When one thinks about what kind work early Chinese
immigrants did, most people think of railroad labor, mining, and farming,
followed later by hand laundries and small restaurants.
It is a surprise, however, that domestic
service such as "houseboy" was the third most frequent work for
Chinese, more common than laundry work, according to the 1870 census.
Many Chinese, especially boys too young to
be merchants, found work as domestic servants or houseboys for middle class and
affluent white families. They performed the domestic tasks usually assigned to
women such as cooking meals, washing and ironing clothes, and providing
childcare. Although many of them became "part of the family,"
they were essentially slaves to their masters and mistresses. Some
missionaries returning from China brought young boys who had served as
domestics in their households in China with them to America.
Historian Andrew Urban noted that white middle
class families prized having Chinese servants, often in preference to white
servants. “Unlike single white women who were constantly leaving
service to assume unpaid domestic labor as married women in their own homes, a
Chinese bachelor—often a misnomer, since many immigrants had wives in China—could
be counted on to stay in a situation for a longer period of time. Chinese men
did not pose the same liability therefore when it came to time spent hiring and
training.”
In the East, Irish were the main competitor for
Chinese seeking domestic work. However, Irish had reputations as
unreliable or demanding in dealing with the terms of employment whereas Chinese
were regarded as compliant, obedient, and docile servants who would follow
their employers’ orders diligently. White employers came to assume Chinese
immigrants had an innate, racial disposition to servility, overlooking that
racism had excluded them from most other forms of labor.
In marked contrast to the cry
of exclusionists in the 1870s that “the Chinese must go,” many white housewives
felt just the opposite, wanting more Chinese who could serve the role of
domestic servant, as illustrated in an 1880 "Help wanted"
cartoon by Joseph Keppler published in Puck Magazine.
One distinct advantage of
domestic service for Chinese was the advocacy of white employers in dealing
with immigration issues, travel arrangements, and other problems that most
immigrants had to deal with themselves or with translators. They also had
more opportunities to learn English and American customs than Chinese living in
Chinatowns, advantages that enabled many of them to leave domestic work later
to open businesses, gain higher education, and enter professional careers.
Interestingly, the 1882 Chinese
Exclusion Act, originally a ten-year ban, but extended for another
decade in 1892 with the Geary Act, created a shortage of available
Chinese to serve as domestic servants, leading some white housewives to
exasperation at the lack of Chinese for domestic labor. A 1902 Oakland,
California newspaper commentary noted that the scarcity of Chinese candidates
for domestic work created a seller's market in which Chinese made demands and
negotiated favorable work conditions before accepting employment.
