Delta immigrants’ contributions to culture

Last week I wrote about the effort during post-Civil War Reconstruction to bring Chinese migrants to Arkansas to work on the large cotton plantations of eastern Arkansas. Although this experiment failed and some of the Chinese Americans left Arkansas, others stayed. Over time they, along with new arrivals, became part of the social and economic fabric of the state, especially the Delta area.

We do not know how many Chinese lived in Arkansas until 1870, when the U.S. census for the first time counted Chinese residents (as well as Japanese and Asian Indian residents), showing a mere 98 Chinese living in the state. The count increased to 133 in 1880. That same year the American Chinese population was 110,291.

Census records also document that very few Chinese women came to Arkansas until after World War I. Of the 122 Chinese counted in the 1880 census, only two were females. That number increased slowly, rising to 65 in 1930. This disparity meant that large numbers of Chinese men lived alone in Arkansas prior to 1920, although at least in the early years, a few did marry white or Black women.

As I explained last week, the early Chinese immigrants to Arkansas encountered problems in adapting to life in an alien culture. Yet they were persevering and adaptable. Plus the Chinese in Arkansas were often related or had a cultural connection.

Historian Henry Tsai has written that “75 percent of the Chinese in Arkansas belonged to three clans, namely, the Chos, the ‘Joes,’ and the Fongs. Other clans, such as the Yees, the Lums, and the Situs, made up the rest of the Chinese population” in Arkansas.

While a large percentage of the pre-1900 Chinese in Arkansas worked in the laundry business, a few made livings as cooks, including Hong Lee, a 38-year-old man who in 1900 was cooking for the patients at the Army-Navy Hospital in Hot Springs.

Tom Wing of Little Rock decided in 1895 that the capital city was ready for its first Chinese restaurant. An advertisement in the Arkansas Gazette proclaimed: “Chinese Restaurant. Tom Wing, proprietor, 107 East Markham Street.” Wing’s advertisement promised the “best 25 cent meals in the city; good cooks; prompt service.”

The Chinese population grew considerably in the first two decades of the 20th century; the majority of new arrivals opened small grocery stores, usually in areas with large Black populations.

A list of towns with Chinese-owned stores in 1950 is a virtual tour of the Delta: Cotton Plant, West Memphis, McGehee, Helena, Round Pond, Lake Village, West Helena, Pine Bluff, Turrell, Tyronza, Holly Grove. Marianna and Dermott at one time had four Chinese-owned stores operating simultaneously.

Cotton Plant in Woodruff County, never a large town, had multiple Chinese-owned stores. The first Chinese family to establish a store there was an immigrant named Jeu Na-pan. Jeu and his wife had four children, all of whom seem to have prospered. They attended the local white schools—a situation not found in some segregated states—became members of the Girl Scouts, and were generally well accepted.

A second Chinese family, headed by Gee Bow and his wife Mai Wai Wa Bow of Canton, China, opened a store in Cotton Plant. Their children were as successful as they were numerous, all having in common a desire for education.

Joe Wong Chou settled in Cotton Plant during the late 1950s. His store faced less competition since the Jeu and Bow families were bowing out. Wong’s Grocery was not only a store, but originally the family lived in the back. All of the Wong children—who later changed their names to Chou [pronounced “joe”], their original Chinese family name—were excellent students, and all entered professions out of state.

I met Don Chou while in graduate school at the University of Arkansas when he was an undergraduate history major. After taking a law degree at Boston University, he moved to California, where he has practiced law, and in 1980 co-authored a book on immigration and civil rights.

Many Chinese immigrants seem to have avoided political activity. However, in 1943 the Arkansas General Assembly considered a proposed bill to outlaw land ownership by non-citizens by Senator C.B. Ragsdale from Arkansas County. While the Ragsdale bill was aimed at the 22,000 Japanese Americans held at two Arkansas relocation centers, it would have impacted Chinese Arkansans, who were mostly non-citizens.

Possibly with guidance from the Chinese consulate in Houston, leading Arkansas Chinese businessmen organized a coalition with white business and political leaders, and the Ragsdale bill was withdrawn.

Like immigrants before and after, Chinese-born Arkansans worried about their children losing fluency in the Chinese language. In early 1940, the Chinese Arkansans were able to open a Chinese language school at McGehee, with the purpose of teaching the language to the younger population.

The school, which held classes on Sundays, was under the leadership of headmistress Wu Yaoming, a recent immigrant from China. The outbreak of World War II caused the school to close after two years.

In 1943, when China was fighting the Japanese, the Chinese Association of Arkansas was formed. Claiming a membership of 224, the Association strove to advance the interests of Chinese Arkansans while providing support to war-torn China. Members contributed $16,865 to the Chinese war effort. While the Association failed to prosper, it did survive as a social organization.

Since World War II, Arkansas has seen a gradual increase in Asian immigrants. The medical infrastructure in central Arkansas—along with the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and Walmart at Bentonville—has attracted large numbers of Chinese, Indians, and other Asians.

Some of the Chinese Arkansans who lived elsewhere have returned to Arkansas. Perhaps the best example is Dr. James Y. Suen, who holds a distinguished professorship and is the Pamela Rakhshan chairman of the Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Medicine.

Dr. Suen, whose immigrant parents had one of several Chinese grocery stores in Dermott for more than 50 years, was a highly regarded member of the faculty at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston when he was hired by UAMS. He was co-founder and director of the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute at UAMS.