A woman of Asian descent sitting with bound feet. (Park County Local History Archive Photographic Collection)
Nestled in the Park County Local History Digital Archive, an electronic collection of visual and oral documentation from Park County, Colorado, lives a photograph titled “Woman of Asian descent sitting with bound feet.” Inscribed on the lower right corner, is an address: 619 Kearny St, San Francisco. And next to it, on the left, marks the name of a (presumably) now defunct company, Excelsior Gallery. There is no date on the image itself but a side tab in the Archive offers an approximation: 1880s-1890s. A couple decades before the Qing dynasty, the last imperial dynasty of China, died.
And the photo’s subject? A woman wrapped in a thick layer of voluminous cloth with two wide trousers peeking underneath. A plain iteration of the qizhuang, traditional clothing of the Manchu people who ruled China until 1911. She is smiling. Barely. Or creasing her lips in a way that suggests the thought. She has no recorded name yet in the same side tab under “Subject” are the words, “China Mary. Operated Laundry in Fairplay during 1880s.”
“China Mary,” like a piece of dishware. The Chinese “Jane Doe.”
Or an effeminate adaptation of the slur, “Chinaman.”
“China Mary” because for some Chinese women who immigrated to the United States in the nineteenth century, public records like the census, press, newspapers (and other contemporary authorities of that time) failed to accurately document their names out of negligence, prejudice, or indifference.
Now, these women are monochrome relics of an age fraught with xenophobic ideals. The Foreign Miners Act of 1850 that forced a $20/month tax on foreign Californian workers, for instance. The Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 forbade Chinese workers from immigrating to the United States for a decade. And The Expatriation Act of 1907 that withdrew citizenship from “American women” if they married a “foreign citizen.”
But beyond this lay another depth of terror. Spurred by sinophobia and widespread paranoia, the Yellow Peril spiked anti-Chinese sentiment to a national high across the United States (most notably, in western states). And at its forefront, white working class citizens (many of whom were immigrants themselves from Great Britain, Ireland, and Germany) afraid of competition for cheap manual labor, a deep distrust of “Oriental” cultures (East Asian customs and religions were considered alarmingly deviant and heathenish), and a conspiracy involving imminent Eastern invasion (that would upturn American democracy, Christianity, and technological innovation3). Terrified of a threat their eighteenth century ancestors already committed, white Americans projected their anxieties through literature, political cartoons, and media marketing campaigns that mocked the Chinese for their physical attributes, supposed moral characters, and incompetence. Chinese men were vilified and Chinese women hypersexualized.
Treated as immorally desirable objects of attraction, Chinese women were even blanketed as “exotic prostitutes” and in 1875, were banned from immigrating to the United States under the Page Act. A hypostatization whose sexist objectifications echo even today, in the twenty-first century.
Contemporary times illustrate our fascination with East Asian fetishization as far from over. The 2021 Atlanta spa shootings, for instance, are a testament to the “sexually exotic” myth, where Asian women are treated as a passive receptacle for sexual fantasies. And that same year, St. Louis Public Radio reported a hate crime against Julia Ho, an Asian American woman who was out of town when her contractor (who she had hired for home renovations) called her about a noose hanging from a tree outside her house4.
But remarkably, with the aid of antiquated anonymity, “China Mary” fashioned her own myth.
Ah-Yuen. Ah Lum. Mary Ah Gue. Mary Susa. Mary Sing. Sing Choy. Mary Sing Choy. She owned a laundromat, a restaurant, a “China shop”, and opium dens. She was a labor activist, a labor contractor, a prostitute, a gardener, a witness to the Bear River City Riot, and an avid gambler. Purportedly, her photo was even sold as an “exotic tourist photo.”
Are there multiple women with this name, or one with multiple identities? Did she or they live in Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, or Colorado? What was her or their life? And what thoughts percolate behind her eyes? The aura of enigma, ironically, sheltering and preserving her memory just as it also strips her of identity. Today, erasure allows her to form new iterations of capability that surpass what she may or may not have done in her own time. She stands out in a time when white Americans would claim otherwise.
And the woman in this photo, hair shaved or tied so tight only a few wisps escape above her temple, ears adorned with three hooped earrings, her slippered “bound feet” crossed on a footstool while the rest of her body rests on a wide wooden chair styled in the back with curlicues, one of her hands clutching a handkerchief, the other resting on her lap, her eyes, where several points of light glisten, the most telling; filled with words her face deigns to tell. A denouncement of what is witnessed in the Western world, of what is and what is not there. The photo, labeling her a “Woman of Asian descent sitting with bound feet” because for an audience looking in, she simply is.
So like others, I look at her. Witness the “woman” of “Asian descent.” Is this the face of waiting? Of looking? Of becoming? Of otherizing? Did she shuffle to the chair before sitting? Did she walk quickly? Did she find the chair comfortable? Did she look to her right and examine the flowers, arrange it herself, or utter a few words about the still life flourishing beside her, marking her face with its scent or shadow?
Did she remember, in a sudden spark of memory, her reasons for immigrating? Was it, like so many of her contemporaries, for economic opportunity? So that she might gain riches and return wealthier? To escape, for a time, the political turmoil of her native country?
Sitting on her chair, what did she see? And what did she, countless years ago, hope to see?
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Citations:
1. Chan, S. (2022, November 20). China Mary: A Different Look at Her Story. Tucson’s Chinese History. Retrieved October 9, 2024, from https://sandychan.net/?page_id=434
2. Ashby, Browning, Boff, Calcamp, Cleveland, Dagg, Down, Espinoza, Fullenkamp, Hunker, McCollum, Miles, Riley, Rued, Sheffer, Singer, Wang, Widmer. (2013, season-03). Asian Immigration: The “Yellow Peril.” Race in America 1880-1940. Retrieved October 8, 2024, from https://digitalgallery.bgsu.edu/student/exhibits/show/race-in-us/contributors-to-the-exhibit
3. Merritt, C. (n.d.). Ah-Yuen, A Rare, Historical Find. Utah Women’s History. Retrieved October 10, 2024, from https://utahwomenshistory.org/the-women/ah-yuen/
4. Davis, C. (2021, August 13). St. Louisan Calls For Anti-Racist Action After Noose Is Found Hanging From Her Tree. STLPR. https://www.stlpr.org/race-identity-faith/2021-08-13/st-louisan-calls-for-anti-racist-action-after-noose-is-found-hanging-from-her-tree
