California
Mutual aid clubs are still going strong in L.A. Chinatown. But their future is uncertain
In a constructing with a green-tiled roof on Hill Road, many of the previous women and men shuffling mah-jongg tiles and sipping jasmine tea shared a surname — Lee.
They weren’t blood relations, however the title, which suggests “plum” in Chinese language, in addition to their origins in China’s Guangdong, or Canton, province, certain them like siblings.
This was the scene on the Lee membership, established in 1935 and identified in English because the Lee On Dong Benevolent Assn., on a day late final yr.
Whether or not occupying outstanding actual property in a central plaza, like Hop Sing Tong, or tucked upstairs in an alley with no English signal, golf equipment primarily based on frequent hometowns, final names or different affiliations are scattered all through Los Angeles Chinatown.
From left, Invoice Fong, 88; Suey Lee, 85; Rose Wong, 71 and Aileen Lee play mah-jongg whereas visiting the Lee On Dong Benevolent Assn. constructing on Hill Road in Los Angeles. Suey Lee’s spouse, Faytom Lee, 85, stands to look at their match.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Instances)
Because the neighborhood gentrifies and Chinese language residents get older and fewer, the golf equipment — referred to as “tong,” “gungso” or “wui” in Cantonese — stay an important social glue.
Within the nineteenth century, violent wars between tongs drew in depth information protection. Six years in the past, a former Wah Ching gang chief was stabbed to demise inside Hop Sing Tong.
Regardless of their notorious historical past, the golf equipment these days are largely hangouts for retirees who collect to learn Chinese language newspapers, chat, play mah-jongg or take pleasure in a meal collectively. Lots of the golf equipment proceed to supply the mutual assist that was a necessity again when Chinese language immigrants had been excluded from mainstream society, serving to members in want of a mortgage or funeral bills.
The Lee membership has greater than 400 members. However they, like these at different Chinatown golf equipment, fear concerning the future. Their youngsters and grandchildren, who cease by Lunar New 12 months events and different celebrations, see no want to hitch the roster.
“The notion is that they don’t want social or financial assist. They’re assimilated,” stated Ernest Lee, 72, a retired aerospace engineer who sat at a desk with three mates — all with the final title Lee. “It’s like a puzzle — how do you recruit them so our mission stays alive?”
From left, Ernest Lee, Chuck Lee, Stephen Lee (foreground), Derek Ma and Allen Lee collect on the Lee On Dong Benevolent Assn., which homes the Lee Credit score Union in Los Angeles.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Instances)
The lads, who all stay within the San Gabriel Valley, spoke concerning the Lee membership’s early days. Chinese language immigrants, many from Toishan in Guangdong province, relied on the membership and others prefer it to search out rooms for lease, individuals to belief, seed cash to open laundromats and eating places.
Going through racism and talking little English, they typically needed to take odd jobs at low wages, the Lees stated of early membership members.
The Lee On Dong Assn. — On Dong refers to respect for deceased individuals — was positioned on Alameda Road till the town’s previous Chinatown was demolished to make approach for Union Station.
Later, a brand new Chinatown sprung up round Hill and Broadway. In 1959, the membership moved into its two-story dwelling on Hill Road after elevating greater than $66,000 to purchase the land.
Derek Ma, left, and Thomas T. Lo contained in the temple that pulls a gradual stream of worshipers to the Kong Chow Benevolent Assn.
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Instances)
“Mainly, the associations, they helped us develop up,” stated Allen Lee, 83, a retired oil engineer. “They not solely introduced individuals collectively for assist — they saved conventional tradition alive whereas members might find out about U.S. tradition.”
The opposite two Lees on the desk had additionally discovered success of their careers. Steven Lee, 77, a former membership president, is a retired entrepreneur who began a plastic bag firm. Chuck Lee, 72, the present president, was a chief mechanic at a Hertz rental automotive operation.
Ernest, Allen, Steven and Chuck Lee, who had been all born in China, like to indicate guests images of celebrations the place lots of of Lees from all around the nation mingle. They’ve mates and relations who’ve gotten small enterprise loans via the Lee membership and different associations.
One perk of the Los Angeles Lee membership is a credit score union providing automotive loans of $40,000 to $50,000. The affiliation additionally features a ladies’s group and presents singing classes.
Steven Lee needs youthful Chinese language Individuals to comprehend that the membership is for them too.
“You want cash — you qualify and you’ll rely on us,” he stated. “We don’t need them to assume that each one the elders do is play mah-jongg and smoke, as a result of they may say they don’t know tips on how to play, and so they don’t smoke.”
The 27 golf equipment in Chinatown are a part of an umbrella group referred to as the Chinese language Consolidated Benevolent Assn., or CCBA, which is housed in a landmark constructing on Broadway with a conventional curved Chinese language roof.
Members of the Lung Kong Ming Yee Tin Lion Dance Membership carry out throughout a weekend apply.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Instances)
Different golf equipment organized round frequent final names embody the Eng Household Benevolent Assn., the Southern California Yee Household Assn. and the Los Angeles Soo Yuen Fraternal Assn., which incorporates the Louie, Fong and Kwong surnames.
The Ning Kui Kong Wue and Hoy Solar Ning Yung associations are amongst these uniting individuals from frequent hometowns in Guangdong province.
