San Francisco has a long and rich history related to Chinese immigration to America. One of the toughest tales to hear about is the history of young Chinese girls who immigrated to the area in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
During this period of time it was only the single men of China who were able to experience relatively easy immigration into the United States. Women were excluded and relations with white women were excluded so it set the stage for the exploitation of Chinese women.
Rich Chinese men could easily get exemptions for their families The poor men would pay them a fee, so their families would be sent over and they would all live "happily ever after". It was essentially just a business transaction.
Tthe history of humans is littered with exploitation. This part of that history is no exception. More often than not the process did not go as simply as it did for the few women who immigrated here with business-like ease. Instead what would happen was the poor women would arrive and the rich men would hold them hostage. They would demand a higher sum of payment from the poor men who had already struggled to secure the funds to bring the women over. The women, living in the country illegally, had no recourse. The families often failed to pay the increased fees. When that happened, the women were usually sold in to slavery. The younger girls would be sold as house slaves, a task which they would perform throughout their young adolescence. They worked for families all throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. As these girls aged into puberty, they would be sold into sex slavery. Women kidnapped who were at or older than puberty were automatically made into sex slaves.
However, there were a few angels working to make changes to this terrible situation. Donaldina Cameron one such an angel. Originally from New Zealand,she had lived in the San Francisco most of her life. As a young girl she embarked on her lifelong pursuit of social justice.Her primary social service focus was to aid the Chinese women who were suffering this terrible fate. She worked in the services of the Presbyterian Mission House in San Francisco's Chinatown neighborhood.
By the turn of the twentieth century, Donaldina Cameron was the superintendent of the home for girls. It was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fires ravaged the area. Taking in to consideration the unique situation of Chinese slave women, a new house with built with secret passageways and sealed doorways to hide them. The women would be safe and anonymous until a time when they were legally allowed to begin a new life in America.
The basement of the home created to be a place where the Chinese women could rest in peace while figuring out what their next move. To keep the basement room secret both from slave traders and the San Francisco police there was no entry from inside the home. Instead there was a secret underground passageway leading from the street directly into the basement of the home.
For a little while, the new home served as a safe place for the women. Sadly, it wasn't too long before a new tragedy struck. The house caught fire. With no escape except for the secret passage, numerous Chinese women died, suffocating to death in the home's basement.
The dark past of the home remains present in it's walls. Many people say that the building is haunted. The doors to the basement are sealed. There are gold and red charms hung there to ward off the evil spirits. Nevertheless, the ghosts of the women killed in that basement's fire remain there to this day. Photographs show white figures floating in the background. The tortured spirits of the past remain within the building.
Fascinating! And so very sad.
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