The Life of Moon Tung Wong

Mom and Dad closed the laundry in December 1984.

Eat More Potatoes and Go Back to China: The Life of Moon Tung Wong
 
by Edward Wong

As a child, I was often confused about the three different names associated with my father.  First, there was Fook Gooy Wong, the name on his citizenship papers.  Then there was Frank Wong or Frankie as he was known to the customers at the laundry he and my mother, Siu Fong Yu Wong, ran for 40 years in Hollywood, CA.  And finally, there was Wong Moon Tung, a name only used by his friends and cronies from Bak Hang Toon, his birth village.

My father was a man of mystery; he held many secrets.  He was also fond of imparting wisdom to us in  pithy phrases. If you are Toisanese, you've probably heard this expression:  Heck mo see doy, fahn hong san.  East more potatoes (for they are cheap and filling), so that you can save money to retire in China. My father said it often when reminiscing about the hardships of his youth as a wage-slave in America.  But it requires tremendous discipline to forgo the pleasures of American life and save every hard-earned dollar from hours of sweat-soaked toil to send back to parents and siblings in the village.  The fact that my father did so speaks volumes about his character.

He came to Gum Saan as a young man just as his father and older brother had done.  There was not much hope for a bright future in the rocky hills of Toisan where the daily diet of fish heads and vegetables could barely sustain a family.  Thus, he left Bak Hang as a 15 year old to find work in San Francisco.  After a short stay at the Angel Island Immigration Station, he was landed in 1927.  Shortly after his arrival, someone informed on his false family, and my father was taken out of a classroom at Francisco Middle School and detained for a month at Angel Island  as he waited to be deported.  There, he read the sad poems etched on the wooden walls, and wondered if his brother, who was an artist, might have carved the beautiful calligraphy during his confinement.

Nothing could deter my father from returning to America, so his parents bought him another false paper and on December 13, 1929, under the name Fook Gooy Wong, he was taken to Angel Island with a false brother, who was the true son of Wong Wah, who falsely claimed to have been born in the United States.  The immigration authorities were quite suspicious of him because he looked a bit older than the 17 years that he claimed to be.  Despite a medical examination that put his age at plus or minus one year from age 19, he was allowed to enter the U.S. after two weeks of questioning.  My father had the advantage of actually knowing the false family having grown up with them as neighbors, so all his answers about the village well and furniture used in the school room were spot on.

Frank G. Wong, far left, with his

 brother and cousin in America.

After staying with his false father at his laundry on Larkin Street, Moon Tung aka Fook Gooy went to Oakland to stay in a room above a restaurant on Webster Street.  He visited his uncle, who worked as a cook at a U.C. Berkeley fraternity house.  But fearful that "people talk too much in San Francisco," Fook Gooy took off for Chicago where his older brother worked at the Hong Kong Noodle Factory.  He settled there, enrolling in night school and took English classes at a church.  There he adopted his third name, Frank G. Wong.
His Chicago years were ones of great change.  He grew from a village boy to a young man. His stories about going to movie palaces on State Street to see a live show and a double feature, and excursions to see the fall colors in Indiana gave me a glimpse of the young man, who freed of parental  constraints could be as stylish as he wanted to be.  He continued to work hard at the noodle factory, hefting 100 pound sacks of flour and making deliveries, but when World War II came, he went to work as a welder in a defense plant where he helped build landing craft.

After the war, he returned to China to find a wife and met my mother, Siu Fong  Yu through a marriage broker.  After a three-week courtship, they married, and spent a year touring China.  Shortly thereafter, the first daughter, Suet Chi or Suzi, was born in Toisan.  

