May 26, 2023 • 37 mins
Yves brings us the fascinating story of Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, the first Chinese woman to get a PhD in economics and a force to be reckoned with in the Suffrage movement in this classic episode.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha, and welcome to stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I've never told you a protection of iHeartRadio, and yes
we come to you with another classic.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Yes, we've had some technical.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Difficulties, We've had some scheduling difficulties, just difficulties, just difficulties. Honestly,
we have a holiday weekend and I'm really trying to
set some boundaries around how much I'm gonna be working.
So this is what we're what we're doing. We're doing
a classic, and a part of that is also, as
(00:45):
you may know, as we've said, we have a book
that is coming out. You can pre order it at
stuff you Should read books dot com. It comes out
in August. But Samantha and I are doing the audio
book reading next week. No, two weeks from now, two
weeks from.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Now, Yes, I guess a week and a half. But
we're always a little bit ahead, so we have to
keep up with what's going on, so you know.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yes, so we're trying to get ahead of that. And
I am very very nervous.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yeah, me too.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
As you know, I have already looked through my spreadsheets
trying to see what I need to read. I'll be
going to our manuscript and practicing it on my own
because I'm very nervous about pronouncing any of these words
that I don't think I've ever used out loud just
write it, so that's even even worse. I'm like, oh, no,
I am not smart, Like when I can't pronounce the word, yeah,
(01:47):
I use this in real life.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
A very kind listener wrote in once that his mom
used to tell him that if you don't know how
to pronounce a word, it just means you've never heard
it out loud. And I that's true, that's nice, but yeah,
we have to get it right. So I'm very nervous.
The person we're in contact with is very lovely, but
(02:12):
she did say podcasters are always surprised by how difficult
it is, and I'm like, that's great, But it makes
sense because you have to read the words as they
are written, as opposed to you and I just kind
of like riffling.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Yes. So that's that's coming up.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
And it's also been a challenge in terms of we
have like comic strips in it and activities in it,
so we'll see, we'll see what happens. But all that
to say, we have a lot of stuff on the
horizon and as as this comes out. May is ending,
(02:50):
so we wanted to run this classic for aapi month.
As we always say, like we focus in on these
these months or these tempoles, but we we talked about
this stuff all the time, so you know, but we
did want to bring back this classic with Eves where
we talked about Mabel ping Huali, who was really had
(03:13):
a really interesting part of the suffrage movement but also
in the educational field.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
So please enjoy.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Hey, this is Annie and Smitha. I'm welcome to Steph.
I've never told you protection of iHeartRadio and it's time
for another female first, which means we are once again
joined by our good friend, the wonderful, the amazing Eves and.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
Today very like the begin of the hole. My goodness,
it's good to our usual.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yes, always good to have you.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Anything interesting going on, Eves, anything of note, anything you're
looking forward to.
Speaker 4 (04:03):
I don't know, is it okay?
Speaker 5 (04:08):
I don't know, to be more comfortable with saying I
don't know, and I definitely don't. I don't think things
are pretty I feel good, things are at level.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
I'm learning every.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
Day something new, so i'd feeling that's always a good thing.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
Yeah, but yeah, nothing, I don't have much to report.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
I say that is one of the things that I
admire about you as where I just sit, you continue
to do new things, learn new things, do things to
find yourself that I'm like, man, you are really motivated,
and I feel like you used your time wisely. Maybe
I'm projecting because I'm like, I want to be like Eve's.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
I can't be like Eve's.
Speaker 5 (04:49):
It's very sweet of you to think that I have
everything together. That is definitely not the case.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Maybe it's like you at least like exploring, whether it's
like you know, relearning meditation or watching movies that I like,
we recommend something, You're like, I'll watch it, and you
actually follow through.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
That's amazing to me.
Speaker 5 (05:11):
Yeah, I think you might be selling yourself a little short,
because I think one reason that we do this is
because our of our never ending curiosity, Like you have
to have a level of like staying curious about the
world and learning new things to be able to delves
deep into research and such precarious and intricate topics.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
As you do.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
You know, and again, I'm very impressed by the people
that you bring to us, because it is the people,
the women that we never heard of and or have
been neglected for so long that you can do these
deep dives. It has been also impressive, and that you're
doing the work for us.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Thank you, Yes, yes too.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
I was thinking about that.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
I was like, how does Eves always find these amazing
stories I've never heard?
Speaker 5 (06:00):
Well, you know, the world is a vast pit of
information and overpopulation, notwithstanding, people are born and there are
a lot of stories to tell. I mean, that makes
me really excited and really puts things into perspective to
(06:20):
just know how many small universes have been created that
we are able to tap into because we have such
a wealth of information at our fingertips.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
There is a talent to being able to research and
research well because I have discovered I'm at the very
cusp of like trying to figure it out when we
try to find, you know, women around the world that
series and finding women and activists who are doing great
things that we don't talk about or talk enough about.
But it's still hard to actually figure out where to
(06:50):
even start half the time. So I'm discovering that it
is a lot. It takes a bit of talent and
of course a lot of practice. But like all of
those things come together to find a good research.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
So kudos. Yeah, thank you again.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
I love this.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
I love our because it's early morning. I feel like
we're starting off with a warm virtual hug.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
I know that.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Like it's honestly just the moments to really appreciate, because
when you really think that down deep into it and
you're like, wow, this is kind of amazing.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Damn I'm done.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
I'm doone with my squishy, gushy stuff.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Oh I love it. I love it. We're such Eves
fan to be fair.
Speaker 5 (07:36):
Yes, yes, we'll take you anything, anything, I'll take it all.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Perfect, perfect, Well, speaking of amazing stories and small universes,
I love how you put it like that.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Who did you bring for us today?
Speaker 4 (07:50):
Today we are going to be talking about Mabel ping Huai.
Speaker 5 (07:54):
So she was a Chinese American women's rights activist and
she was involved in the suffragist space. And it said
that she was the first Chinese woman to get a
doctor in economics from Columbia University.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Yeah, and she has an amazing story, an amazing story
with so many historical threads and contexts and nuance throughout.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
So very very excited to get into this one.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
Yeah, me too. So let's start.
Speaker 5 (08:22):
She was born around eighteen ninety six in Guangzhou, China,
and in China she learned English at a missionary school.
She lived with her mother and her grandmother. Her mother's
name was Li Beck and she was part of the
upper class in Guangzhou. Her father Leto, which is spelt
some different ways in the records, spelled t or t Owe,
(08:45):
but he was a missionary in the US. He has
his own story of coming over to the United States
and being involved in the Christian Church here, and mabel
Lea moved to.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
The United States in the early nineteen hundreds. There are some.
