Youth Activities in Los Angeles Chinatown
Introduction
Written by William Gow
The decades of the 1930s and 1940s witnessed a demographic shift in the Chinese American community. Between 1900 and 1940 the percentage of US-born Chinese Americans grew from 10% to 51%.1 For the first time, there were more US-born Chinese Americans than immigrants. Unlike many of their parents who tended to see themselves first and foremost as Chinese, many of the young people who came of age in the 1930s and 1940s began to define themselves not as immigrants but as Chinese Americans, developing a youth culture that was uniquely their own.
Most of the young people who came of age during this period in Los Angeles attended high schools like Belmont, Lincoln or Polytechnic, racially diverse schools that provided opportunities for young Chinese Americans to interact and befriend classmates from a wide range of ethnic and racial backgrounds. At school, Chinese American students joined after school clubs and sports with children of other racial backgrounds allowing them to interact with a wide variety of people in a way that had been impossible for earlier generations of Chinese Americans.
Outside of school, they participated in activities and groups quite distinct from the activities and groups that their parents joined. Young Chinese Americans founded sports teams, such as the Guardsmen and the Wah Kue and marching bands, like the Mei Wah Drum Corp. They spent time tuning up their cars at places like the CFO gas station. They began to attend Christian churches, like the Chinese Presbyterian Church. They attended Chinese school in the evenings and on weekends to help assuage their parents’ worries that they didn’t know enough of the Chinese language. All of these activities were quite different from the district and family associations that members of their parents’ generation joined.
As these Chinese Americans came of age, they served in the US armed forces and helped on the home front in the Second World War. Fighting for the country of their birth, many returned from the war with a strengthened sense of themselves as Americans. While they were certainly not immune from the racism that their parents’ generation had faced, for many Chinese Americans service in World War II helped further solidify a sense of belonging to the country of their birth. In short, the decades of the 1930s and 1940s saw the development of a Chinese American youth culture and social network quite distinct from that developed by earlier generations of Chinese Americans. The essays and video clips in this section explore the various youth activities that Chinese Americans in Los Angeles participated in during this pivotal period in time.
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1 According to the US census, in 1900 there were 9,010 native-born Chinese Americans out of a total population of 89,863. In 1940, there were 40,262 native-born Chinese Americans out of a total population of 77, 504. Between 1900 and 1940, the percentage of Native-born Chinse Americans increased from 10% to 51.9%. See Judy Yung, Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), 303.
Chinese American Sports
Written by Albert Deng
During the 1920s, sports flourished all over Chinatown. Due to the unavailability of physical activities such as fishing, many teenagers of the period found entertainment in sports. Teams were formed and the children planned meetings out of their busy schedules to go to the park and practice. Though some family members disapproved of such get-togethers, the children continued to play without notice. Many of the teams were randomly formed as Johnny Young recalls, “We asked people if they wanted to join up and then they joined up and then we just started playing together.”1 Tyrus Wong remembers the local Low Wah baseball team, “We had one Chinese that was really tall. We called him ‘city hall’ because that was one of the tallest buildings in LA. But he was a very smart guy.”2
In the beginning, sport teams in Chinatown had little help in getting equipment. Many of the athletes had to use discarded or worn-out equipment from former teams to practice. Kenny Ung recalls that, “when we first started, we used discarded equipment from the old Chinese team. The bats were cracked; we nailed and taped them together with wiring tape. After we got through with taping the ball, I would say that it must have weighed a half pound more than the original ball.”3 Due to the lack of recreational areas in Chinatown devoted to sports, many of the youth were forced to go to lesser than safe areas to practice. Johnny Young remembers, “We practice in Downey playground mostly. Hazzard Avenue playground in Boyle Heights. In fact, David had his four wheels stolen from his car.”4
Their opponents were not limited to Chinatown as Johnny Young recalls that the Wah Kue basketball team “played against Christian groups…and some Japanese teams. And when we got older we used to travel up to San Francisco and play there and maybe stop in Fresno and play them.”5 Many of the sports teams of Chinatown faced discrimination and racism first hand. Though they faced prejudice initially, they began to change the minds of the spectators as they gained respect from their games. Sponsors began to support the team, along with help from city officials, and spectators began to yell words of encouragement and congratulations rather than racial slurs. Kenny Ung remembers, “The spectators sometimes called us ‘Chinks’. The younger people who played ball with us were okay. The older people thought we still wore pigtails. They would yell at us from the stands. However, by 1930, they were applauding us when we played a good game.”6
As these Chinese Americans came of age, they served in the US armed forces and helped on the home front in the Second World War. Fighting for the country of their birth, many returned from the war with a strengthened sense of themselves as Americans. While they were certainly not immune from the racism that their parents’ generation had faced, for many Chinese Americans service in World War II helped further solidify a sense of belonging to the country of their birth. In short, the decades of the 1930s and 1940s saw the development of a Chinese American youth culture and social network quite distinct from that developed by earlier generations of Chinese Americans. The essays and video clips in this section explore the various youth activities that Chinese Americans in Los Angeles participated in during this pivotal period in time. (Additional research by Annie Luong).
