"It is hard to be born a woman but hopeless to be born a Chinese": The life and times of Flora Belle Jan

"It is hard to be born a woman but hopeless to be born a Chinese": The Life and Times of Flora Belle Jan

In 1924 the U.S. Congress passed the National Origins Quota Act aimed at excluding undesirable immigrants, namely those from southern and eastern Europe, and all aliens ineligible for citizenship, specifically the Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans. That same year, a group of sociologists was investigating the "Oriental problem," or the causes of racial conflict on the Pacific Coast. Under the direction of Robert E. Park of the University of Chicago, the Survey of Race Relations staff employed the life histories method, interviewing over three hundred predominantly Chinese and Japanese Americans about their early lives, immigration experiences, aspirations, world views, cultural conflicts, and relationships with other groups.' Among them was Flora Belle Jan, the seventeenyear-old daughter of the proprietor of the Yet Far Low chop suey restaurant in Fresno's China Alley. In a one-hour interview with investigator Merle Davis held at her father's restaurant, Jan said:

When I was a little girl, I grew to dislike the conventionality and rules of Chinese life. The superstitions and customs seemed ridiculous to me. My parents have wanted me to grow up a good Chinese girl, but I am an American and I can't accept all the old Chinese ways and ideas. A few years ago when my Mother took me to worship at the shrine of my ancestor and offer a plate of food, I decided it was time to stop this foolish custom. So I got up and slammed down the rice in front of the idol and said, "So long Old Top, I don't believe in you anyway." My mother didn't like it a little bit.2

As she explained further, it was not just Chinese conventions that she disliked and attacked, but American hypocrisy as well. Flora Belle told Davis that she had already written an article in the local newspaper poking fun at her Chinese male friends ("The Sheiks of Chinatown") and a skit that ridiculed the modern woman in American society ("Old Mother Grundy and Her Brood of Unbaptized Nuns").

She also criticized the "snobbishness" of sorority girls at her college for allowing only rich girls into their organizations, adding matter-of-factly, "Of course being a Chinese girl, I'm not eligible to membership in a sorority, but some of the girls are awfully good to me."3

Davis was evidently fascinated by Flora Belle's keen intellect, outgoing personality, and unconventional outlook, for he quickly wrote Park that "Flora Belle is the only Oriental in town apparently who has the charm, wit and nerve to enter good White society... She is both a horror and source of pride to her staid Chinese friends, and is quite the talk of American town."4 In other words, she was living proof that contrary to popular nativist and racist opinions, Asians were assimilable and could become good Americans. She therefore confirmed Park's theory that all groups, regardless of race or ethnicity, would eventually become integrated into mainstream American life, according to his postulated race relations cycle of contact, conflict, accommodation, and assimilation. To become assimilated, in Park's view, meant Anglo conformity and the erasure of one's ethnicity.5

Clearly, here was a Chinese American woman who stood out among her second-generation peers. On the whole, American-born Chinese who came of age in the 1920s aspired to become acculturated or adapted to American middleclass life.6 They were, after all, U.S. citizens by birth, educated in American public schools, and influenced by their teachers, peers, and the popular media to be Westernized in appearance, outlook, and lifestyle. However, their ability to acculturate was constrained by intergenerational and cultural conflicts at home and racism, sexism, and economic segmentation in the larger society. Having to negotiate between cultures, between American ideals of democracy and the realities of socioeconomic and political exclusion, Chinese Americans, like their Mexican American and Japanese American contemporaries, responded in a variety of ways based on the interplay of historical forces, cultural values, family circumstances, and individual personalities? Many who were busy with survival just toed the line, acquiescing to the expectations of conservative parents and the limitations placed on them by the larger society. The majority of second-generation Chinese Americans chose to adopt a bicultural lifestyle or a blend of what they took to be "the best of the East and the West" while maintaining a segregated existence from mainstream society. Some, imbued with a strong sense of Chinese nationalism, looked to China for gainful employment, social acceptance, and political participation.8 Few rebelled as Flora Belle Jan did in rejecting Chinese customs, claiming an American identity, and critiquing social hypocrisy among her peers. She was what was called a "flapper" in the jazz age of the 1920s-a woman who defied social control and conventions, who was modern, independent, sophisticated, and frank in speech, dress, morals, and lifestyle