Suzi Wong with mom and dad

By then the Communists were poised to take over China. My father decided to return to the U.S. to raise a family.  He decided to settle in Los Angeles and start a laundry business.  The entry level was low and although the hours were long, they were not as onerous as ones for cooks, the only other job he had ever held.  After sending for his wife and daughter over to the U.S. in first class on the SS President Coolidge, they moved into a laundry in Hollywood.
The next years were all about raising kids and stabilizing the business. In quick succession, three children were born: Edward in 1950, Donna in 1951, and Warren in 1952.  For many years, we lived in the back of the laundry at 6105 Melrose Ave. in Hollywood.  Make-shift beds were constructed out of plywood, and the children took sponge baths in a galvanized steel tub.  As we got older, my parents desperately wanted to find a house near the laundry, but racially housing covenants restricted non-whites from owning a home in Hollywood.  She came home one day in tears after going to inspect a house. I asked her why she was crying, and she said that when the owners saw their faces, they would jack up the price and/or refuse to sell to them. This scene remains the most vivid of my memories of discrimination.  To see a grown woman, who had been a school teacher in China, reduced to tears was searing and sobering.

Warren, Donna, Eddie and Suzi Wong in LA Chinatown, 1950s

My father's response to discrimination and  insults from white customers at our laundry was alternately sad and frightening.  Often, he would adopt a sing-song voice and apologize, but when pushed to the breaking point, he would erupt and loudly, boldly, and violently fling open the counter top and shout, "If you think I have stolen your shirt, come in here and take a look." His wild-eyed look and bulging muscles would be enough to back any man down.  Of course that customer never returned, so he had  to choose his battles wisely.

The laundry business grew slowly.  My parents went from taking the cash out of the receipt box just to pay the bills to being able to save money and eventually buy a two-bedroom house near L.A. City College. A kindly white doctor didn't mind selling to Chinese , and we broke the color barrier in that neighborhood. Our neighbors were a kindly Lebanese couple, and we felt welcomed.  It was now 1957, and we were living on the cusp of the Civil Rights Movement, which would smash even more racial barriers.

Moon Tung and Siu Fong with the Hassid family

Throughout our youth, we were warned never to violate any laws and to avoid "trouble."  There were vague hints that we could be deported if we got into "trouble."  Little did we know that my father was an illegal immigrant, who had entered the U.S. falsely as the son of an American-born Chinese.  Even the disparaging name assigned to us children, who gee doy/who gee new, which literally means  "got paper boy/got paper girl," should have been a clue, but we had no idea what  "papers" meant.

In the early 1960s, we heard mother and father speak in hushed tones with worried looks on their faces.  The false brother had confessed to the Immigration Naturalization Service in the amnesty program.  My father received notice that he would need to surrender his citizenship and make a confession.  My father would need to wait five years to reapply for citizenship and be able to reclaim his birth name: Moon Tung Wong.

By the mid -1970s, all the children had graduated from college, and my mother and father had a chance to take more trips to Las Vegas, see friends, and rest.  By the late 1980s, they closed the laundry business and retired.  My father spent his retirement years writing a book on how to win at keno. He took daily walks and collected junk.  In November 1989, he became quite ill and was diagnosed with cancer and died on February 19, 1990.  He was 80 years old.

  As he approached the end of his life, he was at peace.  His children wereall settled in jobs. He had the satisfaction of playing with four grandchildren, and he had the admiration of many friends.  He had come a long way from muddy fields chasing water oxen in Toisan.  He had embraced three names, each signifying big changes in his life from illegal immigrant to Americanized Chinese and back to his own true identity.  His life was full of discovery and although he could not fulfill his dreams of getting an education, he lived to see his children succeed in academic pursuits.  Despite all the challenges he faced, he was determined to find a better life for himself and his family.  Because of him, we too work hard and thank him for never stopping in the face of discrimination.

Eddie Wong was the Executive Director of the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation.  He thanks his mother Siu Fong Yu Wong and his sisters Suzi and Donna and his brother Warren for all their support.

   He retire in June 2012 as  four years as Executive Director of the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation

Visit http://aiisf.org/  for more Information, Interviews and Stories.