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1 Johnny Young interview William Gow, Chinatown Remembered Project, CHSSC, March 29, 2008.
2 Kenneth Ung interview with Beverly Chan, Southern California Chinese American Oral History Project, CHSSC, July 27, 1980.
3 Kenneth Ung interview, July 27, 1980
4 Johnny Young interview, March 29, 2008.
5 Kenneth Ung interview, July 27, 1980.
Richard Chee on Chinese American Sports Leagues
Audio PlayerRichard Chee Interview with William Gow
Chinatown Remembered Project
July 3, 2008 [Excerpt]
William Gow: What did you do? What did you do for fun in high school?
RC: What did I do for fun in high school? I went out for sports, I played basketball, played tennis. Got my couple of varsity letters in tennis. What they call the b-team in basketball. And I ran for student body offices. Members of some number of the clubs and wound up being a senior class vice president.
William Gow: Were there a lot of other Chinese in office, in high school?
RC: No. I think it was the only one. There was, as our class secretary was a Chinese girl. But outside of that, that was it. Most of the other student B officers who were taken up by whatever Caucasian people there were at that time.
William Gow: So you said that you played on the same basketball team as Johnny?
RC: No, no, Johnny was before my time. I played on the same basketball team as a couple of Chinese kids. Willie Quan(?), what not. But they’re no longer–. Willie’s no longer around.
William Gow: Was this the Wah Kues?
RC: No, this was a school basketball team, but we played with– Johnny says we played with him, but I don’t remember that. We played on the Wah Kues with a number of people. Jerry Chan, Willie Wong, Willie Quan. Some of them are still around.
William Gow: You were on the Wah Kues?
RC: Yes. Yes.
William Gow: Can we talk a little bit about that?
RC: Sure.
William Gow: So how did how did the Wah Kues, how did you get involved with them?
RC: Well, through Willie Quan and Jerry Chan and I were the kind of three buddies and they had a couple of older friends that were members of the Wah Kue. Then when we were old enough, they said we’d like to join them. So they invited us to come and join them as members of their club and play on their teams. So we were the youngest ones at that time, but gradually, you know, the older ones left the club and then we kind of became the nucleus of the club.
William Gow: How old were you when you joined?
RC: I think I was 16.
William Gow: Who did you play?
RC: Who did we play? We played a lot of Chinese and Japanese teams. I think we entered the Japanese league and we played in the Japanese league at that time, but that was after the war was over and the Japanese were coming back. And because we didn’t– I don’t think I would join until forty– forty-seven, forty-eight. That time period.
William Gow: I understand Johnny talked about the group, he said they came out of the Chinese club? Was the relationship still when you were in it, between the Wah Kues and the Chinese, not a Chinese club, but a Chinese school?
RC: No. No, I left Chinese school when I finished junior high school. I never did go back there. And so whether it was part of the Chinese school, that wasn’t– we were just a social club, essentially, of Chinatown kids. There were a number of other clubs that were not Chinatown. We were the locally based, the oldest Chinatown Club.
William Gow: So did you play the other Chinese? There was a team on Adams, wasn’t there?
RC: Yeah. There was the Guardsman. They called them the Guardsmen. They were our generation. There was another club called the Chin Wah(?), which was a younger generation, but they played against our younger club in Chinatown, which is called the Cathay Group.
