The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 81, July 1977 - April, 1978 Page: 24
521 p. : ill. (some col.), ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
also existed in the city, but it was much smaller and far less influential
than the On Leong Association. Both were essentially social welfare
organizations, offering, for example, lodging to familyless "bachelor"
members in their old age. The On Leong Association, as the leading
organization, regularly sponsored the community's Lunar New Year's
celebration.45
Finally, the Chinese in San Antonio joined together to operate a
Chinese school, the Kuo Min Hock How (Guo-min xue-xiao). With
reportedly every Chinese family in the city contributing money to sup-
port its work, the school, founded in 1928, was the central focus of the
community. Like similar schools in other Chinese communities across
the nation at that time, it met for three or four hours every afternoon,
after the public schools had let out. Its purpose was to inculcate and
keep alive the Chinese language and culture among the emerging gen-
eration of American-born Chinese. Forty children, or nearly all of the
school-age Chinese in San Antonio, were attending the school in 1935.
It was the combined effort of the Chinese school, the On Leong Asso-
ciation, and the other organizations that, in San Antonio and elsewhere,
accomplished the much celebrated feat of keeping the Chinese off the
relief rolls during the depression.6
Contributing to the strong sense of community that characterized the
Chinese during the interwar years was the continuing hostility of the
outside world. As aliens ineligible for citizenship, the Chinese in Amer-
ica were subject to numerous forms of legal discrimination at both the
federal and the state level. Revisions of the exclusion laws in the early
192os, for example, made it even more difficult than in the past for the
Chinese "bachelors" in America, had they so wished, to normalize their
family life. Previously, alien Chinese wives had been allowed to enter
America if their husbands belonged to one of the four exempt catego-
ries. After the early 1920s, they too were barred. Even if their husbands
were American citizens, the women were not permitted to join them.
Because of this many Chinese-Americans were forced, if they did not
wish to intermarry, to make periodic trips to China for the purpose of
marrying and siring children. If they themselves were American citi-
zens, then their children, though born in China, were also American
citizens by descent and thus free to emigrate to the United States. Later,
when the children wanted to marry, they too returned to China. Some
45Nims, "Chinese Life," 62-64; San Antonio Express, February 18, 1935; September I,
1936.
46Nims, "Chinese Life," 41-48; San Antonio Express, April 7, 1935; Dallas Morning
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 81, July 1977 - April, 1978, periodical, 1977/1978; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101205/m1/42/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.