Chinese Prostitution :: essays research papers

In 1850, only 7 Chinese women were in San Francisco compared to the 4,018 Chinese men. These lows numbers couldve been because Chinese men were afraid to use up their wives and raise families in a place full of racial violence. The ontogenesis anti-Chinese sentiment and few labor opportunities reduced the chances for entry of Chinese women. The few women in San Franciscos Chinatown basically turned Chinatown into a bachelors society. Many men went to brothel houses to release their sexual tensions, thus change magnitude the demands and values of prostitution. Prostitution in Chinatown increased, and in 1870, 61 percent of the 3536 Chinese women in California as ravishs (Takaki, 1998). By 1879, seventy-one percent of Chinese women in San Francisco were prostitutes. However, the increased amount of Chinese women becoming a prostitute was not by choice. Immigrant women who became prostitutes, such as Wong Ah So, came to America on promises of wedding made by men only to be forced or tricked into prostitution.Chans book, "Asian Americas An Interpretive History", was able to shed some dismount as to why so few Chinese women were able to show the U.S. From the mid-19th century to the early 20th century, Chinese women were only allowed to enter the U.S. as the wives and daughters of merchants or U.S. citizens. Several acts, such as the 1882 Chinese exception map and the Page Law, were passed in an attempt to stop the immigration of Chinese because some anti-Chinese individuals assumed that all Chinese women were prostitutes. As Chan states in her book, the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act suspended the entry of Chinese laborers for ten years solely exempted merchants, students and teachers, diplomats, and travelers from its provisions (Chan, 54). Under the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, only women who were native-born, married or born overseas to merchants in the U.S. could immigrate, thus resulting in an average of 108 Chinese immigrant women in 1882. The P age Law of 1875, which "forbid the entry of Chinese, Japanese, and Mongolian puzzle laborers, women for the purpose of prostitution, and felons" was so strictly enforced that legitimate wives had trouble entree America (Chan, 54). Yung argues that in order for Chinese women to enter the country, they had to prove that they were " clean-living" women. "Bound feet became a moral standard for Chinese women at the checkpoint" (Yung, Judith). This standard, however, didnt break to all women.