Wong Chin Foo

Wong Chin Foo
王淸福
Wong Chin Foo pictured in the May 26, 1877 edition of Harpers Weekly
Born	1847 (1847) Jimo City, Shandong, China
Died	1898 (aged 50–51) Weihai, Shandong, China
Nationality	Chinese American
Occupation(s)	Activist, journalist and lecturer
Spouse	Liu Yu

Wong Chin Foo (Chinese: 王淸福; pinyin: Wáng Qīngfú; 1847–1898) was a Chinese American activist, journalist, lecturer, and one of the most prolific Chinese writers in the San Francisco press of the 19th century.

Wong, born in Jimo City, Shandong Peninsula, China, was among the first Chinese immigrants to be naturalized in 1873. Wong was dedicated to fighting for the equal rights of Chinese-Americans at the time of the Chinese Exclusion Act.^[1][2][3] Nowadays, some consider Wong to be similar to Martin Luther King Jr. or Mahatma Gandhi because of his efforts to defend Chinese-Americans' rights in his era.^[4][opinion]

Wong was born in 1847 on Jimo city to a merchant well off family^[5] In 1861, he was taken in by a missionary couple, and was baptized into the Baptist faith and came to the United States in 1867. In the following years he studied at Columbian College in Washington, D.C. and University at Lewisburg (later renamed Bucknell University) in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania in 1869–70, and left without finishing a degree.^[6][7]

Wong returned to China in 1870, after he studied and traveled in a number of American towns and cities. "He personally thought he would never see America again. If he did, he was very much mistaken."^[8] In 1871, Wong married Liu Yu San who was a student at Eliza Jewett Hartwell's mission school in Nanyang city. Wong took a new name Wong Yen Ping (Chinese: 王彥平; pinyin: Wáng Yánpíng).^[8] Wong worked for a short time in the Imperial Maritime Customs Service in Shanghai. He was dismissed and went to Ningbo city and Zhenjiang where he found a job as an interpreter in Customs House. While he was working in China, Wong was excommunicated from the Shanghai Baptist Church.^[8]

In his spare time, he advocated to set up a civic improvement organization for spiritual and moral uplift, also for social and economic changes as well as for political reform. He advocated to experience and absorb western culture. Meantime, Wong contributed a lot of effort for prohibition of opium. Wong was also involved in subversive, anti-government activity. One of activities was known as the Zhenjiang Incident. Using his position in the Customs House, Wong organized the importation of foreigners and weapons.^[9] Wong claimed that he had planned the "Overthrow of this corrupt Chinese government". His anti-government activities finally got the Qing government's attention which put a reward on his head. Wong fled China leaving his wife and child behind.^[8]

He then moved to Japan and (in 1873) back to the U.S.^[10][11] where he became a citizen in 1874.^[3][11] In the U.S., he lived mostly in the East and Midwest, traveling and lecturing. During this time anti-Chinese sentiment was rampant. Wong represented Chinese culture and promoted Chinese cuisine. He defended the Chinese community against charges of godlessness, depravity, and debauchery.^[12]

Wong organized the Chinese community for political and civil rights, he organized the first association of Chinese American voters and also established the Chinese Equal Rights League which united the Chinese Americans to fight against the Chinese Exclusion Act and 1892 Geary Act.

In 1893 Wong took on the federally appointed position of Chinese inspector.^[13] This office may seem to contradict his opposition to the Geary Act, seeing that he handled affairs such as the limitation of Chinese immigration and even the deportation of Chinese Americans who had entered illegally. But this role aligned with his goal of ending opium importation. He tolerated the exclusion of further Chinese immigration to prioritize his goal of acquiring political privileges for pre-existing Chinese Americans. ^[13]

In 1896, he attempted to create a new political party which could represent Chinese Americans, then corresponded with Sun Yat-sen to propose a Chinese revolutionary junta.^[14]

Wong established the first Chinese-language newspaper East of the Rockies, the Chinese American. He crusaded against vice in Chinatown,^[which?] survived several assassinations attempted by gangsters and won the conviction for libel of a gangster leader. Wong brought a Chinese theater in New York, established a language school and briefly opened a Confucian temple.^[15]

In 1898, he left the United States for a family reunion in China. In Hong Kong, he applied for a United States passport, which was issued but quickly revoked on orders from the State Department in Washington. When he proceeded to Shandong, he died of heart failure in Weihai.^[16]

Wong founded the country's first association of Chinese American voters in 1884. Later he formed the Chinese Equal Rights League to campaign against the 1892 Geary Act,^[17] which intensified the U.S. policy of Chinese Exclusion and made it increasingly difficult for Chinese immigrants to acquire citizenship in the US. Wong "had clearly begun to grasp the importance of pressure politics and coalition-building."^[18] Wong organized a group of Americans with a vested interest in the Chinese goals who were unlikely to make their voices heard in Congress. The Chinese Equal Rights League sent letters to the press like the North China Herald (a newspaper for Americans in China) to push more pressure on the Congress committee. On January 26, 1893, Wong testified in front of a committee of the Congress as the president of the Chinese Equal Rights League. Wong defended Chinese Americans as law-abiding, wealthy and good mannered people. However, Wong was less successful in the give-and-take that followed with members of the committee, including Thomas J. Geary who originated the Geary Act. Despite struggling in testimony before Congress, Wong's effort had positive effect on his cause. Three months after the hearing, Secretary of the Treasury Carlisle approved modifications to the government's procedures for enforcing the Geary Act.^[19]

