.^¹ The petition was successful, and the Chinese YWCA officially opened in 1920, becoming the first Chinese-American organization for the social support and education of women in New York City.^¹ The position of general secretary was offered to Theodora Chan Wang, who immigrated to the United States in 1910. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley before moving to New York to earn her Master’s degree in educational psychology at Columbia University’s Teachers College.^¹ The Chinese YWCA offered Theodora the general secretary position while she was studying at Columbia, which she accepted with a caveat: telling her father that after graduating, she would only stay in New York to work for one year before returning to China to teach.^¹ Fortunately for the women of Chinatown, Theodora broke her promise and worked at the Chinese YWCA until its closure a decade later.^¹

Initially, there was difficulty in attracting Chinese women to the YWCA. Theodora estimated that there were only about 20 families in Chinatown during this time, and said that men were afraid that they would not be able to control women if they went to the YWCA and learned.^¹ She recalled how she used the birth of a child to bring women to the YWCA: couples often went to visit each other upon the birth of a new child, and Theodora used one of these gatherings as an opportunity to bring everyone to the restaurant below the YWCA, having organized the tables so that all the women could sit together separately from the men.^¹ After that, women started joining.

As the only employee of the Chinese YWCA in its initial stages, Theodora’s activities spanned a range of interests and responsibilities. A large part of her work included educational classes for women and children, teaching English and Chinese, hygiene, and care for newborns and postpartum mothers.^¹ In her oral history, Theodora shared that during that time period, many Chinese women did not want to give birth in hospitals, opting for home births instead.^¹ Because of this, Theodora made a connection with a doctor who would make home visits, with Theodora assisting with the birth and language interpretation. She also recalled an instance where a young mother came to her for help, who had been left by her older husband and forced to become a prostitute. Although Theodora was unable to help her directly through the organization, she connected the mother with a nun, who helped her find work and an apartment.^¹ Women came to Theodora for help with family problems as well, enlisting her as a third party to mediate between husband and wife (the interviewer was surprised by this, asking Theodora to clarify that “the man was willing to come over and listen to you?” Theodora laughed and answered definitively, “I go to see him.”)^¹

The concerns of the Chinese YWCA extended beyond the scope of New York’s Chinatown, as they were involved in various fundraising efforts for Chinese victims of famine, floods, droughts, and war with Japan.^¹ They raised money by hosting bazaars, staging plays with the help of Chinese opera actors, and organizing parades.^¹ During one such parade of Chinese women and girls, the YWCA raised $15,000 in one day for war efforts against Japan.^¹ In Fall 1931, following the invasion and occupation of China by Japan, the Chinese YWCA hosted two mass rallies, during which women gave speeches condemning the actions and brutality of Japan.^¹ The community of Chinese-American women in NYC felt a deep sense of patriotic duty to their homeland and developed a reputation of service to both America and China.^¹

In 1929, Theodora Wang founded a club affiliated with the Chinese YWCA: the Ging Hawk Club, whose name translates to “striving for knowledge.”^¹ Members of the Ging Hawk Club were young, educated Chinese women, usually college students, who joined to meet and socialize with like-minded individuals.^¹ The club initially began with five or six members, all local to Chinatown, but grew to around 30 members at its peak, coming from all parts of the city. In its 1934 constitution, the stated objective of the Ging Hawk Club was “to live up to our name, ‘striving for knowledge,’ through service, through appreciation of Chinese and American culture, through social life, and through a wider Christian fellowship.”^¹ The list of activities and events organized by the Ging Hawk Club is lengthy, evolving and growing over the decades it was active, and including a variety of social and cultural activities and fundraising events. Activities included sewing, cooking, and holiday parties, benefit affairs, plays, basketball games, an essay contest, bazaars, and biannual dances.^¹ Their dances were held in Midtown hotels to accommodate attendance of crowds of 300 to 400 from within the city, and even groups traveling in from cities like Boston and Philadelphia.^¹

The Ging Hawk Club continued the tradition of fundraising efforts that had been established by the Chinese YWCA, particularly for war relief. Their first event for war relief was the 1935 Harvest Swing, with multiple dances, teas, and dinners being hosted annually for the next decade to raise funds for various needs including a nursery school, wounded soldiers, refugees, and general medical aid.^¹ Members incorporated elements of traditional Chinese culture into their fundraising activities, such as a fashion show of Ming and Qing dynasty clothing and performance of Chinese dance at the 1941 Plum Blossom Tea.^¹ This event raised money to contribute towards a surgical gauze co-op in China, as well as sutures and blood pressure machines.^¹ 