Ronald Reagan at Charlie Low's Forbidden City

The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco  San Francisco - Chinese  Ronald Reagan at Charlie Low's Forbidden City

"WHEN DOES CHARLIE FIND TIME TO LOOK AT HIS FLOOR SHOWS?–Every time you see Charlie Low he's in the company of such interesting people you wonder how he finds time to stop looking into faces and concentrate on his glamorous Forbidden City revues. The celebrities posed with him this time are Jane Wyman and Ronald Reagan of the movies. The show that's entertaining the visitors is one of the celebrated all-Chinese revues with Dorothy Sun and Mary Mammon as highlights."

San Francisco Life, December 1942.

Forbidden City, on the second floor of 363 Sutter street, below Stockton, was one of several "Chinese nightclubs" in San Francisco at the beginning of World War II, and certainly one of the most successful.

Low's competition included such places as Club Shanghai and other Chinese nightclubs, owned by famed herbalist Fong Wan. In 1949, writer Dick Hemp of the Chronicle wrote of a feud between Charlie Low and Fong Wan:

"Fong presently has on file in Superior Court a $50,000 suit against Charlie Low, another astute Chinese night club entrepreneur, for allegedly 'stealing' an acrobat away from Fong's Club Shanghai. "

"One Fong coup against Low is already legendary in Chinatown and was struck when the herbalist bought a six-story building at 334 Sutter street–across from Low's Forbidden City night club–and erected a huge neon sign directing passersby to Fong's club around the corner on Grant avenue.

"Fong denies there was malice in this action, however, and credits it to his acute business sense. 'I know valuable building,' he declared. 'Never think of Charlie Low at all, I bought building for $90,000 and next day am offered $110,000, to get it back. Ha, ha.'"

Actor Ronald Wilson Reagan (1911- ) had been called to active duty April 19, 1942, after a string of successful Warner Bros. movies, including King's Row (1941) and Desperate Journey (1942). He may have been waiting to begin work on the Irving Berlin wartime musical This is the Army when this photograph was taken in October or early November 1942. He is pictured with Jane Wyman, whom he married January 24, 1940.

Lieutenant Reagan was assigned to the Army Air Corps' motion picture unit because he was too nearsighted for regular military duty. He worked on training and combat films until his discharge, as a captain, December 9, 1945.

Reagan retired from acting in 1954, served six terms as president of the Screen Actors Guild, and was elected governor of California (1966-75). In 1980, Governor Reagan was elected the 40th president of the United States.

The second-floor space that once housed Forbidden City on Sutter Street suffered a major fire in the 1980s, though the building remained intact. A renumbering of the block also changed the address of the former Forbidden City to 369 Sutter Street. In 2000 it housed a computer instruction company.

http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist1/index0.html

Rep. Judy Chu gets Congress to apologize for 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act

Frank Girardot: Rep. Judy Chu gets Congress to apologize for 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act