Speaker 5 (09:03):
Conflicting days given in a lot of parts of her history,
but she was there by nineteen oh five and after
her father. That was after her father had already been
in the United States for years, so she spent some
time in California and Washington State, and they eventually settled
in Chinatown in New York City. The Lee family was
(09:25):
part of a movement of Chinese people from the West
Coast to the East coast as opportunities for work decreased
and anti Chinese violence increased in the West.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
So it's not as if.
Speaker 5 (09:38):
Like anti Chinese violence wasn't just concentrated in the West.
I don't want to make it seem like there were
only instances of that in a specific place, because I
think we like to compartmentalize regions in the United States
as if certain things only happen in certain places, like
racism only happened in the South and didn't happen in
the North. And I don't want to make it seem
(10:01):
like that's what I'm saying here. It's just that that
there was some movement from the West to the east.
I would also like to take this moment to talk
about some of the context around immigration that was happening
with Chinese people who migrated from China to the United States,
and also some that came after, generations that came after
(10:21):
that were born here in the United States from people
who were migrants from China.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
So I think that we might.
Speaker 5 (10:26):
Have talked about this the Chinese Exclusion Act before in
Female First, and I'm sure that y'all have mentioned it before,
otherwise we did.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
I remember we did.
Speaker 5 (10:35):
The episode on afon Moi the quote unquote first Chinese Lady,
So we might have talked about it before, but of
course it's worthwhile bringing it up again here because that
policy is super relevant because it was active for many years,
many decades, which is like so hard to believe how
recent this history is, but really puts a lot of
(10:57):
things into perspective.
Speaker 4 (10:58):
But Congress approved.
Speaker 5 (11:00):
The Chinese Exclusion Act in May of eighteen eighty two,
which banned Chinese laborers from migrating to the United States
for ten years. So as it goes with law, there
are so many more rules that go into that, so
many more asterisks. The Act was later extended, even though
it was initially supposed to be imposed for ten years,
(11:21):
and then it was made permanent until the Act was
repealed in nineteen forty three with the Magnuson Act, and
even then it wasn't like a full repeal. There was
a quota for Chinese immigrants that was set to one
hundred and five people, so there were people who were
exempt from those rules, like diplomats, teachers, students, and merchants
(11:42):
who were allowed to migrate, but they also had to
have certifications stating that they were qualified to immigrate, which
has its own layer of issues. There are stories about
people who were affected by the Chinese Exclusion Act who
had to go through these these layers of questioning and
having to qualify your personal existence and why you're worthy
(12:07):
of being in a space and just imagine how mentally,
emotionally how impactful that is in a person. So that's
another layer to delve into. But that is something that
did come up in Mabel Lee's life and obviously so
many other people that were affected by the Chinese Exclusion Act.
You'll see it in some of her papers and her
having to leave the country and come back into the
(12:29):
United States because there were rules around how a person
could re enter if they were a Chinese migrant trying
to leave the country and then come back. Not as
if we're unfamiliar with issues around migration right now in
the United States, but this was the case in her
story as well. So this law wasn't active for many
(12:50):
many reasons.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
There are many layers to it.
Speaker 5 (12:53):
It was stoked by things like fear, racism, anti Chinese animosity,
economic insecure security. So yes, there are a lot of
factors that go into the reason. But this is what
was a part of Mabel Lee's life as she was
moving to the United States. Immigration from China was extremely
limited during the period under the Exclusion Act, and the
(13:17):
people who were already here even before the Exclusion Act
was implemented, were also facing violence from people who had
an anti Chinese sentiment. Yes, so Lee and her family
were able to migrate here, but she was one of few.
There weren't that many other people there at the time
who were able to make that happen. But so when
(13:39):
she settled in New York, she went to Erasmus Hall
High School, which was a public school in Brooklyn. And
of course people in the United States had their eyes
on international efforts for suffrage, so that included China, where
there was a revolution in nineteen eleven, and people in
China have been organizing for decades for women's suffrage. So
(14:03):
I think it's really easy to get into a bubble
and think about what's happening here in the United States.
And we've talked about women's suffrage in the United States before,
but there were also efforts in China, and leading up
to the revolution, women's suffrage activists opposed the Ching monarchy,
which was overthrown in nineteen eleven, and they supported the
(14:23):
equality of genders. And we're talking about things like advocating
for more political participation for women, and they didn't quite
get this in the newly formed Republic of China immediately,
but women's suffrages in China did remain vigilant in their activism.
So because so many white Americans' views of Chinese folks
(14:47):
were anchored in this racism and xenophobia and ignorance, the
four movement of enfranchisement wasn't a good look for the
supposedly moral upstanding. These are not my words, but like
how the view of from white Americans perspective was of
the other. Specifically for Chinese people in this situation, it's
(15:11):
like we are more civilized, we have all our stuff
going on, we have more of this forward movement, We're
more progressive. And they were seen as more lowly by
a they. When I say they, I mean like Chinese people.
For people in China, of course were exoticized, were viewed
as the other. We're seen as more lowly and all
the other various stereotypes and things that were and views
(15:35):
that were bred out of racism that it came from
white American perspective. So the fact that there was movement
when it came to suffrage and enfranchisement for people in
China who were supposed to be this les quote unquote
lesser version of people was something that didn't look so
great to a lot of white Americans who were invested
(15:58):
in suffrage. So white suffragists looked to Chinese suffragists in
the US to learn more about efforts in China and
(16:18):
also efforts about education in China, because that was also
something that women were trying to have for movement on
in the United States. In April of nineteen twelve, Mabel
and her parents, along with other Chinese people in the community,
met with white activists who wanted more insight on the situation.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
But it's interesting because if.
Speaker 5 (16:38):
You read there was a lot of reporting about Mabel
and things that were happening in the suffrage space in
New York when Mabel was active, and in this situation
of the meeting with parents is positioned in a way
where it seems like the white women who were involved,
even though the woman who kind of brought this meeting
together says that I'm not really the same for just
(17:00):
kind but I figured it could be good to talk
to Chinese people about these issues that are affecting them
while they're here in the US, issues around education and
around women's rights and suffrage. Yeah, so At this meeting,
Mabel Lee spoke of her support for gender equality and
education for girls and suffrage, and she was still young,
(17:23):
so she started all of.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
This when she was a teenager.
Speaker 5 (17:26):
She became known as a person who had good oratory
skills and who was invested in bringing women's rights to
the forefront as a teenager.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
So this is while she was in high school.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
She was featured in a couple of New York Tribune
articles in April of nineteen twelve. Around that same time,
one was called Chinese Girl once Vote, so she was
positioned as a quote symbol of.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
The new era. When all their women.
Speaker 5 (17:58):
Will be free and unhampered, was a quote from that
New York Tribune article. And by their women, they are
referring to Chinese women. And then there was another article
that month in the New York Tribune called Chinatown Awakens,
in which she was called the quote progressive Mabel Lee.