Car Hopping
Written by Johnny Dip
Between the 1930s and 1940s, a hobby called “car hopping” was popular among the young Chinese American adults of Los Angeles. Car hopping meant tuning cars for better performance. Many young people of this age found cars to be exciting especially when test driving their “hopped up” cars. Co-founder of C.F.O. Service Station, Abe Chin, was one of the many who enjoyed car hopping. CFO was one of two Chinese-owned gas stations in Los Angeles in the 1930s and 1940s. The “C” stood for the Chin brothers, consisting of Abe Chin, Howard Chin, and George Chin. The “F” was for Wesley Fong and the “O” stood for Henry Ong. It is evident from their founding of the business that they were fond of cars. People would have gatherings when someone’s car was “hopped up.” Wesley Fong put a V8 engine into his Model A Ford with Abe Chin’s help.1
Excited with its new power, they wanted to test drive it although it was 2 am. For precautions, they had people stationed at all intersections in the neighborhood. At the roar of the engine, lights went off at numerous houses. Johnny Young, like many of the younger kids in the neighborhood remembers the practice, “We did a few of those [hopped up cars]. But it was mostly the older generation, my brothers and all that. They had hopped up Model A’s. In fact that’s how I learned to drive.”1 Car hopping was something enjoyed not only by the Chinese American youth, but by other ethnicities as well. In short, the hobby of “car hopping” can be seen as one of the precursors to car tuning and modified cars that are popular among today’s youth.
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1 Revisiting East Adams, dir. Jenny Cho, (CHSSC, 2004).
2 Johnny Young interview with William Gow, Chinatown Remembered Project, CHSSC, March 29, 2008.
Johnny Young on Chinatown Youth Car Culture
Johnny Young on Chinatown Youth Car Culture
Interviewed by William Gow
March 29th, 2008. 10:30-11:30
William Gow: I spoke to some other people that were involved in car hopping. Did you know anything about that?
Johnny Young: Yes, that was our favorite place. You are talking about the restaurant, where we serve food?
William Gow: No, I am talking about people who would fix their cars up and race their cars.
Johnny Young: Yeah, we did a few of those. But it’s mostly the older generation. My brothers and all that. They had hopped up Model A’s. In fact, that’s how I learned to drive. We ran the New Chinatown parking lot in the late 1930s. We learned to drive with other people’s cars. We had an upper lot and a lower lot. Just for an excuse we would drive the customers cars from the older lot to the upper lot. Then from the upper lot down we drive theirs down to our lower lot. That’s how we learned to drive, believe it or not.
William Gow: So you were a parking attendant?
Johnny Young: Yeah, we were parking attendant.
William Gow: How old were you when you became a parking attendant. How old were you?
Johnny Young: About 16. I had a license when I was fourteen, I lied and said I was 16. In fact, I had to change it when I was in my 50s.
William Gow: How did you get your job at the parking lot?
Johnny Young: Well, it was just an open lot so [we] just started parking cars there, offering service and they all started tipping us.They were all Caucasians coming to Chinatown for dinner. That’s how we started. With Bill Wong. Benny Wong, Louis Lee, and myself.
William Gow: You said you really didn’t know how to drive very well?
Johnny Young: Well, we had an idea. Remembered in those days it was stick shift. We clashed their gears. We did a lot of crazy things.
William Gow: In terms of racing their cars, where did people race their cars?
Johnny Young: They go up to Mojave and all that or the street. In fact, my brother belonged to a motorcycle club and the only way he could join was to get away from a cop.
Mei Wah Drum Corps
By Jacqueline Taing
The Mei Wah Club was an organization created by second-generation Chinese American women in 1931. They were originally a basketball team, but around the time of the Sino-Japanese War, they also became a charitable organization that raised money through bazaars, fashion shows, and theatrical dance productions in order to aid war-torn China as well as to offer entertainment for the Chinese American community. Mei Wah member Eleanor SooHoo recalls, “we collected money for dances, and whatever we have left over, we give it to charity… there was a blind school in China we contributed to.”1
The 1938 Moon Festival, a fundraising effort for China relief, marked one of the first performances of the Mei Wah Drum Corps. David SooHoo, the brother of founder of Los Angeles’s New Chinatown, suggested that the Mei Wah girls form a drum corps and perform at the parade. The Mei Wah girls choreographed their steps, learned the routine, designed costumes for the parade, and were able to put on a show that amazed the audience all within a timespan of two weeks. Their performance was so admired that the Los Angeles Chinese Mei Wah Girls Drum Corps was asked to perform at various other events and went on to compete and win in band and drill team competitions in and outside of Chinatown.
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1 Eleanor SooHoo Yee interview with William Gow, Chinatown Remembered Project, CHSSC, October 7, 2007.
For more on the formation of the Mei Wah Drum Corps see, William Gow, “A Night in Old Chinatown, China Relief Fundraising and the 1938 Moon Festival in Los Angeles,” Pacific Historical Review, Vol 87, No 3., 439-472.