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Ethnic Surprises: The Early History of Chinese and Japanese
“Chop Sooy and Suds” reads a 1902 headline attesting to the long history of Asians in Grand Rapids, but Chinese laundrymen had already been here for thirty years. By 1914 Stickley Brothers had recruited a Japanese furniture decorator to their factory. Front and center in a 1929 photograph taken at the Clinic for Infant Feeding, we see his wife and two sons, testifying to the family's sustained presence here.
Wong Chin Foo, in Grand Rapids in April of 1874. After a fight he finally received his citizenship papers here, little good it ever did him.
Coll. 141-10-17, Grand Rapids Historical Society Records Collection. Reproduction and copyright regarding these images is available from Grand Rapids History & Special Collections, Archives, Grand Rapids Public Library, Grand Rapids, MI.
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The story of Asians in early Grand Rapids includes successes (wealthy entrepreneur Chan Hoy), surprises (the first Chinese granted U.S. citizenship got it here), and disappointments (no Chinese could attain “full” citizenship then, and Chan Hoy was refused re-entry after a business trip abroad). The experiences of early Asian immigrants will be set into the context of laws targeting them specifically, answer some questions (why so many laundries and so few women), and raise many more issues about the lives of Asian immigrants introduced into a booming Midwestern city 140 years ago.
The two small Japanese-American boys with their mother in the center of the photo are Robert and James Seino Jr., the children of James and Karou Seino. They will be featured in Diana’s talk.
Coll. 141-10-17, Grand Rapids Historical Society Records Collection. Reproduction and copyright regarding these images is available from Grand Rapids History & Special Collections, Archives, Grand Rapids Public Library, Grand Rapids, MI.
Coll. 141-10-17, Grand Rapids Historical Society Records Collection. Reproduction and copyright regarding these images is available from Grand Rapids History & Special Collections, Archives, Grand Rapids Public Library, Grand Rapids, MI.
“Ethnic Surprises: The Early History of Chinese and Japanese in Grand Rapids,” October 11, 2012, 7:00 p.m. Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum, presented by Diana Barrett, Grand Rapids Historical Commission.
