История первых китайских прачечных в Уолла-Уолла: от золотой лихорадки к столетней традиции

Lured by the prospect of finding riches in the goldfields of California in the 1850s, Chinese men fled the famine and economic hardships of their homeland to the United States. They sought wealth to send back home and hoped to return eventually to their villages with enough money to build impressive houses and take care of their families. After a few years, finding gold in California became harder and many Chinese immigrants moved to new territories in the West and sought different ways to earn a living. The first Chinese individuals to appear in a Walla Walla census report were two laundrymen listed in the 1860 rolls. Both Tung Sing, 32, and Hen Wah, 28, listed their occupations as “washing and ironing.” What drew these two men to Walla Walla the year before the discovery of gold in Idaho in 1861 may be explained by gold found near Fort Colville as early as 1855, as this seems to be when the first Chinese arrived in the Washington Territory. Walla Walla had a total population of 722 in 1860, but because there were more men than women (who traditionally would be doing washing at home), there was sufficient business for two Chinese laundrymen to make a living. Fort Walla Walla was situated right downtown at that time but it is unlikely the garrison provided customers for the Chinese. The fort already had access to laundry services; the 1860 garrison census listed 12 women whose occupation was “laundress.” Each of these laundress's husbands was stationed at the fort. Hen Wah and Tung Sing were likely partners in a laundry or one was an apprentice. Being the only two Chinese people in town must have been lonely. Small towns were culturally isolated with no nearby access to a Chinese community where they could participate in traditional practices or recreational activities. Chinese men did not emigrate to the U.S. with the goal of becoming laundrymen. In China, laundry was considered women's work as it was in the United States. However, laundries required little start-up capital so they were often the first business a recent Chinese immigrant — or a man transitioning from mining or railroad work — could establish. These laundries were “hand laundries” and required only a building, a water source, a stove, fuel, a washtub, irons and a willingness to work very long hours. A Chinese “washerman” usually lived on the premises of his business. The discovery of gold in Idaho in 1861 created considerable prospector traffic through Walla Walla. Miners, both white and Chinese, who wintered in town increased the demand for washing and ironing. As early as 1862, complaints appeared in the local newspaper criticizing Chinese laundrymen for taking business that was “sought after by emigrants and other needy families.” The convenience of Chinese laundries situated on Main Street was seen as negative as it tempted customers to patronize them. Increased taxation of these businessmen was encouraged, hoping the tax burden would cause the Chinese men to leave town altogether. A taxation bill was indeed passed by the Territorial Legislature in 1864, requiring every Chinese businessman to pay $6 a month. The principal object of the bill was described as “promoting the interests of the white man and to protect white labor.” In 1864 when a new Chinese laundry business opened across from the Walla Walla Statesman office on Third Street, a Statesman author used a false name for the establishment that drew on racist stereotypes of Chinese names. The author went on to mock the owners' appearance and speech in a racial caricature. Despite racist claims that Chinese laundries deprived potential white businesses from starting up, it is more likely that others were dissuaded by the physical work and long hours laundry work required: fuel gathering, scrubbing, hovering over huge pots of boiling water. And then there was the ironing. Irons were heavy, 8½ pounds of iron, and they had to be heated and reheated over hot coals to a temperature that was not so hot it would scorch clothes. Chinese laundrymen engaged in a practice criticized as unhygienic. In order to moisten clothes they were ironing, they sprayed water on them from their mouths. A directory published in San Francisco in 1865 included a section devoted to Walla Walla's businesses. Hen Lee's Laundry was listed on Second Street while those of Hop Wa, Lee Song and Shum Lee were all located on Main. No specific addresses were given so it is not possible to know if the three men on Main had separate businesses or worked together. These four laundrymen were the only Chinese men listed in this directory. Hen Lee is often cited as being the first Chinese resident of Walla Walla. However, since Hen Wah and Tung Sing were listed in the first census (1860) it is possibly they who deserve that distinction. Because there would not be a city directory specific to Walla Walla published until 1880, newspapers and census reports must be relied on for information about Chinese laundries. In 1868 Hen Sing, washerman, was brought up before Recorder Lacy and fined $12 and costs for doing business without a license. Lee Chew, a laundryman who over time had laundries on both the east and west coasts, wrote a memoir in 1903 describing work in a Chinese laundry: "Work in a laundry begins early on Monday morning about seven o'clock. There are generally two men, one of whom washes while the other does the ironing. The man who irons does not start in till Tuesday, as the clothes are not ready for him to begin till that time. So he has Sundays and Mondays as holidays. The man who does the washing finishes up on Friday night, and so he has Saturday and Sunday. Each works only five days a week, but those are long days from seven o'clock in the morning till midnight." Two Walla Walla Statesman articles covered events in “washhouses” in 1875. The first described the robbery of $600 in coin from a Chinese laundry on Main near the St. Louis Hotel. The second was intended to be humorous and described an argument about the starching of a collar overheard in an unnamed Chinese laundry. The gold rush in Idaho was diminishing by the late 1860s, but by 1870, Walla Walla’s city’s population had swelled to nearly 1,400 residents and many were customers in need of laundry services. The 1880 census records that the Chinese individuals in Walla Walla who did not work in laundries were domestic servants or “dish washers” or miners. In the 1880 census, 44 Chinese individuals listed their occupation “as “Laundry Man,” “Hand in Laundry,” “Wrk. in Laundry,” “Laundry Keeper” or “Keeps Laundry.” Until 1889 the only laundry establishments in Walla Walla were run by Chinese individuals. And despite the onset of competing laundries, they kept Walla Walla's clothes clean into the 20th century.