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Prostitution in the 20th century in the United States
The history of prostitution 1858
The history of prostitution 1858
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Chinese Prostitutes in the 1900s
In California, between 1850’s to the Chinese Exclusion Act, most of the Chinese women who came to San Francisco were either slaves or indentured. They were often lured, kidnapped or purchased and forced to work as prostitutes at the brothels which is run by secret society of the Tongs of San Francisco. Chinese prostitutes also were smuggled and had worked at the Chinatown brothels in the Comstock Mines in Nevada. Chinese prostitutes were commonly known as prostitutes of the lowest order. “Both outcast slatterns and Asian slaves stood at the edge of the irregular marketplace, far more socially stigmatized than ordinary prostitutes.”
The demand for Chinese prostitutes in California was primarily due to the shortage of Chinese women and the prohibitions and taboo against sexual relations between Chinese men and White women. During the period of unrestricted Asian immigration from 1850 to 1882, more than 100,000 Chinese men but only 8,848 Chinese women entered the United States. The incredible sex ratio and the isolation of Chinese men from white communities generated nearly ideal demand conditions for prostitution, but white prostitutes rarely accepted Chinese customers. The same merchants and members of protective associations who had arranged passages and jobs for male sojourners leaped into the breath, supplying Chinese prostitutes to their own immense profit. These secret Chinese Tongs based in San Francisco controlled Asian prostitution in San Francisco and in the mining towns such as Comstock, Nevada. The Hip Yee Tong, the secret society that reportedly started the prostitution trafficking in 1852. “These organizations, the tongs, soon monopolized the control of vice—prosti...
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... New York, NY: Van Rees Press.
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3. Hirata, Lucie Chen. 1979. “Chinese Immigrant Women in Nineteenth-Century California.” In Women of America. Ed. C.R. Berkin and M.B. Norton. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Co.
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James, Edward, Janet James, and Paul Boyer. Notable American Women, 1607-1950. Volume III: P-Z. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971. Print.
This nation was relatively stable in the eyes of immigrants though under constant political and economic change. Immigration soon became an outlet by which this nation could thrive yet there was difficulty in the task on conformity. Ethnic groups including Mexicans and Chinese were judged by notions of race, cultural adaptations and neighborhood. Mary Lui’s “The Chinatown Trunk Mystery” and Michael Innis-Jimenez’s “Steel Barrio”, provides a basis by which one may trace the importance of a neighborhood in the immigrant experience explaining the way in which neighborhoods were created, how these lines were crossed and notions of race factored into separating these
Tachiki, Amy; Wong, Eddie; Odo, Franklin, eds. (1971). Roots: An Asian American Reader. University of California, Los Angeles Press.
He, Qiang Shan. "Chinese-American Literature." New Immigrant Literatures in the United States: A Sourcebook to Our Multicultural Literary Heritage. Ed. Alpana Sharma Knippling. WEstport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1996. 44-65.
The first large number of Chinese arriving in America in the mid-1850s, like many other immigrants to the new land, found no "gold mountain" from which instant wealth could be attained. However, America's expansion to the West and the economic boom of the Gold Rush era did provide particular employment possibilities for the Chinese. They quickly became an inexpensive but formidable work force for the construction of the western portion of the transcontinental railroad system. They also played an important ...
As many women took on a domestic role during this era, by the turn of the century women were certainly not strangers to the work force. As the developing American nation altered the lives of its citizens, both men and women found themselves struggling economically and migrated into cities to find work in the emerging industrialized labor movement . Ho...
California society, and people as individuals, could not decide whether they relished their newfound freedom or despised it. Some people attempted to recreate the lives they knew at home, while many others threw off the shackles of their old proper lives. Victorian culture emerged in the 1820’s and 1830’s in America. At 1850, the time of the Gold Rush, it was at it’s high point. Anyone who came to California from the states, no matter what their position, would have come from a place influenced by the Victorian way of life. This included strict ideas about the roles of men and women, taboos on drinking and gambling, high value set on hard work, Christian ethics, and ethnic prejudices.2 People who came to California experienced something quite different.
"The Painted Cohorts": selected readings on nineteenth-century prostitution from Stephen Crane, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, ed. Kevin J. Hayes (New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1999).
All women are too sensitive! All Mexicans are illegal immigrants! If you’re from the South, then you are ignorant! Most people have heard at least one of these stereotypes pertaining to a certain group. Some people believe them whilst others do not. American Born Chinese illustrates three stories depicting the custom of stereotypes surrounding society: “The Monkey King”, the story of Monkey King’s thirst for infinite power, and his quest for atonement; “Jin Wang”, the story an awkward boy who tries to “fit in” the community around from but constantly fails; and “Danny”, the story about a high schooler who feels uncomfortable by his stereotypically negative Chinese cousin Chin-Kee. In this day-and-age, stereotypes are what bring people together, and stereotypes are what set people apart. To be ignorant of stereotypes would be a disastrous event as one would consequentially be ignorant to the prejudices engulfing them daily. Even though this causes problems throughout different communities, the way some individuals choose to address stereotypes is through laughter. From start to finish the graphic novel, American Born Chinese, by Gene Luen Yang purposefully satirizes Asian stereotypes in hopes that the reader opens up to the fact that stereotypes are indeed existent in today’s society.
It should be noted that only a very small number of Chinese immigrants came to the United States prior to 1850. This number began to increase dramatically between the year 1850 and 1882, when the news of the discovery of gold mines in California reached China. At that period of time, western invasions and civil unrest had led to inflation, starvation and loss of land in southern China. Therefore, many young men sailed for the "Gold Mountain" ...
The first Chinese immigrants to arrive in America came in the early 1800s. Chinese sailors visited New York City in the 1830s (“The Chinese Experience”); others came as servants to Europeans (“Chinese Americans”). However, these immigrants were few in number, and usually didn’t even st...
California was becoming known for its entrepreneurial opportunities; soon many were coming to California, not to work in the mining filed, rather to set up business and cater to the mining communities. Soon there were saloons, hotels, and red light districts spread throughout San Francisco and outer mining communities. Women who were forced to rely on men to support them back home, came to California and were able to work and support themselves in these towns.
Schneider, Dorothy. American Women in the Progressive Era 1900-1920. New York: Facts on File, 1993.
Wu, Ellen D. "Asian Americans and the 'model Minority' Myth." Los Angeles Times. 23 Jan. 2014. Los Angeles Times. Web. 04 Feb. 2014. .
Rohrbough, M. (1997). Chapter 17: The California gold rush and the American nation, days of Gold, University of California Press: Berkeley