She was also some sentences later called a hopeless little suffragette,
(18:19):
suffragette in itself already being a derogatory terminology for someone
who was invested in suffrage. So there was I think
we definitely talked about this a lot before, because y'all know,
I love bringing quotes, but how steeped in the languages
in the racism of the day, the views toward Chinese people,
(18:41):
And yeah, so you can delve into that and reading
that entire article, it's just funny to me because there
is a huge contrast between the uplift of who Mabel
Lee was, acknowledging that she was progressive, acknowledging that she
was helping the white people in this instance learn more
(19:03):
about her culture, learn more about the knowledge that she had,
so they were coming to her for assistance, but at
the same time using language that showed how they viewed
Mabel and other Chinese people as inferior.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
So it's a huge cognitive dissonance happening.
Speaker 5 (19:22):
And then also there was all of the other things
that are just outdated language that we would no longer
use at all because we know that it's just steeped
in stereotyping and things like that. So yeah, it's just
interesting to see the contrast and the dissonance happening there.
But either way, there were a bunch of articles that
came out on her, and it wasn't just in New York.
(19:42):
There were articles around the nation who picked up stories
on what was happening, and soon after the meaning that
I spoke about earlier in May of nineteen twelve, on
May fourth, she was involved in a suffrage parade, and
there were also articles about this leading up to the
time and some of the fanfare and excitement that was
(20:04):
happening and looking forward to this parade, newspapers around the
country printed headlines that were highlighting Lee's involvement in the parade.
There was a bunch of hoopla over how she was
riding it on horseback and she was leading the initial
cavalcade that was bringing in this ten thousand.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
People for the parade.
Speaker 5 (20:24):
The newspapers were specifically calling out the fact that she
was Chinese as if it were some sort of party trick.
She rode on horseback, and there's a picture of her
on horseback as well that you can go and look at.
But her speaking skills were praised, and her activism at
the time connected her to other activists who were in
(20:45):
the space, but she was still going through her own
educational process. She was the only Chinese student in her
class when she graduated from high school, and she began
attending Barnard College, which is a women's college in New
York City.
Speaker 4 (21:00):
You can see a lot of her.
Speaker 5 (21:01):
Consciousness developing at this time, although she already had it.
As an aside, You'll see a lot of the articles
talk about how her mother's feet were bound and try
to kind of position her mother as.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
A symbol of the old while her daughter.
Speaker 5 (21:20):
Maybe Lee is a symbol of the news, saying, well,
her mom came from this, but she's still a poorts
suffrage look at that. While while mable, Lee is an
example of this new age of people coming up in
a contrast to the tradition of what her mom supposedly represented.
But either way, she was involved in a lot of
(21:44):
clubs and activism during her time in college as well.
She was in the YWCA, the Young Women's Christian Association,
and she sometimes spoke about Chinese culture and history for
the organization, and during her time at Barnard she wrote
a speech called China's Submerged Half, which I just love
(22:07):
that name for like some reason.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (22:11):
It's just something about the word submerged that I find
really like it just draws me into like I wonder
what this is going to be about. I feel like
that's really that's a really interesting way to title something anyway.
That's my weirdness about word ouside.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
I have a quote from it.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
She said, China's submerged half has begun to emerge. And
when you recall that a battalion of Chinese young women
was organized and drilled for service in the late Revolution,
and that a militant woman's suffragist used violence toward a
deputy of the Nan King Assembly for refusing the vote
for woman's suffrage, you will agree with me that a
(22:50):
part of that half has emerged with a vengeance.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
And yeah, I love that.
Speaker 5 (22:57):
So I think the reason going back to words, I
love submerged half because when she says submerged half, she's
referring to women, and I think a lot of the
time it's a difficulty for me to position things from
a way in which self identifying as the inferior, because
(23:17):
I think that's what the word submerged can do. It
implies that that we're starting from a negative space. It's
like you're immediately positioning yourself with negativity in the situation.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
But I think she flips.
Speaker 5 (23:32):
That on its head where it's like, Okay, we're submerged,
but we're working with so much, you know, there's vengeance
that's happening. It's not coming from She's not coming from
a meek position, a position in which she feels like
she's incapable. So she celebrated progress in terms of things
that Chinese women were doing, like establishing newspapers in that speech,
(23:54):
but she noted that a lot of things were being
said in theory and not done, and that rendering justice
was urgent and that she and other girls.
Speaker 4 (24:06):
Would have the duties of pioneers.
Speaker 5 (24:09):
So she considered herself a feminist, and she became part
of feminist discussions that were happening on campus through groups
like the Feminist Forum, and she joined the Debate Club.
She was also part of the Chinese Students Club at Columbia,
which was associated with the Chinese Students' Alliance, in which
(24:32):
over the years she held many positions in during her
time in college, So one wonders when she had the
time to do anything, because she definitely seems like she
was involved in a lot. But while she was at Bernard,
she wrote for the Chinese Students Monthly, which was the
national magazine for the Alliance, and the first article she
(24:55):
published for it was in June of nineteen fourteen, which
was the meaning of woman's a bridge. In August of
nineteen fourteen, she went to the CSA's Eastern Conference and
competed in an oratorical contest. So she made a lot
of friends during her time who were also activist and
was heavily involved in the student community. She got a
(25:18):
bachelor's degree from Barnard in nineteen sixteen and where she
majored in history and philosophy, and she continued on her
educational track when she was accepted into the PhD program
in the Department of Political Science and Philosophy at Columbia University.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
She got a scholarship to go there.
Speaker 5 (25:40):
And that was around the time that the graduate school
there began to admit some i'lbeit a small number of women,
into their doctoral programs. During her time at Columbia, she
remained active in the Chinese Student's Alliance and she worked
with doctor Vlada mir Simkovic, who had become her mentor
(26:04):
and her dissertation advisor, and he encouraged her to study
historical Chinese agricultural policy. Her dissertation was entitled The Economic
History of China with Special Reference to Agriculture, which is
available to read online if you're interested in such a
sort of thing.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (26:25):
So she advocated for a balance between the old and
the new, the traditional and the modern, which makes a
lot of sense for her, and to not just cast
aside what was done in the past as useless. In
(26:50):
nineteen seventeen, Mabel also participated in another suffrage parade as
part of the Women's Political Equality League, and it was
that same year that New York State did enfranchise women,
but Mabel, as a Chinese immigrants, still could not vote.
In nineteen twenty one, that was the year she got
(27:12):
her first so she became the first Chinese woman to
get a PhD from Columbia University. So a path after
around this time for moving forward in career was often
to go back to teach, but finding employment was difficult
for Mabel during her life. She did plan to return
(27:34):
to China to live to bring back what she learned,
as she didn't have a path to citizenship. It was
a path for a lot of women to choose to
go back to China to work, but Mabel herself never
went back permanently to China, even though she did have
some visits in her later years. Her plans as plans
(27:55):
tend to do didn't go completely as she expect. She
continued working at Columbia and then she did go to
study in Europe, but she had to make arrangements when
she went out of the country. As we spoke about earlier,
what immigrants had to do when it came to re
entry into the US had to qualify their reasoning for
(28:19):
coming back to the United States and that they were
able to do so, and there are papers documenting her
process of that. She planned on setting up a business
importing Chinese herbal medicine, but her father died in November
of nineteen twenty four and she decided to go and
continue his work. She decided to start working for the church,
(28:42):
and she became director of her father's mission in New
York City and started the process of making it her own.