Posted:   06/13/2012 08:11:43 PM PDT    http://www.sgvtribune.com

Standing in the middle of North Los Angeles Street on Wednesday afternoon, one would never know it was once an unrivaled den of iniquity.
In the last half of the 19th Century the narrow, cobblestone-lined street that radiates south from La Plaza and dead ends at a wrought iron gate just north of the Hollywood Freeway was called Calle de Los Negros.
Historians tell us that at any hour of the day the calle - on the western edge of Los Angeles' first Chinatown - was the place to find booze, broads, opium or cards.
In his book "The Herald's History of Los Angeles" written in 1901, Charles Dwight Willard described that period of time as "Los Angeles at its worst."
It was a remembrance of that era Wednesday that brought Rep. Judy Chu, D-El Monte, to North Los Angeles Street to make a historic announcement.
Namely, that the United States Congress would formally issue its regrets for a xenophobic period in U.S. history that resulted in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Signed into law by President Chester Arthur, the bill prevented Chinese immigration to the U.S. and excluded Chinese residing in the states from becoming citizens.
Anti-Chinese sentiment really began during an economic depression in the 1870s. California politicians blamed Chinese workers for low wages and lack of work.
On Oct. 24, 1871, the hatred and reactionary ill-will boiled over on Calle de los Negros.
"The most terrible page in this dark chapter of the city's history is that on which is recorded the massacre of the Chinamen," Willard wrote. "It is hard to understand how only thirty years ago such a horrible outrage came to be committed in the city."
The riot began with the shooting death of a man identified as Robert Thompson.
Whites living outside the plaza blamed warring Chinese tongs for Thompson's death and went on a rampage. One group hanged eight Chinese men outside a corral on New High Street. Another looted and burned shops. Chinese residents of the area who ventured out in public were "hung or shot" on sight Willard wrote.
"Two of the victims were very young boys, and one, an old physician, a man of good education, who begged for his life offered over $2,000 to those who captured him," Willard continued. "The money was taken, but he was hanged with the rest."
None of the leaders of the massacre were punished, Chu said in remarks she delivered to a dozen supporters at the site.
"There were in all 19 (Chinese) put to death. Some with great cruelty," Willard wrote. "The affair lasted only about an hour."
The riot was quelled by the sheriff and a posse of men who arrested less than a dozen outlaws. A grand jury indicted 150 rioters. Six were convicted at trial, but released on a technicality days after their sentence was handed down.
Ultimately the mob politics of 1871 led to the sort of codified racism that is hard to imagine today. Thus comes an apology - of sorts.
Expressions of regret don't come easy from the U.S. Congress. There's been only three others.
"This took months and months of negotiations," Chu noted of the bill, which is expected to pass next week. "It is so historic for a generation of our ancestors who were told that the land of the free wasn't open to them, these ugly laws will get an expression of regret by the very body that passed them."
frank.girardot@sgvn.com
(626) 962-8811, ext. 4478

Read more: http://www.sgvtribune.com/ci_20851938/frank-girardot-rep-judy-chu-gets-congress-apologize?IADID=Search-www.sgvtribune.com-www.sgvtribune.com#ixzz1yAxZonjn

 

 

 Photo credits to O.C.Lee

 

Dear CHSSC,

I'm pleased to announce a breakthrough on my historic resolution of regret for the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.  After months of negotiations, we have reached a bipartisan agreement on the bill, which means that it will pass unanimously out of the House of Representatives!

This will mark the first time this legislative body acknowledges the far-reaching injustice of these discriminatory laws.  It is a remarkable moment - and shows that great nations like ours can learn from its mistakes and atone for them.  

Just like many immigrants before them and since, Chinese flocked to the United States to make a better life for themselves.  But many encountered outright hostility and xenophobia, as they were spat upon in the streets, derided in the halls of Congress and even brutally murdered.   Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 to prevent the Chinese from immigrating, becoming naturalized citizens, and from ever having the right to vote.  It was the beginning of a series of several discriminatory laws aimed at Chinese immigrants, and took 60 long years to be repealed.  

The trauma of the Exclusion Laws left a permanent scar upon generations of Chinese Americans, splitting apart families, and disenfranchising many.  Like all Chinese Americans, my own grandfather did not have the legal right to become a naturalized citizen, and had to carry papers on him at all times or else be deported.

My resolution, H. Res. 683, finally acknowledges these injustices.  It formally regrets the passage of legislation that adversely affected people of Chinese origin in the United States because of their ethnicity, and recognizes that the United States was founded on the principle that all persons are created equal. 

I feel especially honored to have introduced this resolution as the first Chinese American woman to have ever been elected to Congress.  I must express my sincere thanks to Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle who are strongly supporting H. Res. 683, and to my colleagues in the Senate who unanimously supported a similar resolution.  Our success wouldn't have been possible without community members and Americans from every race and creed coming together to work on this bill.  