In addition to these fundraising events, the Ging Hawk Club was also involved with Chinatown youth, as shared by club member Lillian Louie in an oral history. Lillian earned her Master's degree in elementary education from Columbia University's Teachers College in 1944, and was working as a New York City public school teacher while she was a member of the club.^¹ One of the projects she worked on was in support of troubled youth in Chinatown, who had nowhere to go after school while their parents were working. In a space that was donated to the club, she and Marilyn Wong ran a workshop for these children, where they worked on art projects. Lillian also acquired a ping pong table for them, and even got free circus tickets for the children.^¹ 

In addition to these public-facing activities, the Ging Hawk Club also served as a space for members to socialize and engage in recreation. They took camping trips and celebrated members’ birthdays, graduations, engagements, and weddings together.^¹ Until its end in the 1960s, the club served as a place for Chinese American women to build community and find space to contribute their skills, knowledge, and dedication to social responsibility on a local and international level. In a 1946 booklet summarizing the history of the club, members reflected on the lasting impact of the Ging Hawk Club’s activities and relationships built between members: “The club has served as an outlet for our leadership ability, creative talents, and jolly fellowship. No matter how one looks at it, we cannot deny that the Ging Hawk Club has been more than just a matter of attending meetings and returning home. We have had opportunity to lose nothing and to gain everything – be it friends, a lot of fun, learning to assume group responsibilities, new activities, or what have you.”^¹

For a more extensive look at the Ging Hawk Club’s activities, explore the Ging Hawk Club scrapbook created by Lillian Louie and the Ging Hawk Club booklet created by Mary Chan Wang and Eugenia Chen, both available thanks to the Museum of Chinese in America. 

In 1931, the Chinese YWCA was closed due to a lack of funding from the International YWCA.^¹ In order to continue the social work that the organization was responsible for in Chinatown, Theodora Wang founded the Chinese Women’s Association (CWA), also referred to as the Chinese Women’s Patriotic Association. The activities of the CWA were similar to that of the Chinese YWCA, doing “any social work for this community,” as it was the only social welfare organization in Chinatown.^¹ In addition to social work, the CWA gave women a space for recreation, education, volunteering, and activism. The CWA was entirely a volunteer organization, and grew in membership to 400 by 1937, with a leadership board including Theodora Wang and two Chinatown businesswomen, Pon Sue Louie and Jessie Young.^¹ 

Similarly to the Chinese YWCA and the Ging Hawk Club, the CWA was greatly involved in fundraising efforts for Chinese war relief beginning in early 1932, putting on parades and bazaars to collect money.^¹ These events attracted visitors from across the city, and even some from out-of-state.^¹ The CWA highlighted Chinese culture as an integral part of these fundraising efforts, including Chinese art, opera, and dances.^¹ Notably, the CWA staged a lion dance during their parade, which had never been performed by women before, either in China or America.^¹ This parade raised more than $7,500, which was sent to General Cai Tingkai of the Nineteenth Route Army, which was resisting the Japanese invasion of Shanghai.^¹ Following the success of their parade, the CCBA approached the CWA to sponsor a bazaar hosted on three floors of the Chinese school.^¹

The week-long bazaar continued the lion dances and flag processions by the CWA, and added booths with arts and handmade goods for sale. The bazaar was an opportunity for community unification within Chinatown, with different organizations, businesses, and even Chinese American celebrities donating their time and goods in order to fundraise. Calls for support extended to the local radio, where the CWA’s head of the propaganda division, Li Jinmei, called for all people in America to advocate for justice and peace in China. The bazaar was a huge success, raising more than $19,000 for soldiers and civilians in Shanghai – an even more impressive amount considering the state of economic depression that American citizens were experiencing at the time.

During the Great Depression, Theodora supported the Chinatown community by serving as a liaison between families and City Hall in collecting food stamps. Theodora recounted this process, sharing that she “tried to get something for Chinese to eat… I went to see the people who take charge of it. You have to go down there, register, and then every time you go there, get a ticket to get things. So you know, Chinese had to go way down City Hall, way down there to get it. So I arranged it for them that I go and get how many tickets I want… I have to tell them what to use, how to use… give them more canned food, the flour they can use, the oatmeal they can use.”^¹ There is some ambiguity about which association this work was done in connection with. Theodora’s oral history did not specify whether she was speaking about the Chinese YWCA or the CWA, and other sources have attributed it to the Chinese Women’s New Life Association, which she was later involved with.^¹ Due to the timeline of the Chinese YWCA closing in 1931 and the Chinese Women’s New Life Association expanding to New York in 1940, the timeline of the Depression leaves the CWA as the most likely option.

