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The Richest Chinese in America: Joe Shoong and the National Dollar Stores

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  Joe Shoong was the perfect immigrant to America. When Joe arrived in San Francisco just before the turn of the century around 1899, [1] Chinese immigrants typically took on false names, due to inadequacy of immigration officials to properly file immigrants. In 1850, Chinese were simply labeled as “China men” (where the slang comes from); later, officials used a semi-official prefix “Ah” before the family name to designate the immigrants as being from China. [2] Joe, however, took a different tact. Rather than following official procedures, he transcribed his Chinese name into English. Using his Chinese name, Zh ō u S ō ng 周崧 , [3] he took the English name Joe Soong. While a minor detail, this was just the first choice he made when immigrating to transform himself into an American. Soong started in the garment industry. By 1902, he had opened his first store in Vallejo, California with three partners, but in 1903 he bought out his partners and then some years later moved the store
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Lee Bing: Elusive "Founder" of Influential California delta town

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  The town of Locke is riddled with mystery and half-truths. Nestled in the heart of the swampy California delta is a town that feels almost ripped from an old western. Walking down the street, a saloon rests uncomfortably against the old gambling hall, and across the small street lies the imposing façade of a crumbling opera house. A proud plaque erected in 1970 in the town center reads: “Founded in 1912, by Tin Sin Chan, on this site,” [1] even while on a nearby café another poster informs visitors that the town of Lockeport was founded by a merchant named George W. Locke at the young age of 22, when he purchased land along the delta in 1852. [2] Another town map in the same street explains that the town was founded in 1915 by a merchant from Walnut Grove, Lee Bing, when he “approached local landowner George Locke and inquired if they could build a town on his land.” [3] Yet another newspaper article claims that George S. Locke, the father of George W. Locke, was actually the fo
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The Madness of Chinatown: Chinese Exclusion during 1880s San Francisco

  America in the 1880s On January 1 st , 1983, ARPANET adopted a “communications model” built by Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf that forever changed the world: the Internet. Today we live in a society where the internet is indistinguishable from the air: 5G waves flow through our brains 24 hours a day, whether we are calling people on our cell phones, driving our cars, relaxing with a good book, or taking a bath. For many people, the realization that they suddenly don’t have access to the internet is a cause for questioning the meaning of life: instant feelings of regret, sadness, and disconnection erupt, which cannot be resolved until a connection is re-established and the internet is back. However, 100 years before the advent of the internet, a more powerful revolution was occurring: the telephone. The inventor Alexander Graham Bell mournfully stated that he was “sick of the telephone” only two years after he had revealed the invention at the Centennial Exhibition in 1876. [1] After al
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