By Hanna Park
Oct. 9, 2020
For greater than half a century, residents of Fresh york’s East Village neighborhood would desire up their freshly starched shirts in flimsy plastic baggage from Sun’s Laundry. The store’s crimson vintage signal, silver countertop bell, Chinese and Westernized calendars, sparkling buyer tickets and over-the-counter conversations served as relics of a bygone abilities.
Now, the shop sits desolate after having closed at the pause of August, following an extended time in which the Sun family spent their days washing dresses in mixed starch and water, then taking an electrical stainless steel iron to the clothes to present their customers with crisp, pressed shirts. At night time, they retreated to their two-bed room rental unit above the store.
The Chinese hand laundry store — identified for packaging the final product in musty brown paper and twine — became as soon as a few of the final in Fresh york, and it had been working as a family enterprise since 1959, with Robert S. Lee, 84, at the helm. He opened it alongside with his father, Lee Dow Sun, after whom or no longer it’s named. At some stage within the 1930s, Sun also owned a laundry in Boston, where Lee had first immigrated browsing for opportunity.
Robert Lee, left, sending off his cousins from Hong Kong to the U.S. in 1955. (Courtesy Robert Gee)
Robert Lee, left, sending off his cousins from Hong Kong to the U.S. in 1955. (Courtesy Robert Gee)
Robert Lee’s first departure from Hong Kong to Boston in April 1957, alongside with his brother-in-law’s mother, Gam How Gee, left, and Wai Lee Hom. (Courtesy Robert Gee)
Robert Lee’s first departure from Hong Kong to Boston in April 1957, alongside with his brother-in-law’s mother, Gam How Gee, left, and Wai Lee Hom. (Courtesy Robert Gee)
With waning clientele because the Covid-19 pandemic hit, Lee may now not own the funds for to position money into his enterprise anymore. It closed Aug. 29.
“If I had my intention, I may perchance quiet be working,” mentioned Lee, whose given title in Chinese is Li Hong Sen, which skill that “affluent existence.”
Luxuriate in a lot of varied first-abilities Chinese immigrants, Lee resorted to the hand laundry enterprise to supply a greater residing. Lee, born within the agricultural village of Toisan, China, had fled to Hong Kong by himself in 1951 amid the increasing affect of the Chinese Communist Celebration sooner than arriving in The united states. He says his mother, Lee Suet Fong, had been tortured by the Eastern with forced labor sooner than she joined Lee in Hong Kong three years later, and his father, the significant to reach within the U.S., had despatched thousands of bucks to assemble a home for the family in Toisan.
“It became as soon as a grand change, and I desired to attend out my americans in every intention imaginable,” Lee mentioned in his native Toisanese, per his nephew Robert Gee, who equipped a translation of the Chinese dialect. “Within the early 1900s, the enterprise model became as soon as to send Chinese men to the U.S. to work and toughen families in China. Given the revolt of the communist rule in 1949, we had no decision but to live within the U.S. and produce potentially likely the greatest of existence in a recent country. Existence in The united states became as soon as better than in China with up-to-the-minute facilities versus residing within the farmland.”
Lee mentioned that within the booming days of businesswear within the early 1960s to the 1990s, he would process over 100 enterprise shirts a day. As work dresses became extra casual within the 2000s, he would kind fair correct below 40 shirts a day.
Per the Partnership for Fresh York City, an estimated one-third of native minute agencies within the metropolis, or about 77,000, will end completely thanks to the coronavirus, with closings disproportionately harming immigrant communities. Whereas Gov. Andrew Cuomo deemed laundromats to be indispensable agencies, many, love Sun’s Laundry, closed temporarily to curb the spread of the virus.
Robert Lee, center, and Wai Hing Lee pose at their wedding in 1962 alongside with his sister Wai Lee Hom, left, and brother-in-law, William Hom, and their two boys. (Courtesy Robert Gee)
Robert Lee, center, and Wai Hing Lee pose at their wedding in 1962 alongside with his sister Wai Lee Hom, left, and brother-in-law, William Hom, and their two boys. (Courtesy Robert Gee)
Sun’s Laundry, which he operated alongside with his indispensable other, Wai Hing Lee, 76, became as soon as the final of 5 laundry agencies inside of his extended family, and it became as soon as an logo of the role the enterprise served within the U.S.
“It helped produce The united states’s life-style convenient and made them look truthful,” mentioned Gee, whose grandfather had also owned a Chinese hand laundry enterprise in Fresh york. “Of us would give laundrymen soiled underclothes, and you furthermore mght can receive the final consequence of sparkling dresses. Nobody wanted these jobs. But, the Chinese americans had to supply a residing.”
“Nobody wanted these jobs. But, the Chinese americans had to supply a residing.”
As an influx of Chinese immigrants escaping financial and political upheaval within the mid-1800s sought refuge within the U.S., many men scrambled for fortunes within the California Gold Speed and found work as laborers. Later, a total lot of them started working on the Transcontinental Railroad, which may perchance link the U.S. from east to west.
“The Chinese man’s vision of The united states became as soon as ‘The Gold Mountain,'” Gee mentioned, explaining what the country represented to the early Chinese immigrants at some point soon of the Gold Speed of 1849. “Nonetheless after there became as soon as no extra gold, [white Americans] mentioned, ‘Let’s produce the Chinamen assemble the Pacific Railroad for us.'”
Nevertheless, widespread unemployment after the Gold Speed resulted in a spike in anti-Chinese sentiments. Because the U.S. enacted the Internet page Law of 1875, barring Chinese females from entry, adopted by the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which banned the full Chinese population — including men — from immigrating in line with their ethnic foundation.
Restricted from proudly owning property and barred from “masculine” trades in organized labor and in tobacco, shoe and woolen items manufacturing, Chinese men had been forced to consume on extra “feminized” jobs as cooks, laundrymen and home servants.
Robert Lee wrapping laundry within the classic brown butcher’s paper tied with string. (Sheldon Chau / Soar Man Productions)
Robert Lee wrapping laundry within the classic brown butcher’s paper tied with string. (Sheldon Chau / Soar Man Productions)
“Washing dresses became as soon as no longer regarded as men’s work. No men desired to originate the laundry, so the Chinese men took over the enterprise,” mentioned Justin Wu, president of the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, a advisor group.
“[Due to] the lack of education and discrimination in opposition to Chinese immigrants, there were no longer many alternatives,” Lee mentioned. “The careers equipped had been mainly blue-collar alternatives. It became as soon as very seldom that a Chinese immigrant had the chance to become a white-collar employee.”
To satisfy the acquire a matter to for dapper dresses, many white miners had paid “moderately high costs” to Native American or Mexican females to dapper their dresses. Nevertheless, the Chinese men began to replace those females as early because the mid-1800s thanks to the lack of Chinese females.
Wu mentioned the Chinese population became as soon as quiet scapegoated for stealing the roles of white People.
“They bought upset that the Chinese hand laundries dominated every nook of the streets … from the East Aspect, West Aspect, downtown, uptown, Bronx and Brooklyn. Even after we had been restricted in job alternatives, we quiet confronted americans’s jealousy. So they determined to force us out but again,” he mentioned.
