istians. The story of Wong Ah So is typical of the lives of these rescued Chinese prostitutes. Born into a poor Catonese family, she was betrothed and married to a Chinese laundryman at 19 and taken to America. Even if I just peeled potatoes there, he told my mother I would earn lots of money. Upon arrival in San Francisco, Wong Ah So discovered that her husband had lied to her and her mother and that she had been brought to America to work as a prostitute. Seven months later she met a friend of her fathers at a banquet. The friend recognized her and sought help from the Presbyterian Mission on her behalf. She was later rescued in Fresno, California, and placed in the home, where she recalled she started learning English and how to weave, and I am going to send money to my mother when I can. I cant help but cry, but it is going to be better Wong Ah Sos story end happily but most of the other prostitutes did not end quite so well. Many of them were not as lucky as China Annie, and Polly Bemis. Most of them were diseased and were left on the streets to die. When no longer young and attractive, prostitutes were put to work in cribs or small cubicles. In 1870, Chines prostitutes were a major political concern for the new cities of the West. Chinese prostitutes were figures for a conduit of disease and social decay which was sensationalized in newspaper accounts, magazine articles, and official inquiries into the social hygiene of these women. In California, these hygiene issues were the catalyst for the supporters of prohibition of Chinese immigration to the United States. The first act limiting Chinese immigration was the Page Act of 1870, which ostensibly prohibited Chinese, Japanese and Mongolian women from being brought to or entering the United States to engage in immoral or licentious activities. The Page Act, on the presumption of bad character and immoral purpose, required all Chinese women who wished to come to the Un...
