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. 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 d...
An exploration of San Francisco Chinatown typically NOT covered by tours