Reply #17: Chinatown did not start life as an affinity group or tourist trap. [View All]

[imdjh]

1859
"The Chinese School" was created. Chinese children were assigned to this "Chinese only" school. They were not permitted into any other public schools in San Francisco.

1870
Anti-Chinese ordinances are passed in San Francisco to curtail their housing and employment options. Queues are banned.

1880
US and China sign treaty giving the US the right to limit but "not absolutely prohibit" Chinese immigration. California's Civil Code passes anti-miscegination law.

1885
The "Chinese School" was renamed the" Oriental School," so that Chinese, Korean, and Japanese students could be assigned to the school.

1900
Tung Wah Dispensary opens in Chinatown

Chinese Hospital
845 Jackson St.
San Francisco, CA 94133
415.982.2400
4th Annual Women's Health Day
The first Chinese people to San Francisco were forced to settle in Chinatown. Isolated from the rest of the city, they did not have access to the services provided by San Francisco institutions. Schools and hospitals were not open to the Chinese people for decades. Even during the bubonic plague outbreak at the turn of the century, the city’s health department quarantined Chinatown rather than open health facilities to afflicted Chinese. The only facility available that practiced western medicine was the Tung Wah Dispensary-a dispensary staffed by Christian missionaries.

1924
The "Oriental School" was renamed Commodore Stockton School. Alice FongYu was the first Chinese teacher. Students were barred from speaking Chinese in school or on the playground.