I believe diversity is America's greatest strength and I remain committed to fighting for the civil rights of everyone in America, no matter their ethnicity or background. This resolution is another step forward on our path to equal rights for all people, for all Americans.  

In friendship, 

  

Judy Chu

Member of Congress

 

Locke, California

Portions are taken from http://www.locketown.com/  http://www.lockeca.com/  See their website for more details, picture and updates.
 
 HISTORY
     Locke was founded in 1915 after a fire broke out in the Chinese section of nearby Walnut Grove. The Chinese who lived in that area decided that it was time to establish a town of their own. A committee of Chinese merchants, led by Lee Bing, Chan Hing Sai, Tom Wai, Chan Dai Kee, Ng So Hat, Chan Wai Lum, Chow Hou Bun, and Suen Dat Suin was formed. They approached land owner George Locke and inquired if they could build on his land. An agreement was reached. The town was laid out by Chinese architects and industrious building ensued. The founding of Lockeport, later 'Locke', was a reality. By 1920 Locke stood essentially as you see it now.
     Levee construction originally brought the Chinese to this area, but by the time Locke was built most of the work was in farm labor. Locke had many businesses that catered to the farm workers and residents of this region. In the 1940's restaurants, bakeries, herb shops, fish markets, gambling halls, boarding houses, brothels, grocery stores, a school, clothing stores, and the Star Theatre lined the bustling streets of Locke. At its peak 600 residents, and as many as 1500 people occupied the town of Locke.
     On August 2, 1970, Locke was added to the registry of national historical places, by the Sacramento County Historical Society, because of its unique status as the only town in the United States built exclusively by the Chinese for the Chinese.
     Locke is no tourist trap, nor is it a ghost town. Its unusual, out-of-the-way charm is genuine. Perhaps it is this authenticity, without any hypocritical overtones, which brings so many out of town visitors to its doors.
Currently, there are between 70 to 80 people live in Locke. Chinese population is down to about ten.

Chinese have been in the Delta at least since the 1860s. As in most of the West, the Delta's Chinese population was made up of two separate groups who had emigrated from neighboring districts in Guangdong Province in southeastern China. One group came from Sze Yap, and the other from Chungshan district.        
    Chinese have been in the Delta at least since the 1860s. As in most of the West, the Delta's Chinese population was made up of two separate groups who had emigrated from neighboring districts in Guangdong Province in southeastern China. One group came from Sze Yap, and the other from Chungshan district.
    The California state legislature passed the Swamp and Overflow Act of 1861 to encourage levee building for reclamation purposes. Subsequently, between three to four thousand Chinese laborers came to the Delta under contract to American developers built hundreds of miles of levees. Their task was arduous, requiring them to work in waist-deep water in an area which malaria was still endemic. They cut drainage ditches, built floodgates, and slowly piled up small levees. In this fashion, between 1860 to 1880 a total of 88,000 acres was reclaimed from the Delta marshlands.
    Once the land became fit for agriculture, Chinese remained in the Delta to become farm workers and tenant farmers.
More History                           
    In 1915, both the Chungshan and Sze Yap sections of Walnut Grove's Chinatown burned to the ground. After years of less than peaceful coexistence, rather than rebuild in Walnut Grove, the Chungshan group moved out and  later built themselves a town on land leased from the family of a land owner named George Locke.
    The Chinese can only leased the land to build the town because the state law forbade the Chinese immigrants to purchase land. Under terms of California's 1913 Alien Land Act, Chinese were not allowed to own land. The law was not declared unconstitutional until 1952.
    Originally the town was called Lockeport, the name was later shortened to Locke. The non-English-speaking Chinese began calling it 'Lockee', and still do today.
    Tin-san Chan and two other Chinese merchants leased and built the first three buildings in George Locke's property in 1912. They consist of a boarding house, a gambling parlor, and a saloon. The buildings are located at the south end of town, where the former saloon is now   the Locke Garden Restaurant.
    After an accidental fire led to the complete destruction of Walnut Grove's Chinatown in 1915, a group of Chungshan merchants headed by Bing Lee, financed the construction of some nine residential houses and opened his own general merchandise store in the new town they called Locke.
    The asparagus boom was in full flower by 1920 in the Delta, more and more houses and businesses catering to the Chungshan workers in the asparagus field were being built in Locke.  In 1925, Southern Pacific enlarged the packing shed across the street from Locke, consequently , Locke expanded even more rapidly. More than 600 Chinese were believed to live in town.
    Throughout the 1920s illicit amusement quarter began developed in town which included gambling parlors, speakeasies, a few opium dens, and several houses of prostitution. The gambling parlors, speakeasies and opium dens were owned and operated by Chinese. The prostitution business were owned, operated, and staffed by whites. There were no Chinese prostitutes in Locke because of the respectable Chinese families in town.
    Locke was a lively place in the 1920s. It had a Chinese owned movie theater called Star Theater which showed silent black and white films. A Chinese herbalist dispensed medicine and medical advice. There were six restaurants, nine grocery stores, a flour mill, a hotel, and numerous boarding houses.
    A gradual decline in the Delta's Chinese population began after World War II, and population decline became more rapid in the 1950s as more and more young Chinese Americans became better educated than their parents, they rarely stayed in agricultural districts. When the state government closed down all gambling business in town, merchants started to move out, and population in town decline even faster.

