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Because of the circumstances of turn-of-the-century Chinese
immigrants to America, many of them had few alternatives to mining,
working in restaurants or laundries. Operating a laundry required
relatively little capital, education or English fluency. Often
times, entire families lived crammed together in the back of
their laundry storefronts. While the parents worked, the children
helped however they could.
It was hot, 14-hour-per-day work and after lunch the young
man ironing struggles to stay alert while the mother does the
mending. Chinese culture, food and clothing may have been replicated
in Chinatowns on the West Coast, yet everything around the tight-knit
communities was different. “I posed the daughter curiously
trying on the calico dress brought in by their American customer,”
says the artist. Is she wondering what it feels like to be an
American girl or is it only a strange costume? |