Like Hop Sing Tong, Bing Kong Tong dates from Chinatown’s earliest days within the late nineteenth century and has a broad membership not primarily based on surname or fatherland.
Related teams have sprung up in different cities with giant Chinese language populations, together with San Francisco, Seattle and New York.
In Los Angeles, the CCBA has lengthy been a connection level between the golf equipment and mainstream society.
Some thought of it the Chinese language group’s Metropolis Corridor, as a result of “nobody on the predominant Metropolis Corridor needed to be with us,” stated Daisy Ma, chief authorities and group relations officer on the Chinatown Providers Middle whose husband, Derek Ma, is a previous CCBA president.
Choi Kwan, 83, middle, a member of the Lung Kung Tin Yee’s dance workforce, practices with fellow members.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Instances)
Till nicely into the twentieth century, Chinese language and different individuals of shade had been typically shut out of buying property in sure neighborhoods.
“In impact, we weren’t only a Metropolis Corridor, but additionally a courthouse, a labor division, an escrow workplace, a jack of all trades,” Daisy Ma stated of the CCBA, the place she serves as English secretary.
Within the early days, as a result of Chinese language weren’t allowed to be buried with whites, the CCBA arrange its personal Chinese language cemetery alongside third Road in East L.A., the place it nonetheless presents plots on the market.
Now, the Chinatown golf equipment additionally provide plots at Rose Hills Mortuary in Whittier and Forest Garden Memorial Park in Hollywood.
Derek Ma, now 70 and the CCBA’s senior advisor, got here to L.A. from Hong Kong in his late teenagers, juggling jobs as a garment contractor, a common contractor and restaurant proprietor. The associations helped him by increasing his enterprise community. In flip, he devoted “years of giving again.”
Simply over three many years in the past, he was elected the youngest president within the CCBA’s historical past at age 39.
However that was an exception — right now, he stated, the common member is round 60 years previous.
In the course of the top of the COVID-19 pandemic, when some membership buildings had been shut down, the CCBA rounded up members to distribute masks and hand sanitizer to senior residents in Chinatown.
President and board director Thomas T. Lo factors to an artwork piece created by the brother of one in every of China’s emperors, adorning the wall on the Kong Chow Benevolent Assn.
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Instances)
Amid an increase in anti-Asian hate, CCBA leaders hosted a meet-and-greet in Chinatown with the Los Angeles Police Division captain in command of the realm, asking for extra foot patrols and bystander prevention coaching.
“Our aged must know what to do while you’re being bullied or while you see somebody attacked,” Derek Ma stated. “The mission of the CCBA has at all times been the identical from its begin — we hold individuals protected.”
On the second flooring of a Chinese language-style constructing on Broadway, Thomas Lo opened a facet door to disclose the scent of incense wafting in a worship room stuffed with gleaming Buddhas, gold-painted rosewood pedestals and an altar brimming with joss sticks.
The Kong Chow Benevolent Assn., which counts individuals from Guangdong’s Xinhui and Heshan districts as members, is the one membership in Chinatown with its personal temple, Lo stated.
Shaped in 1889, Kong Chow awards scholarships from its training endowment. On occasional Tuesdays, members collect for karaoke, choir apply and dinner.
“We provide a lot to individuals via the generations. You come to share your burdens and clear up issues,” stated Lo, 70. “To maintain it going, we have to educate the youth on their roots in order that they may study concerning the higher group and its function.”
On the Lung Kung Tin Yee Assn., members embody Danny Kwan, father of Olympic determine skating medalist Michelle Kwan, and Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park), the primary Chinese language American lady elected to the U.S. Congress.
Chu remembers attending affiliation dinners together with her mom, Could Chu, who had struggled with isolation and loneliness as an immigrant working at a garment manufacturing facility after which a cannery. Chu’s father put in lengthy hours at a Chinese language restaurant in Watts.
Portraits of previous presidents of the Chinese language Consolidated Benevolent Assn.
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Instances)
“I might sit there, seeing it as an awesome supply of enjoyable and camaraderie for my mother. Firstly, I didn’t perceive the importance of the group,” stated Chu, 69. “I do know now it’s the thread operating via a lot of our lives, lifting the existence of Chinese language Individuals.”
When Chu ran for the Garvey college board in 1985, CCBA members unfold the phrase to family and friends about her platform, signed up as volunteers and distributed fliers. Additionally they opened their wallets, persevering with to contribute as she ascended to the Monterey Park Metropolis Council, the State Meeting, the State Board of Equalization after which Congress.
The Lung Kung Tin Yee Assn., which incorporates the Lew, Quan, Cheong and Chew surnames, has joined forces with a lion dance group that has many youthful members.
At practices on the affiliation’s headquarters on Broadway, performers whirl round with colourful bamboo lion heads crafted in China and imported for practically $1,000 every.
“We love our tradition, and we need to concentrate on a lovely side of the tradition. In any other case, they simply include their mother and father to our vacation celebration every year,” stated Paxton Chew, 70, a realtor who’s the affiliation’s president.
Patricia Chu of El Monte is without doubt one of the lion dance group’s roughly 30 lively members. She stated she likes the train and the vitality.
“We’ve been dancing collectively for thus lengthy, it’s like having one large household,” stated Chu, 30, a content material acquisitions supervisor for a Chinese language media firm. “It’s one thing very invaluable.”