SPECIAL PLACES TO VISIT

The entire town of  Locke is a historical site.  Special places to visit or see include:

·         Locke Boarding House Visitors’ Center

An exhibit and research facility open to the public free of charge.

·         Locke Chinese School

A language school for the children of Locke established in 1926.

·         Locke Memorial Park and Monument

Dedicated to the Chinese who built the railroad, levees, and agriculture of California and the town of Locke.

·         Al the Wop’s Saloon and Restaurant

Early operation included a brothel.

·         Star Theater

Past enterprises included Chinese opera, gambling den, and brothel.

·         Dai Loy Museum

An exhibit of Chinese gambling paraphernalia.

·         Lockeport Hotel

The first building in Locke.

·         Locke Garden Restaurant

Chinese restaurant that at one time housed Locke’s first saloon and gambling hall.

·         Connie’s Toilet Garden

A collection of planters made from discarded toilets of past Chinese residents.

·         Locke Community Garden

Established during World War II as a victory garden.

 http://www.lockeca.com/    http://www.locketown.com/


EVEN MORE HISTORY


Locke
Locke, Sacramento County
This predominantly Chinese American community contains four blocks of one- and two-story frame commercial and residential structures. Many buildings are located along the levee of the Sacramento River, with second-floor porches and loading sheds along the top of the levee. In addition to the buildings, the communal vegetable garden is an integral part of the community.
The buildings date from three distinct periods. The earliest are those built in 1912: the Tules restaurant building, the building across from the Tules on Levee Street, and the building across from the Tules on Main Street.
The second group of buildings was constructed between 1915 and 1919: the Town Hall and six other buildings built by Bing Lee on Main Street — a restaurant, boarding house, two gambling houses, a dry goods store, and a hardware store.
The third group of buildings was built between 1920 and 1933: the Southern Pacific packing shed and dock, the Star Theater, the soda fountain and grocery store run by Robert Suen, the Locke Christian Center, the post office, single story residences on Key Street, Al Adam's restaurant, the gas station, and other buildings.
Locke is unique in that the town was built by Chinese Americans for Chinese Americans; its population is still largely Chinese American. Its isolation is the result of various alien land laws that prevented early Chinese immigrants and other aliens ineligible for citizenship from owning land in California, and discouraged them from trying to establish permanent communities. They were allowed to live where no one else wanted to be, and were required to move whenever the owner of the land wanted it for other purposes. Chinese Americans were permitted to establish communities in the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta area because their labor and services were essential for draining swamps, building levees, and growing crops.
The predecessor of the town of Locke was a cluster of three buildings called Lockeport. They were located a mile north of Walnut Grove on the property of George Locke, a long-time Sacramento merchant who had owned farm land in the delta region since the 1880s. Lockeport was constructed by Tin Sin Chan and others from the Chung Shan district in Kwangtung province, China.