The church building was rented, so she raised funds and
had a new church built at twenty one Pell Street,
and a friend of hers, after she was involved in
that for many many years, suggested that she go back
(29:05):
to her intellectual interest, but she remained invested in a church.
She went back to China a few times in the
nineteen twenties and.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
The thirties, but like I said earlier.
Speaker 5 (29:20):
She never did move back there permanently, but some Chinese
women were enfranchised and able to vote in nineteen forty
three when the Magnuson Act passed, but that still didn't
extend to all Chinese women. The Immigration and Nationality Act
of nineteen fifty two and the Voting Rights Act of
(29:41):
nineteen sixty five did further that process along and move
the needle on voting rights for Chinese Americans, though that
didn't solve everything because US citizens who were of Asian
descent still faced discrimination in voting today. But there were
no records of Lee herself naturalizing, and it's also not
(30:04):
known whether she ever voted in the United States, and
she died in nineteen sixty six in New York City.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Yeah, this story is so amazing, and I love learning
about feminism in other countries and just the history of
feminism and other places because kind of like what you
were saying earlier, Samantha, with our problem of finding doing
the research around women around the world is a lot
of our searches are very like American, not even English,
(30:33):
but like very American centered. So's I really liked learning
about this in the context she brought about what was
going on in China when it came to suffrage and feminism,
and yeah, this was just she really really did so
much and she has so much writing, and as someone
(30:55):
who writes, I really enjoyed reading some of the stuff
that she did and I was like impressed, and yeah,
I'm I too, am.
Speaker 4 (31:02):
A word nerd.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
So I liked a lot of the words that she used,
and I thought she used them so effectively, right.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
I think the line that you read from her, it
really made me think of like superheroes where they you know,
punched their way through out of a situation, whether they're
like under debris and have to fly out of that
situation essentially, Like that kind of came into mind, because Yeah,
that definitely painted a picture with her words, and it
was beautifully said and also very inspiring. It's kind of like, yeah, absolutely,
(31:34):
we can definitely emerge with vengeance.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
That's amazing. Yeah, it's the word vengeance. The association was
happening there.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
I just watched that last night.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
Yeah, she's all about vengeance right now. But yeah, and
even the history of the Chinese Exclusionary Act and what
it held and the discussion as of late about Asian
hate in general, there's a lot of contexts that really
just kind of bring it background of what she possibly
went through and trying to understand what it was, because
a part of the comments and conversations within those acts
(32:11):
actually has to do with a lot of sexism and
feticism of Asian women in general, and this whole idea
and the beginning of the exoticism of Asian women. So
you have to wonder as she was coming here, especially
with a missionary from China. There's so many flips to
that that I have in my head because as a
(32:31):
person who used to be in the religious Christian Western
Christian world, we had all of those stories about missionaries
going to China and what that looked like, and of
course coming back around to be like, oh that's oooh,
there's some problematic things with that. But then having that
flip is a different conversation. I really wonder what her
background looked like. But then pushing forward with her being
(32:56):
an advocate and a suffer just when it really wasn't
necessarily just for her, it was the beginning building blocks
to actually build up.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
To what she had hope for a better world.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
When it comes to voting rights, when it comes to
women's rights. But you know, it's really interesting and I
have so many questions that obviously I don't have to
research about her life.
Speaker 5 (33:17):
Yeah, and there is still a history of her that
exists in public for us to be able to experience
her Chinese exclusion at case file is in the National
Archives in New York City, and the post office in
Chinatown was dedicated to her in twenty eighteen. It's called
the Mabel Lee Memorial Post Office. Now her work has
(33:39):
been acknowledged in the city and that's always a good thing.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Yes, that's good to hear.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
And like I said, I'm always so happy that you
bring stories because I hadn't heard of her, and I
love that there's information. If you want to know more,
there is stuff that you can find online.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
So that's always nice.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Right, And I will say as an Asian woman, I'm
not Chinese. I am absolutely Korean, but you know, in
my mind, I'm like, my family name is Lee, so
there may be a connection, not really, but we know,
but it is something to see, Like, it is nice
to see representation like that at a time that I
don't know. I don't know obviously, it makes me said
(34:17):
that I didn't know her history, and I really wish
I had been able to see that as someone that
could have been influential, be like, Wow, here's someone who
at least looked like me a little bit, even though
we're not the same ethnicity. That is an inspiration to
what has happened and was a part of history and
making history happen and continuing to fight in that and
(34:38):
being a representative.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
It's nice to see.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
And I'm so excited that you were able to bring
that to us, because I honestly had no idea about her,
and I feel really shamed. It's a shame that I
didn't know anything about her.
Speaker 4 (34:50):
Don't feel ashamed, it's I mean, it's.
Speaker 5 (34:53):
Not a bad thing to not know about everybody in
the world, and it's a good thing that we are
able to access the same information now. So yeah, I
hope that other people as well learn something from our
story and able to dig a little bit deeper into
it and learn more in general about the history of
Chinese Americans in the United States and about who was
(35:16):
involved in the breath and expansiveness of who was involved
in enfranchisement and the work that people did for gaining
more rights and self advocacy in the United States.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Yes, so well, said as always youth. Is there anything
else to add before we wrap up here?
Speaker 4 (35:39):
No, that's all I got today.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Well, thanks as always for joining us and bringing us
these amazing stories.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Where can the good listeners find you?
Speaker 5 (35:49):
Y'all can find me online on Instagram at not Apologizing.
You can also find me on Twitter at Eves jeffco.
And you can find more of my work at evesjeffcot
dot com. Oh yes, and here on sminty. Many more episodes, dozens, right,
dozens of episodes.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Oh, I think we're approaching fifty. That's what I'm saying
because I want another celebration.
Speaker 5 (36:15):
Yeah, so many more episodes of female First where you
can learn about other people in history who did things
that were super important and super meaningful in various histories
around the world. Yes, yes, we always love these episodes,
(36:35):
so please check them out if you've somehow missed them listeners,
and if you would like to contact us, you can
our email is Stuffidia mom Stuff at Iheartdia dot com.
