Learn History Through Fiction: Laundry Labor Only Option for Chinese Immigrants

In the late 19th and early 20th century, U.S. laundry labor was heavily identified with Chinese Americans. Discrimination, lack of English, and lack of capital kept them out of other careers. Around 1900, one in four ethnic Chinese men in the U.S. worked in a laundry, typically 10-16 hours a day. Read more about Chinese laundry workers and anti-Chinese discrimination in the early 1900s in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).

Laundry work was one of the few job options open to Chinese immigrants 100 years ago

Tazia and Gemma (Vine Leaves Press) by Ann S. Epstein

Author: annsepstein@att.net

Ann S. Epstein is an award-winning writer of novels, short stories, memoirs, and essays.

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