When a fire destroyed the Chinese American section of Walnut Grove in October 1915, a division arose in the community between people who had emigrated from the Chung Shan district and those from the Toi Shan and other districts in Sze Yup ("the four districts"). The people from Sze Yup (mostly from Toi Shan) decided to rebuild their community in Walnut Grove, but those from Chung Shan, speaking a different dialect of Cantonese and observing different customs, decided under the leadership of Bing Lee to relocate to Lockeport.
When the newcomers arrived in Lockeport, the only buildings were a saloon owned by Tin Sin Chan, a boarding house built by Wing Chong Owyang, and a gambling hall built by Yuen Lai Sing. Bing Lee financed construction of six buildings near the first three Chinese American buildings at a cost of $1,200 for each two-story structure. The buildings were erected against the land side of the levee, fronting a road on top of the levee and with a main street behind and below the levee. Between 1915 and 1920, residents of Lockeport shortened its name to Locke, and it gradually expanded from the original cluster of nine buildings.
Locke eventually had a permanent population of about 400, but at times seasonal crop workers increased this figure to more than a thousand. It had a church, a small Chinese school, a post office, a lodge, a theater, nine restaurants and boarding houses, five hotels and rooming houses, two saloons, four grocery stores, a hardware and herb store, a fishmarket, two dry goods stores, a dentist's office, two cigar stands, a shoe repair shop, a poolroom, and a bakery. Bordellos also abounded, along with gambling halls.
Although the population of the town of Locke has dropped today to fewer than 100, it still survives as a reminder of the significant contribution the Chinese American people have made to agricultural development and rural life in California, despite racism and discriminatory legislation.
Locke is a California State Historical Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Locke, Locke, Sacramento County

http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/

Facebook Bride Priscilla Chan

How £12 billion Facebook bride embodies the American dream: Father of Zuckerberg's new wife was Asian refugee who worked 18-hour days in Chinese takeaway

• Priscilla Chan was mainly raised by her grandmother because parents Dennis and Yvonne worked such grueling hours at their Boston restaurant
• Her science teachers says she was determined and bright pupil who was aiming for Harvard when she was just 13

PUBLISHED: 19:23 EST, 26 May 2012 | UPDATED: 12:51 EST, 27 May 2012


When Priscilla Chan married her long-time boyfriend, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, last weekend she looked every inch the fairytale bride.
In a stunning full-length white gown, 27-year-old Priscilla smiled serenely as she exchanged vows with Zuckerberg, 28, worth an astonishing £12 billion, in a surprise ceremony.
Her transformation into the wife of the world's youngest billionaire, however, is more remarkable than it may seem.
For Priscilla is the child of a Chinese-Vietnamese father who arrived in America with his family in the Seventies after spending time in a refugee camp.

Billionaire bride: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg wed Priscilla Chan last weekend in California