You can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast
or on Instagram at Stuff I've Never Told You. Thanks
as always to our super producer Christina.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Thank you and thanks to you for listening stuff I've
ever told you.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Production by heart Radio for more podcasts in My heart Radio,
Is it be a heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or
red you listen to your favorite shows
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha, and welcome to stuff.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I've never told you a protection of iHeartRadio, and yes
we come to you with another classic.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Yes, we've had some technical.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Difficulties, We've had some scheduling difficulties, just difficulties, just difficulties. Honestly,
we have a holiday weekend and I'm really trying to
set some boundaries around how much I'm gonna be working.
So this is what we're what we're doing. We're doing
a classic, and a part of that is also, as
(00:45):
you may know, as we've said, we have a book
that is coming out. You can pre order it at
stuff you Should read books dot com. It comes out
in August. But Samantha and I are doing the audio
book reading next week. No, two weeks from now, two
weeks from.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Now, Yes, I guess a week and a half. But
we're always a little bit ahead, so we have to
keep up with what's going on, so you know.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yes, so we're trying to get ahead of that. And
I am very very nervous.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yeah, me too.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
As you know, I have already looked through my spreadsheets
trying to see what I need to read. I'll be
going to our manuscript and practicing it on my own
because I'm very nervous about pronouncing any of these words
that I don't think I've ever used out loud just
write it, so that's even even worse. I'm like, oh, no,
I am not smart, Like when I can't pronounce the word, yeah,
(01:47):
I use this in real life.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
A very kind listener wrote in once that his mom
used to tell him that if you don't know how
to pronounce a word, it just means you've never heard
it out loud. And I that's true, that's nice, but yeah,
we have to get it right. So I'm very nervous.
The person we're in contact with is very lovely, but
(02:12):
she did say podcasters are always surprised by how difficult
it is, and I'm like, that's great, But it makes
sense because you have to read the words as they
are written, as opposed to you and I just kind
of like riffling.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Yes. So that's that's coming up.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
And it's also been a challenge in terms of we
have like comic strips in it and activities in it,
so we'll see, we'll see what happens. But all that
to say, we have a lot of stuff on the
horizon and as as this comes out. May is ending,
(02:50):
so we wanted to run this classic for aapi month.
As we always say, like we focus in on these
these months or these tempoles, but we we talked about
this stuff all the time, so you know, but we
did want to bring back this classic with Eves where
we talked about Mabel ping Huali, who was really had
(03:13):
a really interesting part of the suffrage movement but also
in the educational field.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
So please enjoy.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Hey, this is Annie and Smitha. I'm welcome to Steph.
I've never told you protection of iHeartRadio and it's time
for another female first, which means we are once again
joined by our good friend, the wonderful, the amazing Eves and.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
Today very like the begin of the hole. My goodness,
it's good to our usual.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yes, always good to have you.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Anything interesting going on, Eves, anything of note, anything you're
looking forward to.
Speaker 4 (04:03):
I don't know, is it okay?
Speaker 5 (04:08):
I don't know, to be more comfortable with saying I
don't know, and I definitely don't. I don't think things
are pretty I feel good, things are at level.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
I'm learning every.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
Day something new, so i'd feeling that's always a good thing.
Speaker 4 (04:23):
Yeah, but yeah, nothing, I don't have much to report.
Speaker 3 (04:27):
I say that is one of the things that I
admire about you as where I just sit, you continue
to do new things, learn new things, do things to
find yourself that I'm like, man, you are really motivated,
and I feel like you used your time wisely. Maybe
I'm projecting because I'm like, I want to be like Eve's.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
I can't be like Eve's.
Speaker 5 (04:49):
It's very sweet of you to think that I have
everything together. That is definitely not the case.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
Maybe it's like you at least like exploring, whether it's
like you know, relearning meditation or watching movies that I like,
we recommend something, You're like, I'll watch it, and you
actually follow through.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
That's amazing to me.
Speaker 5 (05:11):
Yeah, I think you might be selling yourself a little short,
because I think one reason that we do this is
because our of our never ending curiosity, Like you have
to have a level of like staying curious about the
world and learning new things to be able to delves
deep into research and such precarious and intricate topics.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
As you do.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
You know, and again, I'm very impressed by the people
that you bring to us, because it is the people,
the women that we never heard of and or have
been neglected for so long that you can do these
deep dives. It has been also impressive, and that you're
doing the work for us.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Thank you, Yes, yes too.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
I was thinking about that.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
I was like, how does Eves always find these amazing
stories I've never heard?
Speaker 5 (06:00):
Well, you know, the world is a vast pit of
information and overpopulation, notwithstanding, people are born and there are
a lot of stories to tell. I mean, that makes
me really excited and really puts things into perspective to
(06:20):
just know how many small universes have been created that
we are able to tap into because we have such
a wealth of information at our fingertips.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
There is a talent to being able to research and
research well because I have discovered I'm at the very
cusp of like trying to figure it out when we
try to find, you know, women around the world that
series and finding women and activists who are doing great
things that we don't talk about or talk enough about.
But it's still hard to actually figure out where to
(06:50):
even start half the time. So I'm discovering that it
is a lot. It takes a bit of talent and
of course a lot of practice. But like all of
those things come together to find a good research.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
So kudos. Yeah, thank you again.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
I love this.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
I love our because it's early morning. I feel like
we're starting off with a warm virtual hug.
Speaker 4 (07:15):
I know that.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Like it's honestly just the moments to really appreciate, because
when you really think that down deep into it and
you're like, wow, this is kind of amazing.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Damn I'm done.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
I'm doone with my squishy, gushy stuff.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Oh I love it. I love it. We're such Eves
fan to be fair.
Speaker 5 (07:36):
Yes, yes, we'll take you anything, anything, I'll take it all.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Perfect, perfect, Well, speaking of amazing stories and small universes,
I love how you put it like that.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Who did you bring for us today?
Speaker 4 (07:50):
Today we are going to be talking about Mabel ping Huai.
Speaker 5 (07:54):
So she was a Chinese American women's rights activist and
she was involved in the suffragist space. And it said
that she was the first Chinese woman to get a
doctor in economics from Columbia University.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Yeah, and she has an amazing story, an amazing story
with so many historical threads and contexts and nuance throughout.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
So very very excited to get into this one.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
Yeah, me too. So let's start.
Speaker 5 (08:22):
She was born around eighteen ninety six in Guangzhou, China,
and in China she learned English at a missionary school.
She lived with her mother and her grandmother. Her mother's
name was Li Beck and she was part of the
upper class in Guangzhou. Her father Leto, which is spelt
some different ways in the records, spelled t or t Owe,
(08:45):
but he was a missionary in the US. He has
his own story of coming over to the United States
and being involved in the Christian Church here, and mabel
Lea moved to.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
The United States in the early nineteen hundreds. There are some.
Speaker 5 (09:03):
Conflicting days given in a lot of parts of her history,
but she was there by nineteen oh five and after
her father. That was after her father had already been
in the United States for years, so she spent some
time in California and Washington State, and they eventually settled
in Chinatown in New York City. The Lee family was
(09:25):
part of a movement of Chinese people from the West
Coast to the East coast as opportunities for work decreased
and anti Chinese violence increased in the West.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
So it's not as if.