Another significant chapter in the CWA’s activism was in regards to the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. During World War II, the opposition between the United States and Japan positioned China as a necessary American ally in Asia, with Japanese war ideology focusing on the discriminatory treatment of Asians by America.^¹ The 1943 repeal was believed to have been in part influenced by the need to strengthen their relationship with China, but must also be credited to the activist work of Chinese Americans, such as the CWA.^¹ In February 1943, Theodora Wang wrote to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt on behalf of the CWA, calling for revision of Chinese immigration laws to change from complete exclusion to an allowed quota. The CWA’s letter writing campaign was followed by similar actions from other Chinatown organizations, such as the CCBA, and from individual Chinese Americans writing to Congress and their representatives. The advocacy for the repeal was successful, and an amendment for the repeal of the 1882 Act was signed into law in December of 1943 by President Roosevelt, fortifying the relationship between the United States and China.^¹

In addition to these large-scale endeavors, the CWA also continued the local social work and educational activities initiated by the Chinese YWCA, particularly teaching English language and Chinese language and culture.^¹ Social and recreational activities were a priority as well, including facilitated visits of Chinese American women to the homes of American women. These outings created opportunities for cultural exchange and appreciation, as the CWA members learned about the management of American households and performed traditional Chinese sword dances for their hosts.^¹ The Chinese Women’s Association represented a significant shift in the social and political role of Chinese American women, creating a space for them to build relationships and collectively organize in an ambitious way for women of their community. 

In 1940, the New York branch of the Chinese Women’s New Life Association was established, as part of the efforts of China’s First Lady Madame Chiang Mei-ling to spread the New Life Movement to the Chinese population in the United States. The New Life Movement was initiated in China in 1934, and promoted Chinese cultural reform to align with the values of Confucianism, Christianity, and Nationalism, as well as encouraged women to take on a traditional role in society. The New Life Movement in the United States fostered a strong sense of patriotism and loyalty to China by organizing in opposition to Japanese aggression during WWII.^¹ Despite the promotion of traditional gender roles in China, the establishment of the Chinese Women’s New Life Association pushed Chinese American women into the role of political organizers and activists within the public sphere.

In her oral history, Josephine Hong spoke about an organization in Chinatown that she joined once moving to New York, which she referred to solely as the Chinese Women’s Club.^¹ Despite the different name, this organization was likely the Chinese Women’s New Life Association,^¹ as Josephine said that her group had an office at 64 Mott St. and had first aid classes, fundraising, and a youth group – all of which were true of the Chinese Women’s New Life Association.^¹ Josephine was also involved with the American Women’s Voluntary Services Chinese Unit, which worked closely with the Chinese Women’s New Life Association.^¹ Based on these correlations and the timeline, Josephine’s Chinese Women’s Club can reasonably be assumed to be the same as the Chinese Women’s New Life Association. Josephine had been involved with the organization’s Chicago branch while living there, and upon moving to New York, she was offered the position of chair.^¹

Being chair of the Chinese Women’s New Life Association was a great deal of work and responsibility, as they had many different activities that required supervision: “At that time we did have English classes, and we do train them on first aid, and the activities we had were mostly raising funds for certain affairs.”^¹ Like its predecessors, this organization engaged in fundraising efforts for China and for the United States through the sale of war bonds. They continued to put on flag parades and sell tickets for shows, but also solicited donations by going door to door, either asking directly for donations or selling flowers, buttons, and benefit show tickets.^¹ The money raised in 1942 was sent directly to Madame Chiang. They also offered Chinese language classes to Chinese American women, as well as Red Cross-affiliated first-aid and home nursing classes in both English and Chinese. The Chinese Women’s New Life Association was also greatly involved in community affairs, and served as an advocate on behalf of Chinatown in issues. For example, when a gas company intended to demolish the Chinese School and build a gas station at its site, the association members testified on behalf of Chinatown residents and parents in court to successfully defeat the proposal.^¹ 

Women were more interested in joining the association during World War II. At the peak of wartime patriotic fervor, they had more than a hundred active, dues-paying members, with ages ranging from women in their twenties to their sixties.^¹ When there was work to be done, hundreds of women might come out to join their efforts, even if they were not official members. Women who had sons or husbands drafted to the military were especially motivated to make contributions where they could, and therefore became involved with the Chinese Women’s New Life Association and their community work.^¹ When discussing the demographics of the organization’s members, Josephine shared that “We don’t go around and try to make people come because lots of husbands need them at home [to] take care of young children.”^¹ Although women were more active in society in the 1930s and 1940s than the decades before, there remained an expectation that wives needed to care for the home and children, and listen to the wishes of their husbands. 

