Most people may have heard of Ross Alley in Chinatown, but few would have paid attention to a smaller alley just uphill from it that has two names: Old Chinatown Lane... and Donaldina Cameron Alley, probably because both pointed to a dark part of Chinatown history that's not exactly... tourist-friendly.
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| Old Chinatown Lane // Donaldina Cameron Alley |
Previously we had discussed the rise and fall of the Tongs in Chinatown, and one of the more profitable and despicable activities the Tongs engaged in was the human trafficking... of young girls, both as servants and as prostitutes. We also mentioned Donaldina Cameron then. What we did not mention were the horrible conditions the girls worked under. The very young ones are sent off to work as servants as child slave labor. The prettier ones were sold as concubines. The less fortunate, too old to be servants, were forced into working for brothels. Even though there were supposedly contracts that would allow them to work off their debts, most were charged usurious commissions, fees, and expenses they can never hope to work off, and indeed, many died before their contract terms are up, due to harsh treatment, venereal diseases, or opium addiction. The traffickers also spread rumors about "white devils" are even harsher to discourage escape attempts.
By the 1870s, it was recognized that someone needed to rescue Chinese girls and women and save them from a life of sin, by converting them to Christianity. While the male clergy denounced prostitution and all Asian women, their wives understood actual action must be taken. It fell to a Presbyterian Minister's wive to fulfill this need. In 1874, the Presbyterian Occidental Mission Home for Girls was established in Chinatown on Jackson, and within the month two Chinese women walked in, seeking shelter. And the news soon spread: there are some "white devils" who do help, and more women escaped. The Tongs do not dare attack the house directly as that will surely bring in the police. Soon the Mission needed bigger quarters, and they moved to 920 Sacramento St.
NOTE: They are not the only ones. There's also "Ladies' Protection and Relief Society" which rescues destitute girls, and sometimes, brothel rescuees.
By 1882, the Chinese Exclusionary Act had passed, which prohibited further immigration of Chinese into the US, even if they are verified wives of US residents or citizens. Furthermore, it also outlawed marriage between American citizens and Chinese immigrants. This has the side effect of making Chinese unmarried women extremely valuable, and human trafficking from China even more lucrative.
By the early 1890s, the combined shelter and Presbyterian Mission had 40 residents. The shelter was run by Margaret Culbertson, and Culbertson, already old and frail by that time, needed help, and that's when Donaldina "Dolly" Cameron, a young woman of 23, arrived. She only expected to stay for a year to teach the girls to sew. She ended up staying for 40 years.
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| Donaldina Cameron, center back row in black, and her wards, date unknown? courtesy "White Devil's Daughter" by Julia Flynn Siler |
With Donaldina Cameron taking over temporarily, Martha Culbertson went on a long-postponed vacation, only to die suddenly, leaving Cameron to run the entire shelter. The story had it that the morning of her first day there, a stick of dynamite was found on the doorsteps as a warning from the local Tong. But Cameron paid it no heed, for she was there to rescue women by the grace of God and Jesus. And she made friends with the San Francisco Police's Chinatown Squad, who kept an eye on the house. She also kept all the girls inside, fearful of recapture, except for carefully orchestrated Sunday outings to church. She taught all rescued girls her Christian values, as well as life skills such as sewing and housekeeping, and the first rescuees, such as Tien-Fuh Wu, became her assistants teaching the newer arrivals. As the girls recovered, Cameron gave provided each a future... work outside of Chinatown (where the Tongs do not reach), passage back to China (if they wanted it), or even marry a Chinese husband (the groom will be carefully vetted by Cameron herself, often far from California). Her wards call her 老母 lo-mo, mother in Cantonese.
Cameron also participated in rescue attempts, as she became well informed of how the brothels were operated by former occupants, and she will often call upon her friends in the Chinatown squad to assist, and stories were told of a white and angry angel in the night, escorted by burly policemen, and her loyal Chines translator companion Wu, a rescuee herself, chasing and rescuing abused girls in the alleys of Chinatown.
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| SFPD Chinatown Squad rescuing a girl from upper floors, with Donaldina Cameron and companion, possibly Tien-Fuh Wu looking from below date unknown, courtesy of CameronHouse.org |
However, the Tongs knew how to play the system, and many in the government are on the Tong's payroll to run interference, such as police "arresting" rescuees for "theft"... then bailed out by their former captors. During one such incident (probably 1900), Cameron jumped into the police buggy to go with one of her wards to jail and actually spent some time in the jail cell.
In another case, a corrupt judge held a sham trial far from San Francisco... on a rural road in today's Palo Alto. However, Cameron was able to intercept the girl and her kidnappers with help of good police officers who suspected the judge is "on the take". A new trial was held, only to see ANOTHER corrupt judge intercept the girl and returned her to her abductors. But this time, Stanford University professors and students noticed, and started a protest. Important people started paying attention, and a true investigation started. It took years, but the investigation eventually lead to the conviction of 30 traffickers, who were deported or jailed, and that was the beginning of the end of sex trafficking in Chinatown.
The 920 building survived the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, one of the few buildings that did so, however, the inferno that followed the earthquake was unstoppable. Cameron and her staff evacuated the occupants, about 50 girls total, and after several moves, eventually to the East Bay and escaped the inferno. Cameron managed to write down much of what happened and that was one of the few eyewitness accounts of that incident. The 920 building was dynamited by the city that day in futile hopes to slow the fire, but that is a different story.
It was estimated that Cameron had rescued about 3000 girls during her career, and she campaigned hard to relax immigration laws that lead to the gender imbalance in Chinatown that caused the trafficking and mistreatment of these girls. She eventually retired in 1935, having virtually stamped out sexual slavery and trafficking in Chinatown.
Today, the rebuilt "920" house is known as Donaldina Cameron House. And as we have seen earlier, an alley now also bears her name for the legacy she left behind.
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