Speaker 5 (09:38):
Like anti Chinese violence wasn't just concentrated in the West.
I don't want to make it seem like there were
only instances of that in a specific place, because I
think we like to compartmentalize regions in the United States
as if certain things only happen in certain places, like
racism only happened in the South and didn't happen in
the North. And I don't want to make it seem
(10:01):
like that's what I'm saying here. It's just that that
there was some movement from the West to the east.
I would also like to take this moment to talk
about some of the context around immigration that was happening
with Chinese people who migrated from China to the United States,
and also some that came after, generations that came after
(10:21):
that were born here in the United States from people
who were migrants from China.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
So I think that we might.
Speaker 5 (10:26):
Have talked about this the Chinese Exclusion Act before in
Female First, and I'm sure that y'all have mentioned it before,
otherwise we did.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
I remember we did.
Speaker 5 (10:35):
The episode on afon Moi the quote unquote first Chinese Lady,
So we might have talked about it before, but of
course it's worthwhile bringing it up again here because that
policy is super relevant because it was active for many years,
many decades, which is like so hard to believe how
recent this history is, but really puts a lot of
(10:57):
things into perspective.
Speaker 4 (10:58):
But Congress approved.
Speaker 5 (11:00):
The Chinese Exclusion Act in May of eighteen eighty two,
which banned Chinese laborers from migrating to the United States
for ten years. So as it goes with law, there
are so many more rules that go into that, so
many more asterisks. The Act was later extended, even though
it was initially supposed to be imposed for ten years,
(11:21):
and then it was made permanent until the Act was
repealed in nineteen forty three with the Magnuson Act, and
even then it wasn't like a full repeal. There was
a quota for Chinese immigrants that was set to one
hundred and five people, so there were people who were
exempt from those rules, like diplomats, teachers, students, and merchants
(11:42):
who were allowed to migrate, but they also had to
have certifications stating that they were qualified to immigrate, which
has its own layer of issues. There are stories about
people who were affected by the Chinese Exclusion Act who
had to go through these these layers of questioning and
having to qualify your personal existence and why you're worthy
(12:07):
of being in a space and just imagine how mentally,
emotionally how impactful that is in a person. So that's
another layer to delve into. But that is something that
did come up in Mabel Lee's life and obviously so
many other people that were affected by the Chinese Exclusion Act.
You'll see it in some of her papers and her
having to leave the country and come back into the
(12:29):
United States because there were rules around how a person
could re enter if they were a Chinese migrant trying
to leave the country and then come back. Not as
if we're unfamiliar with issues around migration right now in
the United States, but this was the case in her
story as well. So this law wasn't active for many
(12:50):
many reasons.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
There are many layers to it.
Speaker 5 (12:53):
It was stoked by things like fear, racism, anti Chinese animosity,
economic insecure security. So yes, there are a lot of
factors that go into the reason. But this is what
was a part of Mabel Lee's life as she was
moving to the United States. Immigration from China was extremely
limited during the period under the Exclusion Act, and the
(13:17):
people who were already here even before the Exclusion Act
was implemented, were also facing violence from people who had
an anti Chinese sentiment. Yes, so Lee and her family
were able to migrate here, but she was one of few.
There weren't that many other people there at the time
who were able to make that happen. But so when
(13:39):
she settled in New York, she went to Erasmus Hall
High School, which was a public school in Brooklyn. And
of course people in the United States had their eyes
on international efforts for suffrage, so that included China, where
there was a revolution in nineteen eleven, and people in
China have been organizing for decades for women's suffrage. So
(14:03):
I think it's really easy to get into a bubble
and think about what's happening here in the United States.
And we've talked about women's suffrage in the United States before,
but there were also efforts in China, and leading up
to the revolution, women's suffrage activists opposed the Ching monarchy,
which was overthrown in nineteen eleven, and they supported the
(14:23):
equality of genders. And we're talking about things like advocating
for more political participation for women, and they didn't quite
get this in the newly formed Republic of China immediately,
but women's suffrages in China did remain vigilant in their activism.
So because so many white Americans' views of Chinese folks
(14:47):
were anchored in this racism and xenophobia and ignorance, the
four movement of enfranchisement wasn't a good look for the
supposedly moral upstanding. These are not my words, but like
how the view of from white Americans perspective was of
the other. Specifically for Chinese people in this situation, it's
(15:11):
like we are more civilized, we have all our stuff
going on, we have more of this forward movement, We're
more progressive. And they were seen as more lowly by
a they. When I say they, I mean like Chinese people.
For people in China, of course were exoticized, were viewed
as the other. We're seen as more lowly and all
the other various stereotypes and things that were and views
(15:35):
that were bred out of racism that it came from
white American perspective. So the fact that there was movement
when it came to suffrage and enfranchisement for people in
China who were supposed to be this les quote unquote
lesser version of people was something that didn't look so
great to a lot of white Americans who were invested
(15:58):
in suffrage. So white suffragists looked to Chinese suffragists in
the US to learn more about efforts in China and
(16:18):
also efforts about education in China, because that was also
something that women were trying to have for movement on
in the United States. In April of nineteen twelve, Mabel
and her parents, along with other Chinese people in the community,
met with white activists who wanted more insight on the situation.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
But it's interesting because if.
Speaker 5 (16:38):
You read there was a lot of reporting about Mabel
and things that were happening in the suffrage space in
New York when Mabel was active, and in this situation
of the meeting with parents is positioned in a way
where it seems like the white women who were involved,
even though the woman who kind of brought this meeting
together says that I'm not really the same for just
(17:00):
kind but I figured it could be good to talk
to Chinese people about these issues that are affecting them
while they're here in the US, issues around education and
around women's rights and suffrage. Yeah, so At this meeting,
Mabel Lee spoke of her support for gender equality and
education for girls and suffrage, and she was still young,
(17:23):
so she started all of.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
This when she was a teenager.
Speaker 5 (17:26):
She became known as a person who had good oratory
skills and who was invested in bringing women's rights to
the forefront as a teenager.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
So this is while she was in high school.
Speaker 5 (17:38):
She was featured in a couple of New York Tribune
articles in April of nineteen twelve. Around that same time,
one was called Chinese Girl once Vote, so she was
positioned as a quote symbol of.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
The new era. When all their women.
Speaker 5 (17:58):
Will be free and unhampered, was a quote from that
New York Tribune article. And by their women, they are
referring to Chinese women. And then there was another article
that month in the New York Tribune called Chinatown Awakens,
in which she was called the quote progressive Mabel Lee.