Later Dennis Chan, 47, raised enough money to open a Chinese restaurant, where he worked gruelling 18-hour days as he dreamt of his first-born daughter living the American dream.
Priscilla was raised largely by her grandmother as her mother Yvonne also worked long hours at the Taste of Asia in Boston. At the 1,200-pupil state-run Quincy High School in the working-class town of Quincy, near Boston, it quickly became clear that Priscilla was bright - and determined to get on.
Peter Swanson, 66, her science teacher and tennis coach, said: 'She came up to me during that first year, when she was 13, and said, 'What do I have to do to get into Harvard University?''
'I was stunned. In all my years of teaching I have never had a 13-year-old ask a question like that. She knew what she wanted, even back then. I encouraged her to join the tennis team because I knew that Harvard would require her to have a well-rounded resumé.'
He added: 'She was mostly raised by her Chinese grandmother, who spoke no English. She was a very dignified woman who clearly was a huge influence in Priscilla's life. The grandmother was her emotional support. Her parents were working long hours - 18-hour days - at the restaurant.
'Priscilla worked incredibly hard at her studies and graduated top of her class. She gave me a voucher for a free meal at her family's restaurant as a gift.
'It was clear the family came from humble beginnings but were prepared to work around the clock to make something of their new life in America.
'Priscilla had that drive within her. She did everything she needed to round out her resumé and make it attractive to Harvard. And she joined the tennis club – she was not a natural athlete but with hard practice she steadily improved. When she got into Harvard she ran up to me grinning from ear to ear and said, 'See, I told you I would get to Harvard!''

Changing fortunes: The Chans' old restaurant Taste of Asia in Boston - now called Pho & I

Mr Swanson visited Priscilla and her new husband at their £3.5 million home in Palo Alto, California, last year. 'Mark was at the kitchen table working on his computer,' he said. 'Priscilla introduced us and he grinned and said, 'Behind every great man there is a great woman.''
'People are saying how lucky she is to marry him, but he knows he's the lucky one. Priscilla is the ultimate story of the American dream made good. Her parents came to the States with virtually nothing and she has married a self-made billionaire. It doesn't get much better than that.'

 

Priscilla has closely guarded her family's humble roots, releasing only a few titbits through Facebook's PR machine. Her 'official' biography states that after Quincy High, she studied biology at Harvard where she met Zuckerberg as they queued for the toilet at a party in 2003.
She has recalled: 'He was this nerdy guy who was just a little bit out there.' While Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard after founding Facebook in his dorm room and moved to California to build his company, she remained at the prestigious Ivy League university. After Harvard, Priscilla attended medical school and graduated as a pediatrician a week before her wedding.
Her family's home is a four-bedroom red-brick detached house in a quiet cul-de-sac in the middle-class Boston suburb of Braintree. But the precise details of how the family arrived in America are unclear.

Determined pupil: Priscilla's yearbook photo from state-run Quincy High School, near Boston

Reports in China say they came originally from the city of Xuzhou in eastern Chandong province, also the home city of Rupert Murdoch's wife Wendi Deng. Others say that the family lived in Nanjing, an industrial town 150 miles west of Shanghai, before leaving to live first in Hong Kong and later in the US.
A source at the Asian-American Civic Association in Boston said it was 'highly likely' the family spent time in a refugee camp, either in Hong Kong or on arrival in the US.
Priscilla's father said he was a refugee who had lived in Vietnam, according to Thai-born Napat
Sriwannavit, who bought the 87-seat Taste of Asia restaurant from him in 2006 and turned it into a noodle bar called Pho & I.
Mr Sriwannavit said: 'Mr Chan was a very good man, very good manners. He said he had been a refugee and had lived in Vietnam. He was Chinese but he told me he lived in Vietnam.'
When Priscilla's father sold up, he told the new owner: 'I'm tired of working such long hours.'
Records show Dennis, who now owns a small wholesale fish business, was given a social security number as an 'Asian Refugee' between April 1975 and November 1979.
It is believed that he and his accountant wife, now 50, moved to Massachusetts in the early Eighties. Priscilla and her younger sisters, Elaine and Michelle, were born in the US.
Priscilla has already introduced Zuckerberg to her Asian roots. The couple travelled to Vietnam last December and to China in March.
Of the future, Mr Swanson said: 'Priscilla wants to contribute to society. She was the one who encouraged Mark to start a feature on Facebook encouraging people to be organ donors.
'She knows who she is and what she wants. She and Mark both want to change the world. And they are in the fortunate position of having the resources to do that.'

Mansion: Mark Zuckerberg's mansion in Palo Alto, California, which he bought for a reported $7 million

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Portraits of Pride II