Wong founded a weekly newspaper, The Chinese American, in New York City in 1883. His work was published in periodicals including the North American Review and Chautauquan.^[10] When a visitor to a saloon in New York's Chinatown accused a Chinese grocery of handling small cats and rats, Wong offered $500 reward for anyone who could prove that Chinese ate cats or rats, an offer which was not taken up.^[20] The incident provoked Wong into writing an article on Chinese food for the Brooklyn Eagle which offers a rich description of Chinese cooking, in which he says "chop soly", that is, Chop Suey "may justly be called the national dish of China" (though it is not the dish usually called Chop Suey in the United States).^[21]

In 1873, he began a speaking tour across the country, primarily speaking at Eastern and Midwestern cities to educate Americans on Chinese culture,^[22][23] frequently catching the attention of major sources of media such as the New York Times and the Boston Globe.^[24] Through these speeches, Wong sought to challenge Chinese discrimination in America by drawing similarities between Chinese and American morals, primarily centering his arguments around religion.^[22][25] In a time when the Asian American movement as a whole had yet to have been conceived, Wong Chin Foo focused his efforts on Chinese Americans who already lived in the United States at the time, even favoring the exclusion of further Chinese immigrants.^[26] He ultimately sought to acquire political privileges such as citizenship and voting rights for the pre-existing Chinese Americans.

In 1887 Wong Chin Foo published his most famous and controversial essay, "Why Am I a Heathen?" explaining his rejection of Christianity in favor of traditional Chinese beliefs.^[27][28] Prior to this essay, it was common for Wong Chin Foo to endorse Confucianism and point out his critiques of Protestant missionaries. But he would also seek to establish common grounds between Confucianism and Christianity.^[28] This essay marked a transformation from his previous, more conciliatory stance, and it prompted a number of responses, including "Why I Am Not a Heathen", written by his fellow Chinese immigrant Yan Phou Lee, a devout Christian.^[29]

Wong went up repeatedly against anti-Chinese activist Denis Kearney, heckling him and at one point challenging him to a duel, and giving Kearney his choice of weapon: chopsticks, Irish potatoes, or Krupp guns.^[17] He was a supporter of Sun Yat-Sen's revolutionary message.^[3]

Wong Chin Foo was targeted by Chinese gangsters due to his fervent stance against opium, gambling, and prostitution, along with his involvement in various court cases related to Chinese crime.^[30] As a result, Wong Chin Foo faced multiple murder attempts, yet he survived.

Other Chinese Americans disagreed with Wong's stance on Christianity. For example, "Why I Am Not a Heathen" by Yan Phou Lee was written as a rebuttal against Wong's arguments directed at the Church, with his primary argument being that those who joined with the Chinese-exclusion movement were not true Christians.^[31][32] Over the course of Wong's lecturing career, he had increasingly spoke out about his qualms with Christianity, alienating a substantial group of Chinese Americans.

Friction between regional affiliations within the Chinese community also made it difficult for Wong Chin Foo to amass larger support from Chinese immigrants. The idea of a cohesive Chinese identity had yet to be popularized amongst the Chinese community, even though other Americans hardly recognized this differentiation.^[30] At this time, nearly all Chinese immigrants in America came from rural counties of the Guangdong province, located in southern China.^[30] Even then, they typically affiliated themselves with the specific county they originated. Coming from the north, which had a reputation of education and wealth, and speaking a distinct dialect from the southerners, Wong Chin Foo encountered additional difficulties garnering the support from the Chinese immigrant community. It should also be noted that although he fought for the rights of all Chinese Americans, Wong Chin Foo demonstrated a greater sympathy towards other northern Chinese people.^[30]

There is a play called Citizen Wong inspired by Wong Chin Foo.^[33]

• Seligman, Scott D., The First Chinese American: The Remarkable Life of Wong Chin Foo (Hong Kong University Press, 2013).
• Wong Chin Foo, "Why Am I a Heathen?" North American Review 145.369 (August 1887), reprinted in Judy Yung, Gordon H. Chang, and Him Mark Lai (compilers and editors), Chinese American Voices (University of California Press (2006). ISBN 0-520-24310-2), p. 70–78.
• Yan Phou Lee, "Why I Am Not a Heathen: A Rejoinder to Wong Chin Foo" North American Review 145.370 (September 1887), reprinted in Judy Yung, Gordon H. Chang, and Him Mark Lai (compilers and editors), Chinese American Voices, University of California Press (2006). ISBN 0-520-24310-2, p. 79–85/