She was also some sentences later called a hopeless little suffragette,
(18:19):
suffragette in itself already being a derogatory terminology for someone
who was invested in suffrage. So there was I think
we definitely talked about this a lot before, because y'all know,
I love bringing quotes, but how steeped in the languages
in the racism of the day, the views toward Chinese people,
(18:41):
And yeah, so you can delve into that and reading
that entire article, it's just funny to me because there
is a huge contrast between the uplift of who Mabel
Lee was, acknowledging that she was progressive, acknowledging that she
was helping the white people in this instance learn more
(19:03):
about her culture, learn more about the knowledge that she had,
so they were coming to her for assistance, but at
the same time using language that showed how they viewed
Mabel and other Chinese people as inferior.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
So it's a huge cognitive dissonance happening.
Speaker 5 (19:22):
And then also there was all of the other things
that are just outdated language that we would no longer
use at all because we know that it's just steeped
in stereotyping and things like that. So yeah, it's just
interesting to see the contrast and the dissonance happening there.
But either way, there were a bunch of articles that
came out on her, and it wasn't just in New York.
(19:42):
There were articles around the nation who picked up stories
on what was happening, and soon after the meaning that
I spoke about earlier in May of nineteen twelve, on
May fourth, she was involved in a suffrage parade, and
there were also articles about this leading up to the
time and some of the fanfare and excitement that was
(20:04):
happening and looking forward to this parade, newspapers around the
country printed headlines that were highlighting Lee's involvement in the parade.
There was a bunch of hoopla over how she was
riding it on horseback and she was leading the initial
cavalcade that was bringing in this ten thousand.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
People for the parade.
Speaker 5 (20:24):
The newspapers were specifically calling out the fact that she
was Chinese as if it were some sort of party trick.
She rode on horseback, and there's a picture of her
on horseback as well that you can go and look at.
But her speaking skills were praised, and her activism at
the time connected her to other activists who were in
(20:45):
the space, but she was still going through her own
educational process. She was the only Chinese student in her
class when she graduated from high school, and she began
attending Barnard College, which is a women's college in New
York City.
Speaker 4 (21:00):
You can see a lot of her.
Speaker 5 (21:01):
Consciousness developing at this time, although she already had it.
As an aside, You'll see a lot of the articles
talk about how her mother's feet were bound and try
to kind of position her mother as.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
A symbol of the old while her daughter.
Speaker 5 (21:20):
Maybe Lee is a symbol of the news, saying, well,
her mom came from this, but she's still a poorts
suffrage look at that. While while mable, Lee is an
example of this new age of people coming up in
a contrast to the tradition of what her mom supposedly represented.
But either way, she was involved in a lot of
(21:44):
clubs and activism during her time in college as well.
She was in the YWCA, the Young Women's Christian Association,
and she sometimes spoke about Chinese culture and history for
the organization, and during her time at Barnard she wrote
a speech called China's Submerged Half, which I just love
(22:07):
that name for like some reason.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (22:11):
It's just something about the word submerged that I find
really like it just draws me into like I wonder
what this is going to be about. I feel like
that's really that's a really interesting way to title something anyway.
That's my weirdness about word ouside.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
I have a quote from it.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
She said, China's submerged half has begun to emerge. And
when you recall that a battalion of Chinese young women
was organized and drilled for service in the late Revolution,
and that a militant woman's suffragist used violence toward a
deputy of the Nan King Assembly for refusing the vote
for woman's suffrage, you will agree with me that a
(22:50):
part of that half has emerged with a vengeance.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
And yeah, I love that.
Speaker 5 (22:57):
So I think the reason going back to words, I
love submerged half because when she says submerged half, she's
referring to women, and I think a lot of the
time it's a difficulty for me to position things from
a way in which self identifying as the inferior, because
(23:17):
I think that's what the word submerged can do. It
implies that that we're starting from a negative space. It's
like you're immediately positioning yourself with negativity in the situation.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
But I think she flips.
Speaker 5 (23:32):
That on its head where it's like, Okay, we're submerged,
but we're working with so much, you know, there's vengeance
that's happening. It's not coming from She's not coming from
a meek position, a position in which she feels like
she's incapable. So she celebrated progress in terms of things
that Chinese women were doing, like establishing newspapers in that speech,
(23:54):
but she noted that a lot of things were being
said in theory and not done, and that rendering justice
was urgent and that she and other girls.
Speaker 4 (24:06):
Would have the duties of pioneers.
Speaker 5 (24:09):
So she considered herself a feminist, and she became part
of feminist discussions that were happening on campus through groups
like the Feminist Forum, and she joined the Debate Club.
She was also part of the Chinese Students Club at Columbia,
which was associated with the Chinese Students' Alliance, in which
(24:32):
over the years she held many positions in during her
time in college, So one wonders when she had the
time to do anything, because she definitely seems like she
was involved in a lot. But while she was at Bernard,
she wrote for the Chinese Students Monthly, which was the
national magazine for the Alliance, and the first article she
(24:55):
published for it was in June of nineteen fourteen, which
was the meaning of woman's a bridge. In August of
nineteen fourteen, she went to the CSA's Eastern Conference and
competed in an oratorical contest. So she made a lot
of friends during her time who were also activist and
was heavily involved in the student community. She got a
(25:18):
bachelor's degree from Barnard in nineteen sixteen and where she
majored in history and philosophy, and she continued on her
educational track when she was accepted into the PhD program
in the Department of Political Science and Philosophy at Columbia University.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
She got a scholarship to go there.
Speaker 5 (25:40):
And that was around the time that the graduate school
there began to admit some i'lbeit a small number of women,
into their doctoral programs. During her time at Columbia, she
remained active in the Chinese Student's Alliance and she worked
with doctor Vlada mir Simkovic, who had become her mentor
(26:04):
and her dissertation advisor, and he encouraged her to study
historical Chinese agricultural policy. Her dissertation was entitled The Economic
History of China with Special Reference to Agriculture, which is
available to read online if you're interested in such a
sort of thing.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (26:25):
So she advocated for a balance between the old and
the new, the traditional and the modern, which makes a
lot of sense for her, and to not just cast
aside what was done in the past as useless. In
(26:50):
nineteen seventeen, Mabel also participated in another suffrage parade as
part of the Women's Political Equality League, and it was
that same year that New York State did enfranchise women,
but Mabel, as a Chinese immigrants, still could not vote.
In nineteen twenty one, that was the year she got
(27:12):
her first so she became the first Chinese woman to
get a PhD from Columbia University. So a path after
around this time for moving forward in career was often
to go back to teach, but finding employment was difficult
for Mabel during her life. She did plan to return
(27:34):
to China to live to bring back what she learned,
as she didn't have a path to citizenship. It was
a path for a lot of women to choose to
go back to China to work, but Mabel herself never
went back permanently to China, even though she did have
some visits in her later years. Her plans as plans
(27:55):
tend to do didn't go completely as she expect. She
continued working at Columbia and then she did go to
study in Europe, but she had to make arrangements when
she went out of the country. As we spoke about earlier,
what immigrants had to do when it came to re
entry into the US had to qualify their reasoning for
(28:19):
coming back to the United States and that they were
able to do so, and there are papers documenting her
process of that. She planned on setting up a business
importing Chinese herbal medicine, but her father died in November
of nineteen twenty four and she decided to go and
continue his work. She decided to start working for the church,
(28:42):
and she became director of her father's mission in New
York City and started the process of making it her own.