Although the Chinese Women’s New Life Association was focused on the political and social issues that affected the climate of the early 1940s, they also prioritized recreation, socialization, arts, and culture in their programming. They staged dramas and published essays in local Chinese newspapers with patriotic themes, focusing on themes of creating a “new life” in China.^¹ The association also hosted birthday parties in celebration of their elderly members, which often featured patriotic speeches by women.^¹ The Girls’ Corp was also established as a way for young women to partake in their patriotic and civic responsibilities, as well as to reduce the generational gap between Chinese-born mothers and their American-born daughters, developing mutual understanding through their shared activities.^¹ Not all members of the Girls’ Corp were born in America, which allowed for cultural sharing between peers, as girls of Chinese descent could learn firsthand about Chinese customs and social etiquette. In this way, the Chinese Women’s New Life Association emphasized the unification of women of Chinese descent living in New York City, regardless of their geographic origins or age.

The American Women’s Voluntary Services (AWVS) was founded in 1940 to recruit, train, and prepare American women for volunteer positions in community and government organizations.^¹ Modeled off of a similar British women's civilian defense group, it aimed to ease the transition from the country in a time of peace to a state of emergency defense during World War II.^¹ In March of 1942, three months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the United States’ official declaration of involvement in the war, New York’s 94th AWVS unit was established, with headquarters based out of the Chinese Women’s New Life Movement offices on Mott Street.^¹ Josephine Hong, chairman of the unit, referred to it as the American Women’s Voluntary Services Chinese Unit.^¹ The activities of each AWVS unit varied, with projects being initiated based upon specific community needs.^¹ The Chinese Unit was particularly focused on supporting Chinese-American soldiers.^¹

Josephine Hong was born in 1899 or 1900 in Boston, Massachusetts to Chinese immigrant parents. She lived in China from 1909 to 1916 with her mother and siblings, and in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore from 1933 to 1939 with her husband and children.^¹ Josephine had become involved with volunteer work while living in Shanghai, taking care of the wounded and making clothes for them; however, her family returned to the United States in 1939 due to the early impacts of World War II in the region.^¹ Her family initially moved back to Chicago, then to New York in 1940 or 1941. After settling in New York, she was able to return to her wartime volunteer work through the AWVS. Josephine’s own son fought in the war, prompting her to step away from her job in life insurance sales and focus on volunteer work full time, stating that she “didn’t have the heart to make money” at that time.^¹ Many other women with sons or husbands fighting in the war were motivated to join the AWVS for the same reasons as Josephine, feeling a sense of patriotic motivation to contribute to the war effort in any way they could.^¹ During its peak years, there were over 100 women in the AWVS Chinese Unit, though not all volunteered full time, especially those who had to take care of their home and children.^¹

Members of this AWVS unit were involved in some standard activities performed across all units, such as training in first aid and registration of soldiers and ration-seekers.^¹ They also participated in fundraising efforts, selling war bonds and stamps in community-wide events, such as the Chinatown Fourth War Loan drive.^¹ Over the course of the first four war bond sales, they assisted in raising $8,631,700 and received a commendation from the Treasury Department for their achievement.^¹ In addition to broader war efforts, these volunteers also focused specifically on community-specific projects supporting Chinese-American soldiers. They wrote letters and knit sweaters, but the largest-scale effort of the AWVS Chinese Unit was a community first aid center located in Chinatown, which included a canteen for Chinese-American soldiers who were in New York on furlough.^¹ The canteen provided soldiers with a place to rest, be served coffee, and socialize with each other and AWVS members.^¹ The volunteers assisted soldiers with finding accommodations in the city, locating relatives, and planning tours.^¹ Outside of the canteen, AWVS members also organized entertainment for the soldiers, such as a dinner and floor show at the Port Arthur restaurant in Chinatown.^¹ When soldiers left New York to go overseas, Josephine and other AWVS volunteers met them outside the Transfiguration Church in Chinatown for a send-off.^¹

In her oral history, Josephine spoke about her experience sending off the soldiers, and how she felt that they left without any acknowledgment for the efforts the AWVS volunteers put towards them: “AWVS girls, I think, deserved more attention from these boys, but I did not know who they are. Because they come in, we serve them tea, socialize, and they’re gone… When the boys are leaving for service, I come out six o’clock in the morning to Transfiguration Church to see them off and say a few words to them… asking them and giving them the good luck, and giving them coffee and the morning breakfast and tell them to come back with victory. So they tell them whenever they come back they are welcome to come to our center… I feel very bad you know… and the members… after the work is done they have been forgotten.”^¹ Despite the lack of appreciation from the soldiers, Josephine and the other members of their AWVS unit continued to sacrifice their time to bring support, connection, and comfort to Chinese-American soldiers until the unit's closure in 1945. 