The church building was rented, so she raised funds and
had a new church built at twenty one Pell Street,
and a friend of hers, after she was involved in
that for many many years, suggested that she go back
(29:05):
to her intellectual interest, but she remained invested in a church.
She went back to China a few times in the
nineteen twenties and.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
The thirties, but like I said earlier.
Speaker 5 (29:20):
She never did move back there permanently, but some Chinese
women were enfranchised and able to vote in nineteen forty
three when the Magnuson Act passed, but that still didn't
extend to all Chinese women. The Immigration and Nationality Act
of nineteen fifty two and the Voting Rights Act of
(29:41):
nineteen sixty five did further that process along and move
the needle on voting rights for Chinese Americans, though that
didn't solve everything because US citizens who were of Asian
descent still faced discrimination in voting today. But there were
no records of Lee herself naturalizing, and it's also not
(30:04):
known whether she ever voted in the United States, and
she died in nineteen sixty six in New York City.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Yeah, this story is so amazing, and I love learning
about feminism in other countries and just the history of
feminism and other places because kind of like what you
were saying earlier, Samantha, with our problem of finding doing
the research around women around the world is a lot
of our searches are very like American, not even English,
(30:33):
but like very American centered. So's I really liked learning
about this in the context she brought about what was
going on in China when it came to suffrage and feminism,
and yeah, this was just she really really did so
much and she has so much writing, and as someone
(30:55):
who writes, I really enjoyed reading some of the stuff
that she did and I was like impressed, and yeah,
I'm I too, am.
Speaker 4 (31:02):
A word nerd.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
So I liked a lot of the words that she used,
and I thought she used them so effectively, right.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
I think the line that you read from her, it
really made me think of like superheroes where they you know,
punched their way through out of a situation, whether they're
like under debris and have to fly out of that
situation essentially, Like that kind of came into mind, because Yeah,
that definitely painted a picture with her words, and it
was beautifully said and also very inspiring. It's kind of like, yeah, absolutely,
(31:34):
we can definitely emerge with vengeance.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
That's amazing. Yeah, it's the word vengeance. The association was
happening there.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
I just watched that last night.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
Yeah, she's all about vengeance right now. But yeah, and
even the history of the Chinese Exclusionary Act and what
it held and the discussion as of late about Asian
hate in general, there's a lot of contexts that really
just kind of bring it background of what she possibly
went through and trying to understand what it was, because
a part of the comments and conversations within those acts
(32:11):
actually has to do with a lot of sexism and
feticism of Asian women in general, and this whole idea
and the beginning of the exoticism of Asian women. So
you have to wonder as she was coming here, especially
with a missionary from China. There's so many flips to
that that I have in my head because as a
(32:31):
person who used to be in the religious Christian Western
Christian world, we had all of those stories about missionaries
going to China and what that looked like, and of
course coming back around to be like, oh that's oooh,
there's some problematic things with that. But then having that
flip is a different conversation. I really wonder what her
background looked like. But then pushing forward with her being
(32:56):
an advocate and a suffer just when it really wasn't
necessarily just for her, it was the beginning building blocks
to actually build up.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
To what she had hope for a better world.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
When it comes to voting rights, when it comes to
women's rights. But you know, it's really interesting and I
have so many questions that obviously I don't have to
research about her life.
Speaker 5 (33:17):
Yeah, and there is still a history of her that
exists in public for us to be able to experience
her Chinese exclusion at case file is in the National
Archives in New York City, and the post office in
Chinatown was dedicated to her in twenty eighteen. It's called
the Mabel Lee Memorial Post Office. Now her work has
(33:39):
been acknowledged in the city and that's always a good thing.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Yes, that's good to hear.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
And like I said, I'm always so happy that you
bring stories because I hadn't heard of her, and I
love that there's information. If you want to know more,
there is stuff that you can find online.
Speaker 1 (33:55):
So that's always nice.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Right, And I will say as an Asian woman, I'm
not Chinese. I am absolutely Korean, but you know, in
my mind, I'm like, my family name is Lee, so
there may be a connection, not really, but we know,
but it is something to see, Like, it is nice
to see representation like that at a time that I
don't know. I don't know obviously, it makes me said
(34:17):
that I didn't know her history, and I really wish
I had been able to see that as someone that
could have been influential, be like, Wow, here's someone who
at least looked like me a little bit, even though
we're not the same ethnicity. That is an inspiration to
what has happened and was a part of history and
making history happen and continuing to fight in that and
(34:38):
being a representative.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
It's nice to see.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
And I'm so excited that you were able to bring
that to us, because I honestly had no idea about her,
and I feel really shamed. It's a shame that I
didn't know anything about her.
Speaker 4 (34:50):
Don't feel ashamed, it's I mean, it's.
Speaker 5 (34:53):
Not a bad thing to not know about everybody in
the world, and it's a good thing that we are
able to access the same information now. So yeah, I
hope that other people as well learn something from our
story and able to dig a little bit deeper into
it and learn more in general about the history of
Chinese Americans in the United States and about who was
(35:16):
involved in the breath and expansiveness of who was involved
in enfranchisement and the work that people did for gaining
more rights and self advocacy in the United States.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Yes, so well, said as always youth. Is there anything
else to add before we wrap up here?
Speaker 4 (35:39):
No, that's all I got today.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
Well, thanks as always for joining us and bringing us
these amazing stories.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Where can the good listeners find you?
Speaker 5 (35:49):
Y'all can find me online on Instagram at not Apologizing.
You can also find me on Twitter at Eves jeffco.
And you can find more of my work at evesjeffcot
dot com. Oh yes, and here on sminty. Many more episodes, dozens, right,
dozens of episodes.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Oh, I think we're approaching fifty. That's what I'm saying
because I want another celebration.
Speaker 5 (36:15):
Yeah, so many more episodes of female First where you
can learn about other people in history who did things
that were super important and super meaningful in various histories
around the world. Yes, yes, we always love these episodes,
(36:35):
so please check them out if you've somehow missed them listeners,
and if you would like to contact us, you can
our email is Stuffidia mom Stuff at Iheartdia dot com.
You can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast
or on Instagram at Stuff I've Never Told You. Thanks
as always to our super producer Christina.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Thank you and thanks to you for listening stuff I've
ever told you.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Production by heart Radio for more podcasts in My heart Radio,
Is it be a heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or
red you listen to your favorite shows
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Samantha McVey
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.