Between the years 1900 and 1940, the number of Chinese women living in New York City increased from 58 to 1,103. The women who immigrated to the United States at the beginning of the century came together through necessity to build a supportive community and to create spaces to welcome the growing population. As Chinatown grew, so did the scope of the associations formed by women: beginning with Theodora Wang as the sole employee of the Chinese YWCA in 1920, to hundreds of women volunteering with the AWVS Chinese Unit during World War II. 

As we can see through these groups' activities, these community organizations were more than social clubs. The importance of women creating spaces to socialize and form relationships with likeminded women should not be dismissed, but the way in which the organizations' members were committed to giving back to their communities deserves further recognition. Their social welfare initiatives, fundraising efforts, activism on behalf of the Chinese-American community in both New York and the United States at large, and their work on the home front during World War II shows different ways in which women carved out their own spaces to be leaders, refusing to let the expectations of men constrain them within a domestic life of homemaking. 

Although these five organizations all ended their activities during varying points during the 20th century, they each had a lasting impact on the development of Chinese American women as active, autonomous leaders in the social and political realms of their communities. These women were a defining part in the development of the Chinese-American identity, with the majority of members being immigrants or daughters of immigrants. The embraced their new home, becoming involved with concerns of the United States – particularly during World War II – while still maintaining relationships with China, incorporating Chinese culture into their activities, and prioritizing Chinese language education. 

In the context of art education, this history can prompt students to think deeply about themes of community, connection, and collaboration. The formation of these organizations relates strongly to identity in relation to others, and asks students to consider what communities they are a part of. Shared characteristics, values, and experiences of a community can be included within a work of art, in both representational and symbolic manners, to create a portrait of that community. 

These themes can be represented through visual arts in a variety of ways. Community can be integrated by having students work collaboratively as a class or in small groups to think about their shared identities: going to the same school, being from the same place, being the same age. By working collaboratively, students will be able to create art on a larger scale, combining the strengths of multiple people just as these community organizations did. Murals are well suited to collaborative work, in which different individuals creating different imagery can combine their efforts into one cohesive image. Quilting can also be a collaborative medium, by having students each make their own square that is joined into a classroom quilt. These examples allow individual experiences or identities to be represented within the context of a community whole.  

Taking inspiration more directly from primary resources such as the Ging Hawk scrapbook and pamphlet, students can see how photographs, ephemera, and text from various sources can be synthesized into one place, providing a curated representation of an organization or community. Looking at examples of artists' books or zines, students can consider how art-making skills and conceptual understandings can be used to create an art object that conveys information, as well as expressive qualities and an artist’s unique point of view. Additionally, the book format could also be used more narratively to create a graphic novel that tells a story of a community experience or activity. Books are used to record stories and share them with people in the contemporary world, as well as to preserve it for those in the future to learn from, making this format closely related to the archiving of community organizations and activities.

The activities of the Chinese Women’s Association, Ging Hawk Club, and Chinese Women’s New Life Association provide examples of how culture and the arts can be used for purposes of advocacy and activism. Chinese dance, paintings, opera, fashion, and traditions such as the lion dance were used by these groups to fundraise, linking art to activism. Although the content of the art in these examples was not always not related to social or political issues, it can prompt students to start thinking about the ways they can use art to bring attention to issues within their community. Students can draw their own connections to create art in various mediums that preserves community traditions, spreads a message, or calls for change. 

Community identity is a rich topic for exploration within visual arts, especially for adolescents who are forming their sense of identity and finding their place in the world in relation to others. The experiences of Chinese-American women in the 20th century provide contemporary students with specific historical information about their lives and experiences in relation to immigration, women’s rights, the Great Depression, and World War II, bringing greater recognition of underrepresented stories. Even more, this research tells a larger story about women coming together, growing through those connections, and defining what it meant to be Chinese American. The universal experience of finding community makes this history a strong point of connection to disciplines such as visual arts, encouraging students to take what they have learned and express a personal connection and perspective related to the lessons learned from our predecessors.

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